Are you religious?

[Excognito]

...
This leads me to ponder whether the universe itself is a factual & whether similarities of it may even appear in the Mandelbrot Set? To make things even more complicated apparently the Mandelbrot Set is only one of countless mathematical factuals that all go on forever.

I think you mean 'fractal' not 'factual'?

The theory of infinity is a curious one though as you can get small infinities, between 1 & 2 you get 1.11111111…etc, yet this is a smaller number than 2 & certainly smaller than the classic understanding of infinity that most people are used to. ...

You'll have to be more explicit about what you are referring to here. The decimal representation of the number whose value is 10/9 has an 'infinite' number of ones in it, but the number isn't infinite itself - in fact, it is better and more accurately characterized by the rational form 10/9 (in base 10). Surreal number theory considers numbers that lie between the reals, but that's not the same thing as being values that can be characterized as being 'infinities'.

[Dashing_Chap]

As aforesaid I have no business in the realm of higher mathematics, this is not my field. Tho my understanding is that some numbers such as π have an infinite sequence, not to mention the primes. Yet ∞ is still held as the largest of all, this seems a strange paradox to me, are all not considered infinite?

Incidentally I have stumbled across this which may be of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_cosmology

I know my posts may appear a little offtopic, but my searching for patterns within nature are entwined with my theory of Providence.


Deus Vult & all that.

~D.C.

[ScouseD]

Sisyphus,

This debate kicked off with you saying:

Richard Dawkins has convinced me that there probably is a God. Not long ago on a TV interview he said that the chances of life arising spontaneously from a random combination of inorganic chemicals is so vanishingly small as to be impossible. But he went on to say, 'But we're here, so it must have happened.'

Note the word impossible. Perhaps he really said “almost impossible” or “seemingly impossible”, or perhaps he made a verbal error as we all do.

You really are splitting hairs, aren't you! You'll note that I only put the last sentence in quotes to indicate his precise wording. In any event, if we're adopting scientific method then Dawkins' own words in his book of 'a billion, billion, billion to one' is WAY BEYOND improbable based on the standards of science.

In any event, when Sticky finds the clip I am confident that he'll see the word was 'impossible'. Not that it would alter what scientists lay down in terms of statistically standards.

Okay, I’ll have one last go at this point and then give up. In science “improbable” is not a synonym for “impossible”. The distinction is an important one for religion, atheism and agnosticism, as well as science.

You claim I am splitting hairs and in particular stated that “a billion, billion, billion to one is WAY BEYOND [sic] improbable based on the standards of science”, but this is simply not true. Science uses odds far longer than this and does so routinely.

One example is proton decay. Current models suggest that the half-life of a proton is 10^32 years:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...es/proton.html

So the chances of a single proton decaying in any given second will be related to its becquerel number:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquerel

From this is then follows that a proton has a 50/50 chance of decaying in one in (number of seconds per year) x 10^32, or around one in 3.16 x 10^7 x 10^32. Rounding down to keep the numbers simple this means that the chance of a single proton decaying in any given second is one in 10^32 x 10^7 = 10^39. This is far bigger than “a billion, billion, billion” (or 10^27).

Physical experiments examining proton decay are being carried out and both the proton’s half-life and its becquerel number form the basis of them. So statistical odds far greater than “a billion, billion, billion” to one are used in science, despite your claim to the contrary.

Another but more mathematically complex example relates to one of the very foundations of quantum mechanics. The probability of finding an electron in a confined space ranges from 1 to infinity. Or put another way, the odds range from absolute certainly to 10^infinity (or any other number raised to infinity). See this page and use your browser to find infinity:

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/majumdak/pub.../Quantum3d.htm

The relevant equation in text is contained in:

Using the normalization condition that the total probability of finding the particle inside the box is 1, i.e. Int_{-infinity}^{infinity} dx dy dz | (x,y,z)|2 =1

It should be obvious that if scientists routinely consider systems in the order of probability of 1 in infinity then one in “a billion, billion, billion” is well within the realms of “the standards of science”.

Both examples, and very many more, are taught to all physics undergraduates in about the first two years and are at the foundations of atomic and quantum physics, respectively. I stress that they are routine, lectured on and most importantly published in scientific journals.

Finally, the upper estimate for the number of stars in just the observable universe is 10^24:

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM75BS1VED_index_0.html

If each star only has a single planet capable of evolving our type of life and the odds of it arising are a billion, billion, billion to one (a number for which there is no evidence, it could be much more or less), then the chances are 10^27/10^24 = 10^3. In other words, 1 in 1000 against. That is still, then, unlikely, but clearly not impossible.

I say again, in science “improbable” is not the same as “impossible”, regardless of the odds. If I haven’t convinced you, then fair enough and I really do need to get back to other activities.

Edited for typos and clarity...

