Induction

Nicolas Cage has acted in better movies. His character in the 2007 movie, Next, can see two minutes ahead into the future. Here's some simple logic (or so it seems to me) as to why this premise is flawed.

Consider hero at three different points in time. 0 (present), +2 (2 minutes into the future), and +4 (4 minutes into the future). At +2 point in time, he will know what happens to him at +4 point in time. But at 0 point in time, he will know what he knows at +2 point in time. Ergo, he knows what will happen at +4 point in time as well, and hence, by the principle of mathematical induction, he will know what happens at a future point, say +6 point in time, and so on, ad infinitum.

I'm not saying that the movie is bad, heck I haven't seen it yet. It's just that it doesn't make sense to define it by saying that it'll be limited to only two minutes into the future. Sure, you can poke holes in this argument and say that maybe he sees what happens two minutes ahead and not what he sees two minutes ahead. But then that's just semantics.

Fine. I'll admit it. This was more an exercise in banter than an actual test of reason. But the subject matter doesn't really inspire, so I consider myself absolved.