Eric, I think he was merely attempting to point out the futility of wishes. Or rather, the futility of asking something for something you want that does not share your judgments on things. The Outcome pump is merely, like the Genie, a mechanism by which to explain his intended meaning. The problem of the outcome pump is, twofold: 1. Any theory that states that time is anything other than a constant now with motion and probability may work mathematically but has yet to be able to actually alter the thing which it describes in a measurable way, and 2. The production of something such as a time machine to begin with would be so destructive as to ultimately prevent the creation of the Outcome Pump.
In fact, as rational as we would like to be, if we are so rational that we miss the forest for the trees, or in this case, the moral for the myth, we sort of undo the reason we have rationality. It's like disassembling a clock to find the time.
Anyhow, the problem of wishes is the trick of prayer: To get something that God will grant, we cannot create a God that wants what we want; it is our inherent experience in life that if God really is all-powerful and above all that he must be singular, and since men's wishes oft conflict he can not by any stretch of the imagination mysteriously coincide with your own capricious desires. Thus you must make the 'wish no wish' which is to change your judgment to that of God's, and then in that case you can not possibly wish something that he will NOT grant.
The mystery of it is that it is still not the same as the 'safe genie'; but at the same time not altogether different. But in the sense that some old Christian Mystics have said the best prayer is the one in which you make no petitions at all (and in fact say nothing!) probably attests to the fact that it is indeed the 'safe genie'.
Eric, I think he was merely attempting to point out the futility of wishes. Or rather, the futility of asking something for something you want that does not share your judgments on things. The Outcome pump is merely, like the Genie, a mechanism by which to explain his intended meaning. The problem of the outcome pump is, twofold: 1. Any theory that states that time is anything other than a constant now with motion and probability may work mathematically but has yet to be able to actually alter the thing which it describes in a measurable way, and 2. The production of something such as a time machine to begin with would be so destructive as to ultimately prevent the creation of the Outcome Pump.
In fact, as rational as we would like to be, if we are so rational that we miss the forest for the trees, or in this case, the moral for the myth, we sort of undo the reason we have rationality. It's like disassembling a clock to find the time.
Anyhow, the problem of wishes is the trick of prayer: To get something that God will grant, we cannot create a God that wants what we want; it is our inherent experience in life that if God really is all-powerful and above all that he must be singular, and since men's wishes oft conflict he can not by any stretch of the imagination mysteriously coincide with your own capricious desires. Thus you must make the 'wish no wish' which is to change your judgment to that of God's, and then in that case you can not possibly wish something that he will NOT grant.
The mystery of it is that it is still not the same as the 'safe genie'; but at the same time not altogether different. But in the sense that some old Christian Mystics have said the best prayer is the one in which you make no petitions at all (and in fact say nothing!) probably attests to the fact that it is indeed the 'safe genie'.