[Dwarf]

Dwarf,

This might sound rude but that is not my intention. I am just trying to clarify my view.

It isn't rude and I understand.

The reason that a lot of my posts reference Christianity is because that was the religion that I escaped from. I tend to quote the Bible for the same reason.

Again understood, I like the expression escaped from.
When it comes to alternative religions I just don't bother learning. There are so many religions that I will not live long enough to learn them all.

Agreed, going into depth on just one is a lifetimes work

I like the way that science works and if any religion can provide evidence in that way, I would be fascinated and damned willing to learn. Until then, I am not.

Yep, understood, you incline that way and feel comfortable in the scientific viewpoint. No problems with that.

I will not live long enough to absorb all the evidence based human knowledge, so I am damned if I will spend time learning evidence-free stuff.

OK, you have a point, yet if you are participating in a thread such as this then surely it behooves to have at least a conceptual awareness of what the other pov is trying to say. It isn't necessary to learn it all, but perhaps a quick outline would help communication, and perhaps you could conceptually understand something that makes more sense than what you learned at school.
For example some mystics see God as nothing, because he is above being considered a thing as his scope is so vast, and to think of him as a thing which reduces him to a human level. I prefer to see that as more a no-thing which is everything, in that it contains everything possible and what we see is a huge number of discrete parts. Just like when you talked about the four basic forces being contained in one before they then became separate. The universe contains all those forces within itself but one is able to see them individually. It's a concept which fits in nicely and should make more sense to a scientist even though it is currently unprovable in a scientific sense.
The corollary is that possibly some things I post may be a bit clearer, and stop me wondering if I have actually explained things well enough, which is always a problem when explaining something nebulous.
Because shouldn't this thread be about making things clearer to others?
Like when I asked about the four energies and Scouse answered with something that I could understand. But when you mentioned the 4 forces as expressions of the same force under different conditions then a light lit up and I went 'yes, now I see how scientists can get excited about it all'. It SPOKE to me, probably because it fitted so well with what I had learned before. That was probably the best communication we have ever had.
Then the next morning a neuron connected with a fellow and I finally saw what the lists of chemical elements was all about, not in grey terms but in alive terms. The old H + O = H2O finally came alive.
I was thinking about phrasal verbs and how it is difficult at times to explain it, like come + in = enter, which is straightforward, yet something like come + to = regain conciousness is a bit more, and something like get through can be hugely difficult for some, and taking it literally makes no sense, and the combination of the two is difficult to see.
Yet I suddenly saw that the elements and verbs are the same in that a combination of two elements provides a third distinct. Sure I knew it intellectually but suddenly the whole thing came alive for the first time.
So Sticky mate you have a result, you have achieved communication and aloowed me a new insight onto something I found boring and grey.
That's what the thread should be about after so many pages now. That's why I am trying to provide info so that conceptually people might get an insight.
Thanks for yours

I do not think that you are "wrong" to live your life as you choose to, I just don't accept it as "right" for me.


Of course it wouldn't be right for you, and I will never, ever, claim that it should be. The only person for whom Dwarf's particular philosophy is right for is yours truly. One must always live one's life by the precepts that resonate with one. Good luck to you and a hug to the grandkid(s) from me.

[Dashing_Chap]

Dogs see the world in black & white, let’s pretend for a moment that so did we, the entire history of man was written in black & white, with all the discoveries & inventions. We discovered the light waves with infra red etc but since we can only perceive the world in black & white we translated this as a darker shade of grey running through to a lighter scale. In this world no colours exist to us, how can we even be aware of them? If I were to walk into a garden in greyland, pick a rose & proclaim that the rose was red I’d probably get some strange looks from the greyfolk.

Yet clearly red exists.

How would we ever conceive a rainbow? If we were to view the sky it would be a uniform grey with a few white, fluffy clouds, yet clearly a rainbow exists. We are severely restricted by our senses, if we cannot perceive colours in greyland what makes us think we can understand everything in this one?

Let’s pretend we live in a flatland, we’re all flat & live in the 2nd dimension, one day Mr Flat gets plucked out of this flat world & taken to ours, he sees strange things that cannot be comprehended by his fellow flatlanders. He sees things in 3D but his mind can only understand 2D, when he returns his comrades scoff at his audacity, 3D you say? You’re crazy!

Let’s pretend there’s another dimension that can be proved mathematically but never visited, in this strange realm outside of time & space can reside a Providence that created us.

Oh, waitaminute…


~D.C.

[ScouseD]

Dogs see the world in black & white, let’s pretend for a moment that so did we, the entire history of man was written in black & white, with all the discoveries & inventions. We discovered the light waves with infra red etc but since we can only perceive the world in black & white we translated this as a darker shade of grey running through to a lighter scale. In this world no colours exist to us, how can we even be aware of them? If I were to walk into a garden in greyland, pick a rose & proclaim that the rose was red I’d probably get some strange looks from the greyfolk.

