Does God exist? (4 Viewers)

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

and why don't i believe in pixies?

Because pixies are a human invention, like God.

 

[Enteebee]

I agree with the general idea but I'm not sure that you can conclusively prove that I only like blue because of my chemical composition. I like red just as much if not more, so how come I chose the blue pen despite my chemical makeup/hormones etc leading me to prefer red?

If you don't feel it is chemical composition then you should find what it is... if it's not something which leads us fundamentally back to the makeup of atoms/energy then Idk what it is. A soul?

 

[Mojohi]

scientific determinism is looking ill-founded.. at least until there's better evidence for perhaps a hidden-variables theory of QM, however even with a 'random' unified theory you're still left with 'random' choice. Your choices basically are determined, though we as humans construct artificial limits on what the nature of 'self'/'free agency' are.

Yeh. I think they essentially appear random because of little understanding, It would make no sense for it to truelly be random.

 

[Riet]

Warning: Retard alert

I know you will only attempt to make out that i am an idiot when you actually know nothing about me.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

If you don't feel it is chemical composition then you should find what it is... if it's not something which leads us fundamentally back to the makeup of atoms/energy then Idk what it is. A soul?

Don't get me wrong, I'd agree that our choices are essentially chemically determined when you really look at them. I was just wondering out loud whether there's a chance that we could make choices that fall outside of such restraints, is all. It seems unlikely but I'm not convinced (yet) that it's impossible.

I don't know. I was skimming through some uncertainty principle stuff yesterday and it sparked the thought, although I'm starting to think I've probably missed the point.

 

[Mojohi]

Don't get me wrong, I'd agree that our choices are essentially chemically determined when you really look at them. I was just wondering out loud whether there's a chance that we could make choices that fall outside of such restraints, is all. It seems unlikely but I'm not convinced (yet) that it's impossible.

I don't know. I was skimming through some uncertainty principle stuff yesterday and it sparked the thought, although I'm starting to think I've probably missed the point.

No worries. Yeh i would like to think that our destiny wasn't already determined. but it seems to make so much sense

Chaos theory says that the result was determined by what happened previously. Which goes back to a predetermined destiny.

 

[Mojohi]

Swear Chaos Theory pwnt determinism y'all

EDIT: Lol H2G2 has a writeup:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A625817

From that article...
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]"But if an asteroid suddenly flies out of the cosmos and collides with the planet, knocking it just a hundredth of a millimetre off course, then some time in the future it is possible that the planet will collide with the star and meet an unprecedented end"

Chaos theory works alongside determinalism if you take it from a bigger picture. From the Big Bang is what i mean. The asteroid was always going to collide with the planet. It did not choose to be propelled towards the planet.
[/FONT]

 

[Enteebee]

We have computers for climate simulations but they cause problems because chaos theory pwns them even if they can account for every variable (which they can).

Repeating from my arse, though, will try to find some evidence.

I don't think Chaos Theory goes against determinism necessarily.

 

[Mojohi]

We have computers for climate simulations but they cause problems because chaos theory pwns them even if they can account for every variable (which they can).

Repeating from my arse, though, will try to find some evidence.

Sorry i dont think you are right. We dont have every variable. That is a large problem with weather. There isnt enough finance. That is why there is a seeming chaos.

 

[Mojohi]

Anyway so the point of all that was that; I think god can be used to describe the impossible. Why not? I have no better reason for the beginning of the universe. Does he actually exist? someone needs to prove that to me. and the bible is not a good start.

 

[Slidey]

Quantam Mechanics agrees with me that they do not operate unpredictably. Everything works as it should without choice. Otherwise there would be chaos.

No it certainly does not. Do some research on hidden variables and quantum indeterminacy.

There's no foregone conclusion, but certainly the case for determinism essentially died at the start of the 20th century.

And you clearly have absolutely no knowledge of what 'chaos' means in the scientific sense, because chaos actually implies determinism.

Edit: If you'd like me to reference the nails in the coffin, they are the Uncertainty Principle and Bell's Theorem.

 

[Slidey]

I agree with the general idea but I'm not sure that you can conclusively prove that I only like blue because of my chemical composition. I like red just as much if not more, so how come I chose the blue pen despite my chemical makeup/hormones etc leading me to prefer red?

I think you'd be interested in complexity theory, Doris. It includes things like Chaos Theory, and covers such questions. Basically, there's the assertion that a deterministic system can produce unexpected results via slight aberrations/changes in initial conditions through sufficiently complex stochastic processes.

Note that 'sufficiently complex' is deceptive, because as the Game of Life shows, the rules can be amazingly simple: http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

Don't get me wrong: the universe is non-deterministic, but it is non-deterministic in a statistically predictable way, and that's the key here; on the macroscopic scale it is, for all intents and purposes, deterministic, and Newtonian mechanics is sufficiently indistinguishable to be interchangeable with quantum mechanics in most large-scale applications (geodesics and astrophysics being notable exceptions).

 

[Captain Gh3y]

<3 bell's theorem

 

[Mojohi]

And you clearly have absolutely no knowledge of what 'chaos' means in the scientific sense, because chaos actually implies determinism.

Yeh i said that earlier when someone said that chaos theory pwns determinism.

I agree that chaos implies determinism. When i said chaos in that instance i was trying to say that chaos in terms of disorder. When of course determinism is ordered.

 

[Slidey]

Sorry, I said above that Chaos Theory is underpinned by 'stochastic processes' - this is not correct, as such processes are non-deterministic. In this sense, Chaos Theory is as much an approximation of reality as Newtonian Mechanics is. Still, that's why we have the counterpart of Quantum Mechanics - Quantum Chaos

 

[Mojohi]

No it certainly does not. Do some research on hidden variables and quantum indeterminacy.

and yes i will look further into these things because i have never gotten into a discussion on this. What do you believe on the issue?

 

[Enteebee]

Newtonian mechanics is sufficiently indistinguishable to be interchangeable with quantum mechanics in most large-scale applications (geodesics and astrophysics being notable exceptions).

You might be interested in this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_sPhQjGZ8NY
Though I still agree with what you're saying... Macro-level our world is pretty much deterministic (as far as we currently know) but at the micro it is not.

 

[Slidey]

My position on determinism is kind of like my position on God: not enough information to decide either way, but a strong case for both determinism and God being simply the incorrect products of the human mind's need to order and understand things.

 

[Slidey]

You might be interested in this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=_sPhQjGZ8NY
Though I still agree with what you're saying... Macro-level our world is pretty much deterministic (as far as we currently know) but at the micro it is not.

Can you give me a summary? I'll watch it later, but I'm on Ubuntu right now and my apt-get isn't working, so I can't install Flash.

 

[Enteebee]

Can you give me a summary? I'll watch it later, but I'm on Ubuntu right now and my apt-get isn't working, so I can't install Flash.

Newtonian mechanics is not deterministic.
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/Dome/index.html - Laymans terms
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/DomePSA2006.pdf - Scientific paper