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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (7876)	9/7/2001 5:56:58 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

<How do you know there isn't an invisible almost "godlike" determinism acting in the universe> I don't. Never claimed to. However, with that said, such a force or agency is by definition not quantitatively detectable by us in any way other than (apparent) randomness. I don't think it hurts to pray and, in fact, several studies have shown that patients who are the targets of prayer groups do better even if the patients don't know they are being prayed for. [Edit: I'd also like to note that many things won't happen until you visualize them. That is almost magical to me. We have fundamentally changed the probability of coherent light forming in the universe. That began as nothing more than an idea. ]

To: epicure who wrote (7876)	9/8/2001 8:54:26 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

How do you know there isn't an invisible almost "godlike" determinism acting in the universe I don't think you can know. If there is a determinism acting in the universe it has to be absolute. Even a little non-deterministic activity would be magnified by chaotic outcomes to overwhelm any residual determinism. In short, we may be a simulation, or a history lesson, or the dream of a butterfly and we would not, nor could not tell the difference. I maintain that that scenario is far, far more constrained than a random universe and therefore less likely. There is only one way for our universe to be determined, but a near infinite number of ways for it to unfold under contstraints of physics and time. but it appeals to me. Viscerally Determinism is appealing because the past is determined. All of our memories and learning are of things in the past. There may be an infinite number of ways that a particle will interact with another particle that is coming within range, but once that interaction takes place it is fixed. It zooms to the right or the left or something. At that very special moment we call the present the possibilities of randomness, the things that may happen, are locked into a single event that really did happen. When you look down the the chain of events that begin at the present and move backwards to the past there is real cause and effect for each and every little thing. The events that occur in the present really do occur The Moving Finger writes; and having writ Moves on; not all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. You cannot understand the future completely by understanding the past. The past really happened, the future has not. TP