Yet clearly red exists.

How would we ever conceive a rainbow? If we were to view the sky it would be a uniform grey with a few white, fluffy clouds, yet clearly a rainbow exists. We are severely restricted by our senses, if we cannot perceive colours in greyland what makes us think we can understand everything in this one?

Let’s pretend we live in a flatland, we’re all flat & live in the 2nd dimension, one day Mr Flat gets plucked out of this flat world & taken to ours, he sees strange things that cannot be comprehended by his fellow flatlanders. He sees things in 3D but his mind can only understand 2D, when he returns his comrades scoff at his audacity, 3D you say? You’re crazy!

Let’s pretend there’s another dimension that can be proved mathematically but never visited, in this strange realm outside of time & space can reside a Providence that created us.

Oh, waitaminute…


~D.C.

Your points so far have related to popular science, of which I’m an eager fan, but say little about the thread title.

There may well be many other dimensions and string theory, as flaky as it’s starting to look, has postulated anything from 11 to 22. There could be many more. One interesting example is that a four (spatially) dimensioned object would cast a three dimension shadow. However, as interesting and thought provoking as these points are they don’t seem, to me at least, to advance the discussion. Perhaps if you relate how your points reflect your view on the religious/god question then a fruitful discussion could take place.

On the other hand, and in reference to your earlier post, I couldn’t help post the following link to some software that enables anyone to create their own fractals in the comfort of their own home/hovel/cave/cell:

http://www.nahee.com/spanky/www/fractint/fractint.html

[StickyEnd]

Dogs see the world in black & white, let’s pretend for a moment that so did we, the entire history of man was written in black & white, with all the discoveries & inventions. We discovered the light waves with infra red etc but since we can only perceive the world in black & white we translated this as a darker shade of grey running through to a lighter scale. In this world no colours exist to us, how can we even be aware of them? If I were to walk into a garden in greyland, pick a rose & proclaim that the rose was red I’d probably get some strange looks from the greyfolk.

Yet clearly red exists.

How would we ever conceive a rainbow? If we were to view the sky it would be a uniform grey with a few white, fluffy clouds, yet clearly a rainbow exists. We are severely restricted by our senses, if we cannot perceive colours in greyland what makes us think we can understand everything in this one?

Let’s pretend we live in a flatland, we’re all flat & live in the 2nd dimension, one day Mr Flat gets plucked out of this flat world & taken to ours, he sees strange things that cannot be comprehended by his fellow flatlanders. He sees things in 3D but his mind can only understand 2D, when he returns his comrades scoff at his audacity, 3D you say? You’re crazy!

Let’s pretend there’s another dimension that can be proved mathematically but never visited, in this strange realm outside of time & space can reside a Providence that created us.

Oh, waitaminute…


~D.C.

We are no longer restricted by our senses in gaining knowledge. Even if we did only see in black and white we could still detect colour, infra red and ultra violet. We would alost certainly name it something else, but detect it and learn about it we could still do.

[Dashing_Chap]

Dogs see the world in black & white…

Your points so far have related to popular science, of which I’m an eager fan, but say little about the thread title.

... Perhaps if you relate how your points reflect your view on the religious/god question then a fruitful discussion could take place.

If the universe shows some signs of order in a chaotic system then perhaps it could be related to intelligent design, like an underlying mathematical sequence or pattern for all things? The different dimensions aspect refers to God being outside of time & space & the possibility of his residing in places that are impossible to contemplate. Naturally this is only a theory & in no way reflects any reference to scripture or a man made deity.

Ty for the link btw I shall have fun with this download!

We are no longer restricted by our senses in gaining knowledge. Even if we did only see in black and white we could still detect colour, infra red and ultra violet. We would alost certainly name it something else, but detect it and learn about it we could still do.

Could you elaborate on this please? If we saw the world in grey my opinion would be that our observations of experiments would be in this colour too, even if they represented colour. Naturally we would be aware of the wave duality etc but for the actual perception of colour what could detect it? My point here being that restriction of senses leaves possibilities open for phenomena that we are incapable of detecting.

~D.C.

[StickyEnd]

Dwarf,

This might sound rude but that is not my intention. I am just trying to clarify my view.

It isn't rude and I understand.

The reason that a lot of my posts reference Christianity is because that was the religion that I escaped from. I tend to quote the Bible for the same reason.

Again understood, I like the expression escaped from.
When it comes to alternative religions I just don't bother learning. There are so many religions that I will not live long enough to learn them all.

Agreed, going into depth on just one is a lifetimes work

I like the way that science works and if any religion can provide evidence in that way, I would be fascinated and damned willing to learn. Until then, I am not.

