Predictive Prophecy and Counterfactuals

In line with our discussions of time and time travel, the Gnu brings up a related issue using a fun fantasy role-playing kind of example for a philosophical puzzle about conditional predictive prophecy (i.e. predicting what someone will do and then telling him that A will have already happened if he ends up doing P but B will have already happened if he turns out to do Q). I think this case is interesting in terms of its view of time and of the relation of guaranteed prediction to time, but it also has some relevance to how to evaluate statements about what would be true if someone had chosen to do otherwise than what they actually did. Read the case first at Gnu's blog, then check out my OrangePhilosophy post for my reflections on this.