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Re:Cosmos Will Get a Sequel by sorbus on Saturday August 06, 2011 @04:02PM (#2854779)
Given sufficiently god-like technology, you could run a simulation of the entire world repeatedly, modifying variables until you get a world with a copy of Sagan who fits exactly all the historical information available with him. Something like this is implied to be happening towards the end of Stross's Accelerando, which I highly recommend (there's a free ebook edition).

However, note my use of the term "god-like". Anything capable of doing this is so close to being a god that it makes very little difference from our point of view. There's also the theory that our universe is a simulation run by such an entity - the argument is something like "if it is possible to run a simulation of the universe, it is statistically far more likely that we're in such a simulation." Sort of makes sense, if you have the right mind-set or tilt your head and squint.

Re:Cosmos Will Get a Sequel by lightcatcher on Saturday August 06, 2011 @08:44PM (#2855287)
Quantum randomness. Hate to break it to you, but not happening.
Re:Cosmos Will Get a Sequel by rbanffy on Saturday August 06, 2011 @09:06PM (#2855332)
Is it really random or is it that we don't know how all the rules work?
Re:Cosmos Will Get a Sequel by lmarinho on Sunday August 07, 2011 @01:30AM (#2855881)
The prevailing theory is that it is truly random. Check out the Wikipedia entry on theories that aimed to eliminate that randomness, called hidden variable theories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory