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Am I agnostic, atheist or something else?

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  1. #1
    pocketfours's Avatar
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    Default Am I agnostic, atheist or something else?

    Wikipedia leaves me confused:

    Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[8][9] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[9][10]


    So is atheism some really stupid concept that was invented by religious people just to discriminate on non-believers? Should I even care in what category I fall?

    Can't we have a term for those of us who simply don't give a fuck about religion, because it's such a ridiculous thing in the first place. Can we invent a term?

    Yes, I do care enough to consider it ridiculous.


  2. #2
    i don't like the wikipedia definition. i think this chart shows it well enough



    so i guess technically i'd be an agnostic atheist, but atheist works well enough anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by pocketfours View Post
    Can't we have a term for those of us who simply don't give a fuck about religion, because it's such a ridiculous thing in the first place. Can we invent a term?
    freethinker?
  3. #3
    but i'm with you, it's pretty silly that we need a "word" to say we don't believe in something so childish and ridiculous. we don't need a word for not believing in faeries or anything as absurd.
  4. #4
    pocketfours's Avatar
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    Has that chart been accredited somehow?

    Freethinker a nice suggestion, but I think it sounds a bit arrogant and I very strongly don't believe in free will, which this term could easily be misinterpreted to contradict.


  5. #5
    a500lbgorilla's Avatar
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    Someone on here had the best answer.

    Pragmatic agnostic.

    If there is a god or gods, no one has ever known the first thing about 'em. How could they?

    If I had to throw in with a lot though, I'd go with the atheists. I think it's entirely easier that people would suppose gods than it would be for their to actually be any.
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  6. #6
    By modern connotation, agnosticism assumes uncertainty that requires inquiry and debate. However, there is truly nothing as certain as the non-existence of the supernatural. This leads me to use the emphatic expression of "atheist" to best stray from ambiguity

    Agnostic used to mean the same thing atheist does today. I'll take whatever word is the best to describe: "No, I don't believe in things that don't exist"
  7. #7
    foreigner
  8. #8
    BankItDrew's Avatar
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    Dawkins claims to be an anti-theist.
  9. #9
    I say agnost if it ever comes up in conversation, I have one friend who is religious and it's the best thing to say to avoid a nonsensical discussion and offending them. Once he tried me with the "if you say you don't know, why take a chance - if it's true then you're screwed in the afterlife" and I explained the principle of Occam's razor to him and that ended that discussion. (that pretty much makes me atheist though if I think about it)
  10. #10
    The difference between a theist and an atheist is that a theist disbelieves in a thousand gods and an atheist disbelieves in a thousand and one
  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by jackvance View Post
    I say agnost if it ever comes up in conversation, I have one friend who is religious and it's the best thing to say to avoid a nonsensical discussion and offending them. Once he tried me with the "if you say you don't know, why take a chance - if it's true then you're screwed in the afterlife" and I explained the principle of Occam's razor to him and that ended that discussion. (that pretty much makes me atheist though if I think about it)
    I always couldn't help but think that this Occam guy just didn't have a very good grasp of probability. 100*100 = 10*10*10*10, if you catch my draft.

    (adding nothing of value to the religion angle)
  12. #12
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    It's hard to prove a negative.

    All I know is that every mystery that was ever solved was solved with science. It wasn't magic or faeires or deities or whatever. Keep on trying to solve mysteries with deities and show me a success. I'd be a believer if I could understand and reproduce the result. I'm not asking for much, just any single indication that it's not total BS.
  13. #13
    Some kinds of negatives can be proven. Like if you can prove I am in America, you are concurrently proving I am not in Canada. The whole "God" thing plays by the same rules. Every single meaningful thing anybody has ever said about the supernatural is disproven already
  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by jackvance View Post
    I say agnost if it ever comes up in conversation, I have one friend who is religious and it's the best thing to say to avoid a nonsensical discussion and offending them. Once he tried me with the "if you say you don't know, why take a chance - if it's true then you're screwed in the afterlife" and I explained the principle of Occam's razor to him and that ended that discussion. (that pretty much makes me atheist though if I think about it)
    Pascal's wager > Occam's razor

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager
  15. #15
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    I love this line from the wiki page:

    It is not certain that everything is uncertain.
  16. #16
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    If you don't believe that one or more gods exist, then you're atheist (opposite of theist).

