The second law of thermodynamic

[Bread_of_Life]

Really? Then why were you saying that Occam's razor proves that God does not exist if you didn't know that there were other ways of distinguishing between the two "theories"?

I did know that there were other ways to distinguish between the two theories, or at least, I know that some people *think* there are other ways.

You see, this isn't the first time I've had the teleological argument, I've had it many times in many forms. I have come to the conclusion that it does not evidence the idea of a God.

In fact, I've had many many apologetic arguments posted at me, and never have I heard one that I believe it right or worthy. So take it from my point of view JLW, I've heard these arguments before, and I still don't believe there is any evidence for one theory over the other. Therefore clearly I am going to rely on Occam's Razor to differentiate between them.

However, of course, there is always the possibility that a new argument, or just an old argument better argued, might convince me there is convincing evidence, and that therefore the use of Occam's Razor is essentially superfluous (other than, perhaps, to set the bar on the level of evidence required, but that's a whole other story!!!)

Ok, that's fine. Now where is your proof that the universe had infinite choices for its "state".

Well, I have no proof of this, I am forced to assume it from ignorance. I know of no good reason why the electron should have a charge of 1.6x10^-19C and why it should not have a charge of 1.61x10^-19C, or anything in between.

Again, I know of no reason why, in a random universe, there should be electrons at all, or the electromagnetic force, or why there should be 4 fundamental forces and not 5. Unless you can show me that actually, even in a random universe, the consequences or conditions are bound by some sort of constraint, I will have to assume to calculate the number of possible universes that they are unbound.

Do you have such a reason?

Btw, in believing this you are throwing away all the determinsim in Physics and everything we've learned about the universe so far.

No, physics occurs after the fundamental constants and laws are set in place - physics does not govern what gets set in place and how. That is essentially what we are talking about here, how the physics of the universe came to be.

Even an electron is bounded by a probability distribution.

In this universe, yes. But what of other possible universes. Electrons may not even exist in them, and who's to say they follow quantum mechanics - surely these are not the only physical possibilities in a random universe?

First, you are assuming that all of you father's sperm would be used for mating purposes. It turns out that only a tiny amount of sperm is used for mating as most are either absorbed and reconverted or happen to exit the body through masturbation.

Okay, this is a technicality, it doesn't invalidate the general argument. Secondly, on a point of science I would disagree, most sperm produced are capable of being used for mating (even if only for a short period of their lives). The fact that my father on some occasions masturbated them away and did not procreate with them is by the by - the fact remains he used 1 sperm to make me, but could have used any of the trillions upon trillions he created in his lifetime.

However, if we follow your logic back 10 generations, then it does seem that we are quite the miracles. This also means that every living thing is a miracle, because the chances of your dog, Joy, being born from his wolf ancestors.

And there is the point of my argument my dear man, we know that it isn't really a miracle, we know it really was just luck of the draw.

My point is, a random process with sufficient choices will ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL, produce a very unlikely outcome. With enough choices, it will produce what seems to be a mathematically impossible outcome.

Say, for example, I put 10^50 pieces of paper in a bag, shuffled them about, and pulled one out. Each was numbered, of course. The outcome would be, according to you, mathematically impossible - but it will happen, it has to be one of them doesn't it?

What is actually impossible in this scenario is someone picking the right one before the draw is taken. If I predict successfully that the number picked will be 3.434574848 x 10^36 then that really would be miraculous. But the draw itself isn't, it'll always produce an unlikely result, no matter what the result is.

Similarly, if you had existed prior to a random universe existing, and had successfully predicted my existence in it, or the existence of DNA, you may well have had a case that a miracle had occured, since there are so many (possibly infinite) possible universes. But saying after "this universe was unlikely to be drawn, therefore it must be a miracle" just isn't an argument.

Again, similarly, if you'd been around 100 years ago and predicted that out of all of the sperm and eggs, men and women in the world, I would be born, that would have been miraculous. But you wern't and you didn't, you are looking back on a very very open draw with lots of possible outcomes retrospectively, and therefore your argument in this case wouldn't hold water. Do you see what I mean?

People are attracted to certain individuals and not to others. How do these factors play into the probability of your birth? Was your father attracted to brunettes instead of blonds? Was your mother looking for an athelete or an artist.

Again, this is nitpicking - although I don't pretend that causality had nothing to do with it, however I was looking at the process as purely random for the sake of a reductua ad absurdum argument. This is why I deliberately chose sperm and egg meeting only, which is pretty much random (or pseudorandom) - rather than looking at the attraction between my mum and dad.

What were the possible shapes? Did it also have infinitely many choices for its shape? If yes, then the probability of it being spherical was zero. The big bang was a miracle!

And with infinite possible balls in a lottery machine, the probability of each is zero, prior to the draw. But one has to be picked

This is the thing, you are essentially mixing up prior probability with retrospective probability. The questions:

"What's the chance of a spherical big bang given that the big bang hasn't happened yet and is random?"

is different from the question:

"What's the chance that the big bang was random given the fact that it has already happened and is spherical"

Similarly, the questions:

"What is the chance of the number 1 coming out of the lottery machine given that the lottery is fair and still to occur?"

is different from:

"What is the chance the lottery was random given that it has occured and the number 1 was pulled out?"

