Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
Certainly, these variables can be known, but I seriously doubt that they are in most instances. I presume that is where the "chance" comes in.
I guess if a person practices tossing a coin enough, he can learn to get the desired results.
One certainly can, I know a few magic tricks which take advantage of controlled coin tosses.
However, getting back to the subject, it is within the realm of possibility that if one knows all the variables that a specific outcome be predicted. So lets say for instance we know a gamma ray will leave the sun and eight minutes later penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and hit a specific gamete somewhere in Africa...
But as I discussed above we cannot know all the variables, because measurement requires an interaction with the object being measured.
We're getting away from science here.
Should this thread be moved to another forum?
It is not length of life, but depth of life. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
BGoodForGoodSake wrote:Lets take a look at a coin flip.
Scientifically the odds are 50/50 that it will be heads or tails.
But its possible a god or God is determining the outcome.
But as far as science can tell it is 50/50.
Chance from a scientific perspective is just that, chance.
It's also interesting to note that any given toss is entirely unpredictable; but that any sufficiently large number of tosses has an entirely predictable spread - i.e. throw the coin a million times and you will have half-a-million heads and half-a-million tails to a very high accuracy. That assumes the coin is not biased nor interfered with, of course.
I will toss my two coins in the discussion as follows:
The probability as above is 50/50, one toss is completely unpredictable, and yes over a large number of tosses the spread is predictable. That is true with any probability as it is equally true that the larger the number of coins the less probability a particular sequence will emerge (an exponentially decreasing probability). So with 2 coins the probability becomes 1 in 4, with 3 coins it is 1 in 8 and so on.
The following link references a page on this site that gives some examples of the fine-tuning of the universe.
If you look at the least fine-tuned example (maximum deviation in the ratio of electrons to protons) it is mind-boggling to see that it is 1 in 10 ** 37 (to the power 37).
In other words, what science is telling us is that the probability of that happening is so infinitesimal that it can be considered virtually impossible.
Certainly, these variables can be known, but I seriously doubt that they are in most instances. I presume that is where the "chance" comes in.
The point is that we perceive it to be chance because we don't bother to measure, but if we did, like the mathematician did, the element of chance goes away. So we write it off to chance, when in fact it is a lack of measurement of the forces acting on the coin. So the result is not really determind by "chance", but by physical forces acting on the coin in a certain fashion, which we could know, if we wanted to.
Acts 17:24-25 (NIV)
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. [25] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."
BGoodForGoodSake wrote:Lets take a look at a coin flip.
Scientifically the odds are 50/50 that it will be heads or tails.
But its possible a god or God is determining the outcome.
But as far as science can tell it is 50/50.
Chance from a scientific perspective is just that, chance.
It's also interesting to note that any given toss is entirely unpredictable; but that any sufficiently large number of tosses has an entirely predictable spread - i.e. throw the coin a million times and you will have half-a-million heads and half-a-million tails to a very high accuracy. That assumes the coin is not biased nor interfered with, of course.
I will toss my two coins in the discussion as follows:
The probability as above is 50/50, one toss is completely unpredictable, and yes over a large number of tosses the spread is predictable. That is true with any probability as it is equally true that the larger the number of coins the less probability a particular sequence will emerge (an exponentially decreasing probability). So with 2 coins the probability becomes 1 in 4, with 3 coins it is 1 in 8 and so on.
The following link references a page on this site that gives some examples of the fine-tuning of the universe.
If you look at the least fine-tuned example (maximum deviation in the ratio of electrons to protons) it is mind-boggling to see that it is 1 in 10 ** 37 (to the power 37).
In other words, what science is telling us is that the probability of that happening is so infinitesimal that it can be considered virtually impossible.
Yet here we are.
You are misunderstanding probability.
So if I go to a roulette table and I get 32 three times in a row have I beat the odds?
Did I get extremely lucky?
No any outcome is as likely as any other.
If I win the lottery am I extremely lucky?
Someone wins the lottery everyday.
It is not length of life, but depth of life. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Certainly, these variables can be known, but I seriously doubt that they are in most instances. I presume that is where the "chance" comes in.
The point is that we perceive it to be chance because we don't bother to measure, but if we did, like the mathematician did, the element of chance goes away. So we write it off to chance, when in fact it is a lack of measurement of the forces acting on the coin. So the result is not really determind by "chance", but by physical forces acting on the coin in a certain fashion, which we could know, if we wanted to.
When we don't do the measurements, what we mean by chance is that the unknown conditions over a multiple trials do not favor one way or the other.
It is not length of life, but depth of life. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wind was nullified, human variability eliminated, innitial conditions were set. Everything was measured and controlled for each toss.
But all of the variables still acted on the coin. Wind was found to have a negligable effect. Human ability is not a variable in this equation, the force exerted to make the coin spin is the variable. Human force outputs are regulary measured in sports science, btw, so that can be known too. Whether done by a human or a machine does not matter. The same goes for initial conditions, they are the same, does not matter who or what tosses the coin. The fact is that they were able to predict with 100% accuracy the outcome of the coin toss, once the variables were known.
Acts 17:24-25 (NIV)
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. [25] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."
BGoodForGoodSake wrote:Lets take a look at a coin flip.
Scientifically the odds are 50/50 that it will be heads or tails.
But its possible a god or God is determining the outcome.
But as far as science can tell it is 50/50.
Chance from a scientific perspective is just that, chance.
