the universe and space....?

C.I.'s right;

haven't you ever sucked all the blood out of a 'believer'?

ican; your brilliant mathematical descriptors of natural phenomena are NOT!
laws; that is just the way things are, fortunately consistently.
If they were 'laws' then there would have to be a grand 'lawyer' to instigate them (is that, perhaps, where you are heading).
And the purpose of your life (agravating Frank! ) is what you made it; it did not exist until you decided what to do with yourself, for a life, or so, and only you will be able to judge if it was worth it!
I'll stand by my 'no laws', 'no purpose'; i think that's obvious!

Ican, in particular,

"I BELIEVE" in your concept of directed chance, no reasonable doubt in my mind about it.
I understand how it "directs", and I think I understand how "chancy " it is.
But the only intelligence that I have been able to find could be called "life force". And thats random, at least at first.

If a conglomeration of molecules reaches a certain size, absorbs (or adsorbs) a bit more energy and breaks in half as a result then this is your basic "life force". If it splits again and again then you have a force that skews the results of random interactions all to heck. We would call it alive actually. Not to bright perhaps but alive and capable of changing the environment in which it is found.
A prion, (Mad Cow, Krutzfeld-Jacobs, Kuru, Alzheimers) is reputed to be a protein which self replicates in brain tissue. Probably other places also but we don't notice it.
Forty molecules consisting of perhaps one to ten thousand atoms are sufficient to make one. And all one has to do is make one in order to skew the random probabilities arguement something terrible.

I hope that you are able to consider yourself vindicated.
There IS an Intelligence that permeates the Universe.
This "Intelligence" directs the course of events that we percieve throughout the Cosmos.

But IMO it just is. It's no more remarkable than a grain of silicon dioxide on the beach. (and in Franks clothes after walking on the beach).
It doesn't have to be too bright. Its just another example of random interactions of matter and energy. Quantum Mechanics shows us how to build one but our success rate in building one is a bit uncertain, given the probabilities and uncertainties inherent in QM.

IF this definition of your "intelligence" is unsatisfactory then we must have a bit more information. But frankly I suspect that it is enough to answer "how".

Well, Mech; "the parting of the ways"

I would never have expected that (what can i say - 'gibberish') line of thinking from you.

Try this:
define "chance".
Now define "intelligent direction".

Now 'think'

O.K. I'll forget you ever said that!

Besides;
your: "A prion, (Mad Cow, Krutzfeld-Jacobs, Kuru, Alzheimers) is reputed to be a protein which self replicates in brain tissue. Probably other places also but we don't notice it.
Forty molecules consisting of perhaps one to ten thousand atoms are sufficient to make one. And all one has to do is make one in order to skew the random probabilities arguement something terrible. "

is, i suppose from the rest of your statement, an explanation for why ican could think such things.

Terry, and Ican,
This is going to be another math problem sometime. Just off the top of your heads : What do you think that the relationship between "Time" and the "speed of light" (c) is

It has occurred to me that "time" having no mass of its own but being affected by mass should change more rapidly due to mass than a photon which apparently has some mass, and therefore inertia in the same gravitational field.

This will be another correction involved in my little project vis-a-vis the red shift .It may be why my calculations work out as generally way too high.

If you've never thought about it forget it, but if you have I'd love to hear about it.

Also, anybody got a link as to the Gravity Detecter that somebody is building out in the Oregon (I think) high desert.

BoGoWo,

I'd love for you to elucidate a little more. Somehow I may not be making myself clear. If so please say so.

What fact do you consider in error in that post. Why.
I am usually able to footnote my assertions if the book hasn't gone back to the library. They are not necessarily all pop physics books either.

BoGoWo

Also "Intelligent Direction" implies an intelligence far superior to what I have in mind.
Chance is purely random. Life itself is not. No goal is necessarily implied by "directed chance". The direction is inherent and purely accidental.
Frankly I didn't like "directed chance" much either so if you can come up with a better nomenclature that falls somewhere in between "random interactions and "intelligent direction" throw it out. We're not talking "gospel" here. You could even coin a word and become even more famed. We could use one!

Mech;
I thought your description "The direction is inherent and purely accidental."
was perfectly served by the word 'chance'; that is my point.

Either something occurs under 'no' influence - hence by 'chance'.
Or, it is 'directed', by whatever; a totally different case.
A "never the twain shall meet" case!