[Bread_of_Life]

Whysoblind,

Still around? Care to answer my points on the "Astronomy" or "What's the opinion around here?" rather than trying to butt in on my (respectful and meaningful) conversation with JLW?

Perhaps having been exposed on one post, you simply move onto another, hoping we will forget. Well, I won't, and I will keep on bumping both of these posts until you actually answer the substantive points.

JLW

Hope you don't get too distracted by this - also, I wasn't calling you ignorant in my last post, but rather myself ignorant, this I hope was crystal clear from the text.

[Bread_of_Life]

Exposed of the fact that I make human error and even forget things?

No, exposed as someone who posts on subjects as if he were a leading authority and makes all sorts of claims that turn out to be either invented, exaggerated, or simply based on basic ignorance of the subject matter. Of course, there is a simply way of disproving such an expose', and that is to actually answer the substantive points made against what you say. Unfortunately, so far, you have failed to answer them - so I await your replies.

I'll reply to you with substantive points when you reply to the content and argument of my above post with substantive points.

Sorry mate, I'm waiting on 2 threads here, I'm tired of responding to you. You prove that you actually respond to real arguments, and I'll do likewise. You can't snake your way out of responding to posts by posting new posts and demanding responses to them before you respond to old posts. Sorry, doesn't wash.

[JLW001]

Its very difficult to talk about probabilities without speaking of probability distributions.

If you have an infinite number of possibilities, there is no requirement that each have the same probability. Unless the integral taking the area under the curve of a probability distribution is finite and non-zero that distribution is indeterminite...void of information. So, you're argument, which is this "gambler's fallacy", holds no water because, by definition of the argument, the area under the curve is zero.

Now, if you say that there is a probability distribution in a random universe, then you are saying that something other than chance is at work. If you say there are no preferred states then your argument is mathematically invalid and does not hold any water.

[JLW001]

Please read my previous post which ties all of these responses together.

No, physics occurs after the fundamental constants and laws are set in place - physics does not govern what gets set in place and how. That is essentially what we are talking about here, how the physics of the universe came to be.

So, you are saying an indeterminite, lets call it a pre-universe, was able to generate a state of the universe which has determinism. This seems quite odd.

And with infinite possible balls in a lottery machine, the probability of each is zero, prior to the draw. But one has to be picked

This is a fallacious argument. Indeed on the surface it would appear that, "Why yes, one must be picked". This argument is fallacious because you will never have anything infinite; no system exists, in our universe, that has infinite choices.

Now, you could argue that before our universe came into being there were no bounds, no limits to any possibility. I believe this is your argument. This is fallacious. Why?

1.) You have no information about anything before our universe. I could argue that there was only one possibility and you could not prove me wrong. This is because, scientifically we have no information before our universe.

2.) This violates our current understanding of mathematics. An infinite and flat probability distribution results in each event being impossible, zero probability. Now, if you say that there were infinite choices, but there is a determinite probability distribution, then I will accept that as a possibility.

This leaves your idea in the same scientific standing as any religion. However, we can examine history through archeology to see if the places and occurrences in the bible have left information in the dirt. However, there is no archeological information for before the big bang.

[JLW001]

Bump.

[Bread_of_Life]

And to think, I was just coming on here to reply to this very thread! hehe, elephants never forget so they say!

JLW

If you have an infinite number of possibilities, there is no requirement that each have the same probability.

Agreed, and if you can name a reason why, in a randomly picked universe, one physic might be more probable to occur than another, I'd like to hear it. Without this information, I have to assume that the charge of an electron in a random universe is as likely to be 1C as it is to be 1.6x10^-19C.

However, I'm happy to hear arguments to the contrary, they won't damage my argument at all, it's rather a side issue.

So, you're argument, which is this "gambler's fallacy", holds no water because, by definition of the argument, the area under the curve is zero.

I'm not sure where you're getting this from. The area under the curve is not zero at all, if you take into account all possibilities it will be one, as we are integrating an infinite number of infinitessimal points (which I agree can have any answer, in this case 1).

So, you are saying an indeterminite, lets call it a pre-universe, was able to generate a state of the universe which has determinism.

I'm essentially saying the physics of the universe we are in were randomly generated as the universe was, as a package so to speak.

This is a fallacious argument. Indeed on the surface it would appear that, "Why yes, one must be picked". This argument is fallacious because you will never have anything infinite; no system exists, in our universe, that has infinite choices.

This does not make my argument fallacious, it may be a practical limit on whether it will ever be useful or not in this universe, but it doesn't make the principle fallacious.

For example, there may be less that 10^50 objects in the universe (there arn't, but there may have been). If this was so, then the argument "If I have 10^51 objects and pick one at random, prior to the draw each will have a probability of 1 in 10^51 of being picked, but one has to be picked" would according to you be fallacious, because it is impractical. Of course, the argument is not fallacious, therefore your line of reasoning is incorrect.