It's also interesting to note that any given toss is entirely unpredictable; but that any sufficiently large number of tosses has an entirely predictable spread - i.e. throw the coin a million times and you will have half-a-million heads and half-a-million tails to a very high accuracy. That assumes the coin is not biased nor interfered with, of course.
I will toss my two coins in the discussion as follows:
The probability as above is 50/50, one toss is completely unpredictable, and yes over a large number of tosses the spread is predictable. That is true with any probability as it is equally true that the larger the number of coins the less probability a particular sequence will emerge (an exponentially decreasing probability). So with 2 coins the probability becomes 1 in 4, with 3 coins it is 1 in 8 and so on.
The following link references a page on this site that gives some examples of the fine-tuning of the universe.
If you look at the least fine-tuned example (maximum deviation in the ratio of electrons to protons) it is mind-boggling to see that it is 1 in 10 ** 37 (to the power 37).
In other words, what science is telling us is that the probability of that happening is so infinitesimal that it can be considered virtually impossible.
Yet here we are.
You are misunderstanding probability.
So if I go to a roulette table and I get 32 three times in a row have I beat the odds?
Did I get extremely lucky?
No any outcome is as likely as any other.
If I win the lottery am I extremely lucky?
Someone wins the lottery everyday.
Perhaps the misunderstanding is on your part as in all of your examples the probability is repeated every time the roulette wheel is spun or lottery is conducted, thereby increasing the probability X number of times (X being the number of times the process is repeated).
In my reference, there's only one lottery, one spin of the roulette wheel, one chance and no other. What is the probability iin that case? Nill.
When we don't do the measurements, what we mean by chance is that the unknown conditions over a multiple trials do not favor one way or the other.
So then there is not really something such as chance, just a lack of measurement?
Acts 17:24-25 (NIV)
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. [25] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."
Wind was nullified, human variability eliminated, innitial conditions were set. Everything was measured and controlled for each toss.
But all of the variables still acted on the coin. Wind was found to have a negligable effect. Human ability is not a variable in this equation, the force exerted to make the coin spin is the variable. Human force outputs are regulary measured in sports science, btw, so that can be known too. Whether done by a human or a machine does not matter. The same goes for initial conditions, they are the same, does not matter who or what tosses the coin. The fact is that they were able to predict with 100% accuracy the outcome of the coin toss, once the variables were known.
Your confusing the term removing variables.
The force variable was removed because it was measured and set.
It is no longer a variable.
Even spin was controlled.
Let's call it the "O'Reilly effect" The labratory was a "no spin zone".=P
It was a controled experiment.
Wind is negligible in an enclosed environment, if there are hutrricane force gales acting on the coin I doubt it would be negligible.
It is not length of life, but depth of life. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
BGoodForGoodSake wrote:So are you saying that given a set of data, it can be determined statistically that something happens by chance?
No - the data could have been purposely created to look random although this is quite hard to do. A mistake would-be fraudsters often make when filing dodgey tax returns is to attempt to make the data look random by giving it an equal spread of starting numerals (i.e. equal occurances of 1 to 9). This ignores Benford's Law which tells us that a set of natural numbers is more likely to start with more 1s than any other digit.
Rhetorical question of course.
*doh!* I answered it.
But on the other hand, the fact that it is always this way may be due to supernatural interference determining order in an otherwise chaotic universe?
That which can interfere with the universe is by definition natural.
But generally, the proposition that a greater intelligence hardwired such statistical behaviour of objects seems conceivable to me.
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
The fundamental question here, is whether anything is simply a matter of chance, or whether 'chance' is merely our human perception of unpredictable results due to incomplete information. I agree with August - there is no chance in the coin toss; Newtonian physics allows us to predict the toss accurately if we can appropriately measure the variables.
In the past there have been many things deemed as chance that were merely not yet understood. The appearance of comets for instance, were once thought unpreditable but now we know better - we have learned the variables and how to measure them. Currenlty the realm of quantum physics seems unpredictable, but perhaps our understanding is simply too limitted. Or perhaps it's by design that chance occurs at a lower level in order to bring order out of chaos... I don't really know.
Regardless, what is the point of this thread? What assertion are you making BGood?
August wrote:Far be it from me to be difficult, but I think it is entirely possible to scientifically determine the outcome of a coin flip, if all the variables are known. I don't know what all the variables are that you would need to know, but it would probably include the weight of the coin, the amount of revolutions it will make due to an applied force, how strong the applied force is, the effect of wind resistance etc. I think you get the idea.
So is it still just chance, or is it just a case of unknown variables?
For me the coin was a purely mathematical example.
However, as BGood points out, at the quantum level events cannot be determined even in principle with our current understanding.
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
Your confusing the term removing variables.
The force variable was removed because it was measured and set.
I think we are talking past each other here, but don't tell me I'm confused. Go and read my first post on this topic to see what I meant by variables.
The force to make the coin spin was not removed. The fact that it was measured means that we knew the value of the variable, but the force to make the coin spin remains as one of the variables that will determine the outcome, as does the weight of the coin, for example.
Acts 17:24-25 (NIV)
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. [25] And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."
Byblos wrote:If you look at the least fine-tuned example (maximum deviation in the ratio of electrons to protons) it is mind-boggling to see that it is 1 in 10 ** 37 (to the power 37).
In other words, what science is telling us is that the probability of that happening is so infinitesimal that it can be considered virtually impossible.
Yet here we are.
By that probability either we are not here or the calculation is flawed.
And as you point out, here we are.
While in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought.
- Vygotsky