    If you don't believe that it can be proven that gods do or do not exist, then you're agnostic (opposite of gnostic).

    For example, I don't believe that a god exists, and I don't believe it can be proven one way or another, so I am an agnostic atheist.

    That's all there is to it.
  17. #17
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    Those wagers by philosophers on weather your better off believing in god and living accordingly seem to be biased by valuing a god fearing life and a life of sin equally. However I'm pretty sure drugs, booze, nsa sex and hedonism add value to a life of sin that seem to he unaccounted for.
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Lukie View Post
    I always couldn't help but think that this Occam guy just didn't have a very good grasp of probability. 100*100 = 10*10*10*10, if you catch my draft.

    (adding nothing of value to the religion angle)
    Not really catching your drift. There could an infinite number of parallel universes. But we can't (atm) verify that. We can't disprove it either. So we use Occam's Razor and take the simplest explanation to be true. There is also some theory (I forgot the name, something french like Genie Méchant) that there is a mind-altering being living amongst us, that warps our perception in such a way that we can never perceive him. Can't disprove it. But no need to take heed of it either.

    Oh and on the subject of parallel universes (sorry to go off on a tangent), I read something interesting recently. Neil Degrasse Tyson said that his favorite theory for dark matter (dark matter is the placeholder name for the fact that there is way more gravity in the universe than can be accounted for by all known matter) is that there ARE parallel universes and that their gravity is leaking through to ours somehow.
  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Pascal View Post
    Pascal's wager > Occam's razor

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager
    In terms of religion, they seem to be opposites. Pascal's Wager is pretty much that what my friend said to me..
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Some kinds of negatives can be proven. Like if you can prove I am in America, you are concurrently proving I am not in Canada. The whole "God" thing plays by the same rules. Every single meaningful thing anybody has ever said about the supernatural is disproven already
    But you cannot prove that "a diety" doesn't exist.
  20. #20
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    This question is trivial to me now. The idea behind it seems, to me, to stem from not knowing about how we got here, or what we're here to do. But all but 1 of these typical religious questions crumble when the universe itself is understood.

    Take any action or decision or thought you had today. If you were aware enough, if you understood the events in your life enough, and the also knew the chemical effects that occur in your body enough, you could trace this action/decision/though back to its source in history. Your decision to play poker, to go to school, to eat cereal, its all based on your past history and genetics. When reading what Im saying now, you're response is already predetermined by everything that has made you who you are.

    And when you look at it like that, and expand that to its logical conclusion, you reach an understanding that the entire universe is just one giant rube goldberg machine. That everyone is stuck in a formidable never ending chain of dominos falling down one by one, with every single event occuring as the direct result of all the others before it on a massive scale.

    Then questions like "why are we here", and "what is our purpose" simple cease to exist. These questions make no sense with such a chain of dominos. We simply are here, we dont have purpose. We simply are.

    The only question that remains though, is how did this chain of dominos begin? If some big bang happened, was there anything before it? There must be, right? If there was some grand orchestrator of history, a god, what is this god's history? What chain of dominos led to him?

    So...im agnostic because I dont know. I believe in "god", but not in the religious sense. I believe in some event somewhere down the line that started this universe in motion and whether that be a collision of matter and antimatter or some divine plan I couldnt say. But that event, whether the result of inanimate or animate objects, is called God to me.
  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    I believe in "god", but not in the religious sense. I believe in some event somewhere down the line that started this universe in motion.
    I used to think like you, but then I read that scientists believe that time started simultaneously with the big bang, which in turn means that the universe has been around for an infinite amount of time (or that there was never a time when the universe was completely without motion) and so it didn't need to be "started".

