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


To: Greg or e who wrote (14582)1/17/2003 2:00:48 PM
From: TigerPaw  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 28931
 
You seem to be saying that the only options are strict determinism or total chaos. Is that an accurate assessment?

It gets subtle. To simplify let me say the option is between strict determinism and not strict determinism. That just leaves the question about whether a lack of determinism is equivalent to total chaos.

The term 'total chaos' has a different meaning in science than in lay terms. In scientific terms chaos can be well ordered, even deterministic, it is just a state where large changes in results come from very small changes in the cause. It is the straw that breaks the camel's back phenomina.

To try and restate what I said: Strict determinism will be true if a precise cause leads to a precise effect. To be non-deterministic some aspect of the effect must be random. Random really does mean something like the lay version of total chaos. That doesn't mean the effect is all random, just some small portion (on the order the Hisenberg uncertainty measurement threshold).

A strictly deterministic universe is more like a puppet show or simulation than what is normally recognized as life. The philosophy of determination is generally in Nhylism.

TP