If we are talking genetics the 'random' mutations are just that - 'random' (according to the 'non'effects of chance).
There are no 'directed' mutations, unless of course you bring in the 'physically modified in a lab' sort of 'mutation', which is not a mutation at all, but a mechanically changed gene.

And as for your interesting challenge re: time and light;
I see time as a very distinctly different phenomenon from electromagnetic radiation.
In fact i don't see time as a 'thing' at all (like a photon), but rather as a relationship between things, thus more similar to gravity, than light.

Time and gravity will always exist, but not necessarily light?

Hey, CI;

not necessarily;

Imagine a world after the universe gets to its maximum size, and begins to shrink, and time reverses, and we all go back from death (complete with worms and dust) to birth; then wink out, never having existed at all!

Oh, i see what you mean; lights out!

Im bogooogiewoogie's cheerleader!

That will NEVER happen. I can guarantee that!

Sorry Ican, but you do not know what you are talking about here.

You are corrupting probability theory -- but there is no way to get that through the concrete in your head.

And the analogy of the poker game is exactly on the mark.

Waaaah; ma you just won't let us have any fun.

Well I'm sneakin' outa the barn and gonna play some more anyway; so there!

I admit that you present me with quite a dilemma. On the one hand you could merely be deceiving yourself that you are competent in the mathematics of probability. On the other hand you could be a fraud thinking you can succeed in deceiving others.

What the heck; I'll assume, for the fun of it, that you fit the first case.

It is the sequence of the bases in the genome that specifies the configuration of proteins comprising a living organism. After all there are only four different kinds of bases in a genome, unlike a card deck in which there are 52 different kinds of cards (jokers removed).

Let's rule out any intelligent influence and play five card stud with all cards up and a single bet of $1 prior to the deal. The meaning (i.e., value) of the five cards is independent of the sequence in which the cards arrived. Whether you are dealt, for example, all spades AKJQ10, or all spades 10JQKA, or all spades J10AKQ, or any of the other of the 120 different possible sequences for those particular five cards, the value of your hand is the same regardless of the sequence of the cards in your hand and you will win the dollar (hands down, so to speak).

So the card analogy is invalid on those accounts. In addition, the genome game consists of "hands" exceeding a million bases for which the sequence of those bases determines the outcome. The question with which we are confronted is how many "deals" (edits/mutations of the genome) containing over a million bases will be required to increase the probability of any specified sequence to at least one in 10^100 (one in a googol=a googolth). In the described stud poker game the odds are far better than a googolth to get any particular hand in a single deal.

A valid analogy would be a game of dice consisting of say a million dice with each die containing its own unique serial number. Of course, a particular die can have any one of six face values, unlike a base position which can have only anyone of four values. But the analogy is close enough to warrant serious consideration. Ok, arrange the dice in the order of their serial numbers. A <ROLL> shall consist of rolling each of the million dice in turn being sure to keep them arranged in the order of their serial numbers.

The question then, is how many <ROLLS> are required to increase the probability of obtaining a specified sequence of face values of one million dice to at least a googolth.

P = N/D;
or N <ROLLS> = P x D = 10^(-100) x 6^1,000,000 = 10^778,151 = 10^778,051.

At 10^99 <ROLLs> per year it will take 10^777,952 years to get 10^778,051 <ROLLs>. That's equivalent to 10 multiplied by itself 777,952 times.

Well, you, Frank, will undoubtedly argue: "So what! The human genome did in fact evolve, did it not? "Yes", I'll answer, "but the probability that it evolved by pure undirected chance in the time alleged to have been available is kinda small, while the probability that it evolved by directed chance is kinda close to certainty." You will then argue, but it's possible it did happen by undirected chance." I will then argue, " Yeah, it's possible, but the odds are better than 50% that it did not occur by undirected chance!" You will continue to insist, "but since it's possible, we have no reason to think directed chance is more likely than undirected chance."

I of course, will then throw up my hands and sigh the words: "non sequitur!"

You will respond, "there is no way to get that through the concrete in your head."

I will respond, "You need to use something more appropriate than a chisel".

You will respond, "Cute, nice try, but you're wrong".

No, I won't do any of those things, Ican, because your reasoning is absurd -- and I am pretty sure I can show it to be absurd to anyone with an open mind.

But, Nancy and I have a barbecue to go to this afternoon, and I don't want to hurry my response.

I've done the response before, but I'll do it again for the people just tuned in.

You are mangling probability theory (not probability mathematics as you so cleverly changed the issue) -- and I can show that you are.