    I'm assuming the theory stems from the observation that mass/gravity seems to slow down time.


  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by jackvance View Post
    There could an infinite number of parallel universes. But we can't (atm) verify that. We can't disprove it either.
    Who do you mean by "we"?
    An article from Scientific American in 2003 that talks about the existence of parallel universes.

    Quote Originally Posted by jackvance View Post
    Neil Degrasse Tyson said that his favorite theory for dark matter (dark matter is the placeholder name for the fact that there is way more gravity in the universe than can be accounted for by all known matter) is that there ARE parallel universes and that their gravity is leaking through to ours somehow.
    Having a favorite theory is a long way from believing something that is unobservable.
  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    Take any action or decision or thought you had today. If you were aware enough, [...]. When reading what I'm saying now, you're response is already predetermined [...].

    And when you look at it like that, and expand that to its logical conclusion, you reach an understanding that the entire universe is just one giant rube goldberg machine. That everyone is stuck in a formidable never ending chain of dominos falling down one by one, with every single event occuring as the direct result of all the others before it on a massive scale.
    How can the macroscopic world be deterministic, when the microscopic world is dominated by uncertainty? The reason the macroscopic world seems deterministic is due to the averaging of random events over extremely large numbers. It's simply regression to the mean. The motions of any single individual particle are unable to be known, so only on some time and length scales can it even appear that there is certainty in any outcome.

    E.g. a baseball hurtles toward home plate at 100 mph. What is the velocity of a particle in the baseball? It is still largely unknown. I could throw a bunch of math up here and, taking into account the temperature of the ball (which is far more relevant than the 100 mph), I could show you that the particle speeds are far greater than 100mph, but that some of them are moving forward and some of them are moving backward, and some to the side. It is the average motions that seem to be 100 mph, but none of the individual motions necessarily reflect that.

    Furthermore, there is only certainty within the error bars of uncertainty, even on the macroscopic scale. When you measure something, you are limited by the uncertainty presented by your measuring device. This is above and beyond any intrinsic uncertainty associated with position/momentum, or other quantum phenomena.

    E.g. A baseball is hurtling toward home plate. Someone uses a measuring device and reports the ball is moving 100.0 mph. Their device can not determine if the speed is 100.01 mph or 99.99 mph, due to physical restrictions in cost and time to acquire a more accurate measurement. Maybe they have a more accurate measuring device. Maybe they can tell you the ball was moving at 100.000 miles per hour. They've limited the uncertainty, but they can never eliminate it.

    Special reiteration that this uncertainty based on the limitations of the measuring method is independent of the quantum uncertainties.
  24. #24
    I believe that religion was put in place by man because of their fears of what happens when they die.

    Now religion is used to keep people "in line", and used to make people feel guilty about stupid shit.

    IMHO, all religions have very common themes. I like looking into things, researching them, but, I don't have a "religion". I'm more of a "hey, let's be nice to people, and when someone fucks with you, or someone you care about, let's kinda' make them wish they weren't alive". If I had to say I was any type of religion, I'd say something between not giving a flying fuck and Buddhism, but don't really follow any of their practices, I just like the idea they have.

    TBH, no one fuckin' knows what happens when you die. Maybe you just kinda go into a different dimension, one filled with cotton candy, hot mute bitches, and pretty shiny things, but who fucking cares? You're dead.
    I will destroy you with sunshine and kittens.
  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by pocketfours View Post
    Has that chart been accredited somehow?
    not sure, just saw posted on reddit or somewhere before.
  26. #26
    Everyone in this thread will soon by dead one day. And I guess that's kind of scary, but I'd rather embrace the scary truth than a happy delusion.
  27. #27
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    Pascal's wager is the most facile thing I've ever read.
  28. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by pocketfours View Post
    [...] scientists believe that time started simultaneously with the big bang [...].
    A biologist is a scientist, but by no means an authority on cosmology.

    Quote Originally Posted by pocketfours View Post
    I'm assuming the theory stems from the observation that mass/gravity seems to slow down time.
    It is definitely a consequence of Einstein's General Relativity. While this is a clever assumption, it could be better stated.