Also, I would argue that such a system does exist. If I throw a dart across a room, and pick a reference point on the dart, it passes on that journey through infinite points of space, out of a choice of infinite points in the room. In other words, if I throw a dart, and measure my reference point 1 metre after the dart is thrown, there will have been infinite points in space that measurement could have been taken at, but it was just the one. This analogy works for any "continuous" variable, such as space, time, etc.

1.) You have no information about anything before our universe. I could argue that there was only one possibility and you could not prove me wrong. This is because, scientifically we have no information before our universe.

Not so, if you said there was only one possibility, one contingency, you would have to show why each other contingency was impossible. Since as you admit we have no information before the universe, this would prove impossible to do, and therefore a flat distribution is assumed.

Secondly, in my theory about how the universe came about, it was generated randomly. This would suggest a flat distribution. Now, of course this theory could be incorrect, the distribution could have been bell shapes, or a delta function - but given the theory that the universe was randomly generated (without cause that is) the probability distribution was flat.

An infinite and flat probability distribution results in each event being impossible, zero probability. Now, if you say that there were infinite choices, but there is a determinite probability distribution, then I will accept that as a possibility.

I can assure you that, mathematically, this is incorrect. We are actually integrating infinite infinitessimal probabilities.

Let me give you an example of this. There are infinite real numbers between zero and one on the number line. They are each seperated by an infinitessimal quantity. Therefore, there are infinite infinitessimal quantities between zero and one.

Therefore, if we integrated each infinitessimal quantity, all infinity of them, we would get the answer "1", not zero. I suggest therefore that you may have misunderstood integration.

[JLW001]

Therefore, if we integrated each infinitessimal quantity, all infinity of them, we would get the answer "1", not zero. I suggest therefore that you may have misunderstood integration.

Hmmm. Infinitesimal probabilities. Let's take a little detour into the math, so that you can see that infinitesimal probabilities is wrong.

If I have an infinite number of lottery balls, the you'll agree that the probability of me choosing any one ball is:

p = 1/(number of balls) =1/infinity,

now I know that you've seen the above number before (1/infinity). However for the sake of discussion let's not evaluate this expression

Now, the area under the curve for this constant probability distribution is:

A= int(-inf, +inf)pdp=may be directly calculated because of the constant probability as...

A=sum(p)=infinity*p, because we have infinitely many probabilitys with probability p.

Now lets substitue and do the arithematic.

A=infinity*1/infinity ....oops that's a mathematical no no. infinity/infinity is what we call indeterminant. Of no use. Without information.

Now, its very easy to see that if you have an infinite number of choices and a probability distribution that gives the same probability to each choice, then each possibility has zero probability, (remember, 1/infinity = 0). Now, if I choose to follow this path then I reach 0*infinity, which is the indeterminant form as I illustrated above.

Care to have a look at that?

[JLW001]

Btw, what you are calling infinitesimal steps in integration are not actually infinitly many steps, but are actually used in terms of limit functions. Do you remember first year calculus?

The limit as dp approaches zero, not when dp is zero. An extremely powerful differentiation, if you'll excuse the pun .

[Bread_of_Life]

now I know that you've seen the above number before (1/infinity). However for the sake of discussion let's not evaluate this expression

We cannot evaluate the expression. Infinity isn't a number, so we can't come up with a numerical answer. In fact, what we are talking about is having an infinite set of balls, each with an equal but infinitessimal probability of occurence. Infinitessimalness does not equal zero, it is the next smallest thing, dn if you will.

A=infinity*1/infinity ....oops that's a mathematical no no. infinity/infinity is what we call indeterminant. Of no use. Without information.

It would be of no use if we didn't already know the answer to the intergration. The answer is "1". In other words, you're right that we cannot calculate infinity/infinity, that it could be any number - but in this case because this is probability we're talking about, we know the answer is 1.

Now, its very easy to see that if you have an infinite number of choices and a probability distribution that gives the same probability to each choice, then each possibility has zero probability, (remember, 1/infinity = 0).

1/infinity /= 0, it doesn't equal any numerical answer at all. Infinity isn't a number, this calculation isn't possible to do numerically.

Btw, what you are calling infinitesimal steps in integration are not actually infinitly many steps, but are actually used in terms of limit functions. Do you remember first year calculus?

actually, this wasn't first year calculus, we did this 2 years before we left school, we just learn more in school. That's why our degrees take 3-4 years instead of 5-6.

And yes, I do remember calculus. Was this a helpful question? Was it asked in a Christian spirit? Was it designed to move the debate forward?

The limit as dp approaches zero, not when dp is zero. An extremely powerful differentiation, if you'll excuse the pun

it is, yes, I agree. Unfortunately, you've stated wrongly that 1/infinity = 0, and therefore you've attempted to integrate a whole load of zeroes! Don't be surprised when you end up with zero as an answer!

Also, you don't seem to have answered by question about throwing a dart across a room. Since space is a continuous variable, if I measure the position of a point on my dart in a metres time, there are infinitely many points and infinite possible positions I could measure. Yet I only measure one. How is this possible if each has a probability equivalent to zero (given a random throw).