Your proposal is sufficiently plausible to me to justify my accepting it as a viable candidate. I cannot go further than that now, since I have as yet encountered insufficient data to warrant even a guess about how the stuff of our brains manages to provide us with the capability to think.

However, let's not forget that at least you and I think there exists sufficient valid data to justify thinking that our evolution was not caused by pure undirected chance and natural selection. Something else influenced it too.

PURE SPECULATION

Some folks are so convinced that any intelligence found in OOU outside living organisms is a threat to the validity of their painstakingly synthesized value system, that they cannot even risk thinking the idea more likely than not. It's sort of like, I'll be damned before I will accept the idea that there exists a value system higher or better than my own.

SO MECH

How come you are not so intimidated by the idea? How come you are comfortable with YOUR conviction God doesn't exist, but can nonetheless entertain the probability that there exists a modicum of intelligence in the universe outside living organisms? Should I give Adam Smith some of the credit? Is it your entrepreneurial spirit that others lack? I bet it is!

FANTASTIC! I AWAIT YOUR NEW RESPONSE

NOTE: Probability mathematics is the application of probability theory. :wink:

Meanwhile, I'll go back and wait in the barn/timeout like ma says.

Ican

Decided to give this a try before leaving...

What you are doing -- as I have explained several times before -- is taking a finished product (humanity at its present stage of development) and determining that the number of steps that had to occur to get from point "a" (and earlier stage of human development) to this finished product -- are enormous.

You are then LEAPING to the conclusion that since the number of events is so large -- the only way it could have happened in the time frame you are allowing -- is by having some outside agency (which you have variously called God, god, goe, or INTELLIGENCE) guide it through the process.

In fact, you are asserting that you have established that the odds against the sequence having happened randomly -- without some kind of guidance -- are so prohibitively large against -- IT IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT TO HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT THE OUTSIDE AGENCY.



The analogy for what you are doing that I gave is right on the mark.

If one were to record each hand dealt in a regular Friday night poker game -- and at the end of the night compute the odds against that particular series of tens of thousands of cards coming up in that exact order -- the number would be enormous.

But the fact is -- a series was destined to be. Some series was! The odds were 100% THAT SOME RANDOM SERIES of numbers would ensue. But it makes no sense to look at the random number that does eventuate - and try to say that it cannot possibly have happened except with a stacked deck because of the odds against "a" series happening.

If one were to say at the start of the game - "here is a series of 10,000 cards and I say the odds against this series happening tonight is astronomical against" -- everyone would say, "Of course!"

But to come to the end of the night and look at the series -- and compute the odds against the series having happened -- and then conclude from those odds that it could not have happened randomly because the odds against the event are so prohibitive -- IS ABSURD.

It is a corruption of probability theory -- not probability mathematics. (I notice you even tried to weasel out of that!)

You are looking at humanity as it is -- apparently erroneously computing the steps necessary to getting us here -- and then concluding that it cannot have happened randomly because the odds against it are so high. That is the same mistake you would have made if you treated the poker analogy as with as much logical torture.

There may be no God - or no facilitator for evolution - and everything that has happened so far may be just a random thing happening in nature using natural laws. It may have ended up anywhere - and it ended up here. The 10,000 card may have been any sequence - but it ended up the one recorded.

Nothing can be inferred from the large number - even if you are right in the number - which Terry says you are not and I trust Terry much, much more than you.

Get it, Ican. You are corrupting and distorting probability theory here. You are coming to an absurd conclusion based on an erroneous understanding of how probability can be used in this case.

But, you want so desperately to get to a God -- I can understand why you are so wrong -- and so blind about being wrong.

Frank, Sounds logical to me! But then, I'm no expert in probability theory. However, the conclusion is the same; whatever got us to this point does not necessarily establish the existence of any god.

Just throwing my support behind Frank's logic, and disclaiming any connection to the corollary abuse being meted out;

'Probability' is just that; a consideration that, given as large a series of information about an event as possible, we can describe the event with a degree of probability vaying from zero (based on very little information) to 100% (the event has happened, and we are viewing the aftermath).
The latter case doesn't really belong because it is not a question of probability at the limiting point.

Probability is wholly dependent upon chance. The potential variants in any case could vary to the point of completely discounting any proposed probability, and while a very large number of cases over a very large sampling may approach a small degree of 'prediction' this, as shown by insurance companies, must be combined with a very conservative approach to allow any safety in 'numbers'.

Probability theory is about as reliable, as astrology, for 'hard' results.