    It is difficult to grasp that space and time are really tied together. Our human perceptions defy this understanding. We can move forward, backward or be still in 3 dimensions of space, but we can only move forward at a constant rate in time. This makes it seem like space and time are independent.

    However, space and time are intrinsically related to each other. In fact, one can not exist without the other. There can be no time if there is no space; there can be no space if there is no time. There could be no way to observe either without both.

    Always in statements of physics, we are confined to what can be observed. I can not speak to whether something which can not be observed exists (not as a physicist, at least).
  29. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    A biologist is a scientist, but by no means an authority on cosmology.
    Why such a nitpick? I wrote "I read that", so it shouldn't be interpreted like I would consider it the absolute truth. Why would I care what some biologist thinks of cosmology? I got this from Stephen Hawking who is a respected cosmologist.
    Last edited by pocketfours; 02-01-2013 at 04:08 PM.


  30. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    For example, I don't believe that a god exists, and I don't believe it can be proven one way or another, so I am an agnostic atheist.
    How can anyone think something can be proven beyond any doubt? Scientists, with the exception of mathematicians, in general don't deal with absolutely irrefutable proof so why should we?

    If we have absolutely no reason to believe that a diety does exist and we don't care about it, then why should we be considered agnostic?


  31. #31
    a500lbgorilla's Avatar
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    You can not call yourself anything. It's an option. But you initially declined that option by opening the thread.

    If you feel like there are a lot of people out there who believe there is a god and that they know all about it and you're not one of 'em, then you're not one.

    It's like saying you don't care what type of furry you are because you don't give a damn about furries or your place among them.
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  32. #32
    a500lbgorilla's Avatar
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    And yes, agnosticism is the default position because gnosticism is, in my eyes, inhuman.
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  33. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by jackvance View Post

    But you cannot prove that "a diety" doesn't exist.
    Only some kind of meaningless ones. Once you give a deity a causal relationship with the natural world, it is easily disproven through counter proofs. For example, I know that my light bulbs are not powered by tectonic shifts in the earth's crust because they're powered by electricity. Likewise, we know that there exists no personal god nor one guiding the cosmos.

    When we play the game of finding God, it becomes God of the Gaps, which is finding what we do not know then calling that God. There are many problems with this, but one that I rarely see discussed is that doing so creates a completely meaningless god. For example, because we don't know about anything smaller than quarks, it's possible that a deity exists within them or something, but if it were true, this deity would be impotent with respects to anything humanly experiential, thus is entirely meaningless

    Basically, we know for a fact that if a deity exists, it is outside the natural world, thus it is meaningless, fundamentally unknowable, and even fundamentally non-existent since the only thing of existence is natural. The supernatural is really just an impossible idea
  34. #34
    The word deity itself, the concept of anything god-like, is nothing other than a product of the natural world, but supposes also being non-natural. It is nothing other than a self-contradiction and is the most disproven thing that has ever been
  35. #35
    I think the principle of "beyond a reasonable doubt" affords an atheist the wiggle room to claim gnosticism and not be absurd about it. The same can't be said for the theist, and for this reason I think it's a very important nit pick. Otherwise it would appear that agnostic theists and agnostic atheists are at some sort of equal standing stalemate.
  36. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    Otherwise it would appear that agnostic theists and agnostic atheists are at some sort of equal standing stalemate.
    They are kind of. It's a battle of moving pieces across a line. I'd say one side has a few assets that can't be beat, but it really is a nigh-stalemate war of attrition.

    Otherwise, one day we could discover or develop something that could win over everyone to one position in one fell swoop. And I just don't imagine that ever happening. Unless God wants to make himself Known.
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  37. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    They are kind of. It's a battle of moving pieces across a line. I'd say one side has a few assets that can't be beat, but it really is a nigh-stalemate war of attrition.