Yep, understood, you incline that way and feel comfortable in the scientific viewpoint. No problems with that.

I will not live long enough to absorb all the evidence based human knowledge, so I am damned if I will spend time learning evidence-free stuff.

OK, you have a point, yet if you are participating in a thread such as this then surely it behooves to have at least a conceptual awareness of what the other pov is trying to say. It isn't necessary to learn it all, but perhaps a quick outline would help communication, and perhaps you could conceptually understand something that makes more sense than what you learned at school.
For example some mystics see God as nothing, because he is above being considered a thing as his scope is so vast, and to think of him as a thing which reduces him to a human level. I prefer to see that as more a no-thing which is everything, in that it contains everything possible and what we see is a huge number of discrete parts. Just like when you talked about the four basic forces being contained in one before they then became separate. The universe contains all those forces within itself but one is able to see them individually. It's a concept which fits in nicely and should make more sense to a scientist even though it is currently unprovable in a scientific sense.
The corollary is that possibly some things I post may be a bit clearer, and stop me wondering if I have actually explained things well enough, which is always a problem when explaining something nebulous.
Because shouldn't this thread be about making things clearer to others?
Like when I asked about the four energies and Scouse answered with something that I could understand. But when you mentioned the 4 forces as expressions of the same force under different conditions then a light lit up and I went 'yes, now I see how scientists can get excited about it all'. It SPOKE to me, probably because it fitted so well with what I had learned before. That was probably the best communication we have ever had.
Then the next morning a neuron connected with a fellow and I finally saw what the lists of chemical elements was all about, not in grey terms but in alive terms. The old H + O = H2O finally came alive.
I was thinking about phrasal verbs and how it is difficult at times to explain it, like come + in = enter, which is straightforward, yet something like come + to = regain conciousness is a bit more, and something like get through can be hugely difficult for some, and taking it literally makes no sense, and the combination of the two is difficult to see.
Yet I suddenly saw that the elements and verbs are the same in that a combination of two elements provides a third distinct. Sure I knew it intellectually but suddenly the whole thing came alive for the first time.
So Sticky mate you have a result, you have achieved communication and aloowed me a new insight onto something I found boring and grey.
That's what the thread should be about after so many pages now. That's why I am trying to provide info so that conceptually people might get an insight.
Thanks for yours

I do not think that you are "wrong" to live your life as you choose to, I just don't accept it as "right" for me.


Of course it wouldn't be right for you, and I will never, ever, claim that it should be. The only person for whom Dwarf's particular philosophy is right for is yours truly. One must always live one's life by the precepts that resonate with one. Good luck to you and a hug to the grandkid(s) from me.

:D Dwarf, although at times I have found it frustrating, on the whole it has been a pleasure discussing with you. I think that you have a way of living that is "right" for you. I don't accept that it is based on evidence in the way that I define evidence but if it makes your life more enjoyable/worthwhile, carry-on (that is meant in an encouraging rather than authoritarian/patronising way).

[ScouseD]

Dogs see the world in black & white…

Your points so far have related to popular science, of which I’m an eager fan, but say little about the thread title.

... Perhaps if you relate how your points reflect your view on the religious/god question then a fruitful discussion could take place.

If the universe shows some signs of order in a chaotic system then perhaps it could be related to intelligent design, like an underlying mathematical sequence or pattern for all things? The different dimensions aspect refers to God being outside of time & space & the possibility of his residing in places that are impossible to contemplate. Naturally this is only a theory & in no way reflects any reference to scripture or a man made deity.

Ty for the link btw I shall have fun with this download!

We are no longer restricted by our senses in gaining knowledge. Even if we did only see in black and white we could still detect colour, infra red and ultra violet. We would alost certainly name it something else, but detect it and learn about it we could still do.

Could you elaborate on this please? If we saw the world in grey my opinion would be that our observations of experiments would be in this colour too, even if they represented colour. Naturally we would be aware of the wave duality etc but for the actual perception of colour what could detect it? My point here being that restriction of senses leaves possibilities open for phenomena that we are incapable of detecting.

~D.C.

I don’t have a problem with this point of view if that’s what you believe. However, neither do I have a problem with the belief that my toilet brush is really the creator of the universe and shows us all the way by scrubbing off our sins and poo.

What is needed is sufficient and acceptable evidence. It’s a long thread so to summarise many posters believe different things and we are stuck at the nature of what constitutes evidence (apologies to all for the simplification).

As an aside, Sticky will answer in his own way, but changing sound for light we know that there are frequencies outside of our hearing that other animals can detect. We can now measure them using electronic equipment. Light is similar in that it’s composed of many different frequencies and we can also detect them using the right equipment. The night sights of “winged gods” in their choppers rely on the science being correct. See:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/light3.htm