    Otherwise, one day we could discover or develop something that could win over everyone to one position in one fell swoop. And I just don't imagine that ever happening. Unless God wants to make himself Known.
    Well yes, it's a war of attrition, one where there will almost surely be no grand instant victory, but just because the idea of a godless existence won't prevail in some grand instantaneous way does not make it a stalemate. Like you said, either God could make himself known, or there could be a stalemate, or, what you left out, the humanist viewpoint could continue to spread until it is the predominant position.

    So, slowly but surely people can come around to reason and leave their fairy tales behind, or people cling to their nonsense despite increasing evidence for a natural world existing with no help from the supernatural. I don't see why you want to chalk this up as a stalemate. Seems akin to CNN giving equal air time to climatologists and climate-change deniers. These just aren't equal but opposing positions. It's slow progress, not a stalemate.
  38. #38
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    Well, how many of those that have attrited have done so as a thumb against organized religion, but still feel spiritual? How many of those attrited have done so but still have a desire for there to be an afterlife, or guiding hand, or other supernatural fatherly force in the world?

    The human demands that spawned religion in the past are still with us and will likely never fade.

    Hence that war of moving pieces across a line. God has been a moving goal post in the past, no reason why it can't move once more.

    In this way it's not akin to climate skeptics versus the climate literate. Because the climate literate have the one thing that will win in one fell swoop. The only reason that fell swoop takes any time to fall is for the reluctance of many to engage it. But fall it will.
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  39. #39
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    Or maybe it will. I don't think we're far apart on this. I just don't think there will be a day when <metric> people secretly acknowledge there is no Greater force in the universe.
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  41. #41
    The spiritual but nonreligious-- *sigh*.

    "I don't like religious organizations, but their sky daddy makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, so I'm not going to give him up."
  42. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    The spiritual but nonreligious-- *sigh*.

    "I don't like religious organizations, but their sky daddy makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, so I'm not going to give him up."
    The "spiritual but nonreligious" virtually never believe in the sky daddy of any religion as you implied with the word "their".

    If harmless self-delusion is all it takes to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, it almost seems stupid to reject that warm fuzziness. Pragmatism!
  43. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by d0zer View Post
    The "spiritual but nonreligious" virtually never believe in the sky daddy of any religion as you implied with the word "their".

    If harmless self-delusion is all it takes to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, it almost seems stupid to reject that warm fuzziness. Pragmatism!
    I'm not sure how you can consider self-delusion a harmless endeavor.
  44. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    I'm not sure how you can consider self-delusion a harmless endeavor.
    Because being right takes an asston of effort. Begin right on everything takes an asston's asston and then some.

    Finding a comfortable world view that has you basically on the right path and gives you that willpower to find the strength and cunning that was seemingly out of reach? That shit is almost priceless.
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  45. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    Because being right takes an asston of effort. Begin right on everything takes an asston's asston and then some.
    AKA they might be deluded on this, but you're deluded on something else.
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  46. #46
    Very good points.

    Definitely not much of a big deal if our legislators aren't making policy decisions based on the planets alignment or whatever.
  47. #47
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    Yeah. I always enjoy it when someone seems to speak for god - how quickly the voice and desire of god becomes the voice and desire of speaker XYZ.
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  48. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Who do you mean by "we"?
    An article from Scientific American in 2003 that talks about the existence of parallel universes.
    We means us. You included.

    Show me the peer-reviewed Nature article that proves the existence of a multiverse.

    That proves it right in the same sense that Newton was right when his explanation of gravity was not disproved by disagreeing observations of the moons of saturn, but itself proved someone else's determination of the finite speed of light. (Romer)

    Show me the robust and predictive understanding of the multiverse, and then 'we' can agree jackvance is wrong when he says

    Quote Originally Posted by jackvance View Post
    There could an infinite number of parallel universes. But we can't (atm) verify that. We can't disprove it either.
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  49. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lukie View Post
    I always couldn't help but think that this Occam guy just didn't have a very good grasp of probability. 100*100 = 10*10*10*10, if you catch my draft.

    (adding nothing of value to the religion angle)
    Occam had the right of it. It's more about the path of least resistance than it is the chance of catching a lucky path through a maze of equally likely paths.

    The simplest path usually takes the least energy to occur.

    Someone won some award proving that was true of quatum jibberjabber.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram
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  50. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pascal View Post
    Pascal's wager > Occam's razor

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager
    Pascal was a father of probability, too.

    But really, Fermat was the father of probability. Pascal helped by keeping the problem in the front of his mind.
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  51. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    Show me the robust and predictive understanding of the multiverse, and then 'we' can agree jackvance is wrong when he says
    Point well taken.
  52. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    How can the macroscopic world be deterministic, when the microscopic world is dominated by uncertainty?
    Is it dominated by uncertainty, or is the best way for us to explain it with uncertainty?
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  53. #53
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    All I gots to say is this.

    Science and math, a history. Shit is the nuts, I'll tell you what.
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  54. #54
    I hate when people says "scissor" when referring to scissors, but I prefer "maths" to "math."

    I am not sure why, and I am not sure why I am posting this.
  55. #55
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    I believe that uncertainty dominates the microscopic world, because I have personally performed experiments that demonstrated this quality.

    It would be total hubris to assume that what is understood today is the pinnacle of understanding. Many brilliant physicists and engineers thought quantum mechanics (QM) was absurd, and they were no less intelligent for being skeptical of a revolutionary theory that was barely understood. But today, if you have the patience to learn calculus and partial differential equations, you can learn QM. You can see that it is based on the most fundamentally basic of assumptions, and it just unfolds into a universe as you pull the mathematical strings.

    Who knows what the next successful theory will be? Who knows what new math or other language will be used to describe it?
  56. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    I believe that uncertainty dominates the microscopic world, because I have personally performed experiments that demonstrated this quality.

    It would be total hubris to assume that what is understood today is the pinnacle of understanding. Many brilliant physicists and engineers thought QM was absurd, and they were no less intelligent for being skeptical of a revolutionary theory that was barely understood. But today, if you have the patience to learn calculus and partial differential equations (PDEs), you can learn QM. You can see that it is based on the most fundamentally basic of assumptions, and it just unfolds into a universe as you pull the mathematical strings.

    Who knows what the next successful theory will be? Who knows what new math or other language will be used to describe it?
    So... what were the experiments?
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  57. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    I believe that uncertainty dominates the microscopic world, because I have personally performed experiments that demonstrated this quality.

    It would be total hubris to assume that what is understood today is the pinnacle of understanding. Many brilliant physicists and engineers thought quantum mechanics (QM) was absurd, and they were no less intelligent for being skeptical of a revolutionary theory that was barely understood. But today, if you have the patience to learn calculus and partial differential equations, you can learn QM. You can see that it is based on the most fundamentally basic of assumptions, and it just unfolds into a universe as you pull the mathematical strings.

    Who knows what the next successful theory will be? Who knows what new math or other language will be used to describe it?
    We're not overturning truths, but filling in the questions. We're now at the point that meaningful deities simply cannot exist.
  58. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    So... what were the experiments?
    And did you show that probability is what dominates the tiny-verse or did you demonstrate that our best understanding of the tiny-verse is made by the vehicle of probability?
    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 02-02-2013 at 12:34 AM.
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  59. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    I hate when people says "scissor" when referring to scissors, but I prefer "maths" to "math."

    I am not sure why, and I am not sure why I am posting this.
    Gots to post, man.

    I'll say maths, just because the Queen's english is as cool as mine.
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  60. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    I'm not sure how you can consider self-delusion a harmless endeavor.
    I'd go the other way, all studies I've read on the subject suggest that self-delusion is beneficial for the psyche.
  61. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by pocketfours View Post
    I used to think like you, but then I read that scientists believe that time started simultaneously with the big bang, which in turn means that the universe has been around for an infinite amount of time (or that there was never a time when the universe was completely without motion) and so it didn't need to be "started".

    I'm assuming the theory stems from the observation that mass/gravity seems to slow down time.
    I dont quite understand. Even if time started with the big bang, that must have also come from something. But if it didnt, then that is the source of everything that is, and would be the "god" i refer too.

    @Mojo: Rilla's thinkin what im thinking. Measurements are irrelevant. There is a huge difference between saying that the universe is deterministic and saying that the universe is predictable by us. We dont even need to go subatomic to show this really. Even taking the events of just a single person, its impossible to predict what theyre going to do at any one point. Their diet, fatigue, emotions, past experiences, health, genes, gases being expelled, there is just so much going on with even a single being that predicting them is immensely difficult (though this is probably doable, maybe). Now take a city though, and everything that has come before that, and then try and predict how each person would interact and how that would effect them in the future, and suddenly we have a problem that is far too massive to even begin to try and solve. We havent even begun to talk about it on a worldwide, or universal level, nor a microscopic one.

    But that doesnt change the domino theory i proposed.
    Last edited by JKDS; 02-02-2013 at 01:26 AM.
  62. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    So... what were the experiments?
    The single slit experiment is a great example showing that when space-information becomes confined, momentum information becomes spread out. The wave-interference is also interesting, but not the fascinating thing as pertains to the uncertainty principle.

    Stern-Gerlach showed that an electron beam can be split into multiple beams, each containing electrons with only a single spin-state. When one of these beams is used as the input to another Stern-Gerlach experiment, the beams will split again. Showing that even though the electrons had been determined to be of one spin, they were immediately afterward determined to have a (perhaps) different spin.

    The long history of the EPR "paradox" has shown that the randomness associated with particle states is thoroughly described by specific probability functions. (I haven't personally confirmed anything on the subject of quantum entanglement.)

    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    And did you show that probability is what dominates the tiny-verse or did you demonstrate that our best understanding of the tiny-verse is made by the vehicle of probability?
    What would be the difference? I honestly don't know that those are 2 different things. Are you are implying that what can be sensed is somehow NOT the "real" universe?


    If this is not a troll, then you need to make that clear to me, because you're asking me grade-school questions and not offering any indication that you are actually interested in learning from my answers. It seems like you're only interested in tricking me into saying that I don't know what I know and that what I believe is without foundation...

    .. and that's fine. Let me save you some time:

    All belief is without foundation. Faith is to believe something despite the shocking lack of proof. It is impossible to live a sane life without faith in many things...

    I'm thinking the guy who rules the universe in Hitchhiker's Guide... the one with a cat named, "the lord".

    So I'm not worried about being shown that faith is the root of science. Of course it is. I have faith that basing what is considered to be knowledge on what can be repeated is a good way to be sure that something isn't a fluke occurrence, or poorly controlled process.

    I have faith that my understandings are imperfect, but that through sharing understanding with others, and comparing our processes and conclusions, we can form a more consistent understanding, which is, at it's heart, the root of science.
  63. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    @Mojo: Rilla's thinkin what im thinking.
    Arrgghhhh! I just spent an hour replying to this post, and it got wiped when firefox crashed. I'm not going to spend that much time again. Sorry in advance if it falls short on thoroughness.

    Summary:
    Measurements are necessary to compare findings.

    Experts in molecular biology, among others, support your domino theory.

    Experts in QM describe their findings in terms of complex probability distribution functions, which themselves can't be directly observed. However when appropriate mathematical operations are performed on the distribution functions, all of the properties of the particle which can be observed come out of them. QM is hugely successful and based on a language of probabilities.

    So, given the microscopic world is described with a language of probability, how can the macroscopic world be otherwise?
  64. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    I dont quite understand. Even if time started with the big bang, that must have also come from something.
    we live in a universe of cause and effect but all the laws of physics break down "before time" so you can't really assume anything, especially that it had to come from something.

    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    But if it didnt, then that is the source of everything that is, and would be the "god" i refer too.
    so god is the unknown "force" that put everything into motion? why not just call it "the unknown force that put everything into motion" rather than god?
  65. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    I hate when people says "scissor" when referring to scissors, but I prefer "maths" to "math."

    I am not sure why, and I am not sure why I am posting this.
  66. #66
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    My point was simple and I thought it was pretty clear.

    Reality doesn't give a hoot about your best description of it. That the vehicle of probability is so useful in our description of the universe doesn't mean

    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    that uncertainty dominates the microscopic world
    You shoulda said uncertainty dominates our understanding of the microscopic world.


    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    And did you show that probability is what dominates the tiny-verse or did you demonstrate that our best understanding of the tiny-verse is made by the vehicle of probability?
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    What would be the difference? I honestly don't know that those are 2 different things.
    The difference is stark. On the one side is us and our brains and how they describe the universe and on the other is the universe and how it is carried across all that is.

    The only language that can <perfect metric> describe reality is reality. And we don't speak that.


    And don't think that I'm leading you with some argument. I'm standing in one spot.

    Besides

    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    The long history of the EPR "paradox" has shown that the randomness associated with particle states is thoroughly described by specific probability functions.
    You know it as well as I.
    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 02-02-2013 at 03:13 PM.
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  67. #67
    I'm absolutely certain that our world was created by Flying Spaghetti Monster, only blind people can oversee His presence. Ramen!
    If things were to magically revert to January 1st, 2003, only I could take everything I know now in terms of poker ability/knowledge, bonus clearing, etc., I think it's safe to say that it would be trivially easy to make over a million dollars.
  68. #68
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    If the flying spaghetti monster were real then how do you explain macaroni?
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  69. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by givememyleg View Post
    I like math and scissors, but prefer internets to internet, because they're not only used to download porn, but for many other things
    If things were to magically revert to January 1st, 2003, only I could take everything I know now in terms of poker ability/knowledge, bonus clearing, etc., I think it's safe to say that it would be trivially easy to make over a million dollars.
  70. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    If the flying spaghetti monster were real then how do you explain macaroni?
    He is kind enough to provide food to us in form of pasta.
    If things were to magically revert to January 1st, 2003, only I could take everything I know now in terms of poker ability/knowledge, bonus clearing, etc., I think it's safe to say that it would be trivially easy to make over a million dollars.
  71. #71
    Rilla, you're arguing from a post modernist perspective, and it's really lame. Your same argument could be used to cast doubt on whether or not the statue of liberty actually exists. We can see it there, we can take pictures of it, we know it's history, etc, but can we really know it sits there in New York Harbor? After all, we don't speak reality, so how could we?
  72. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    Rilla, you're arguing from a post modernist perspective, and it's really lame. Your same argument could be used to cast doubt on whether or not the statue of liberty actually exists.
    No, boost. I'm really not. MadMojoMonkey will verify this for you.
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  73. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    No, boost. I'm really not. MadMojoMonkey will verify this for you.
    Or you could cease trying so hard to be the guiding hand, and just join in the conversation. Like, you know, stop being so vague, and just explain it yourself.
  74. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by boost View Post
    Or you could cease trying so hard to be the guiding hand, and just join in the conversation. Like, you know, stop being so vague, and just explain it yourself.
    ... I did. With words. Across all of my posts.
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  75. #75
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    Oh, are you saying you want me to describe it to specifically you? It being something of some meaning.

    It's not an argument. It's something of incredible study. So we have the answer key and we have a good process for reading that answer key, and we've been at it for 400 years <been at it for XYZ>.

    But after 400 years <but after XYZ>, we still don't know how to decipher that answer key perfectly, but we're still at it.

    We're real good. Real real good. But we aren't perfect. We just have the german rigor.

    People claim to know perfect, they describe perfect as some God or some such, but that's the nonsense from fools trying to cut ahead.

    The funny thing is, we'll never know perfect. But we will know real well. And that real well becomes real real well, and then real real real well.

    In summation, science knows real well. Science tries to decipher the answer key. And we're gonna stick at it but we won't know reality in terms of reality, only in terms of <human>.

    That's as best as I can do to be wholly honest.
    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 02-02-2013 at 04:41 PM.
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