The universe is not by chance

[tar]

It has bothered me, that some consider evolution a chance occurrence. As if that is the only alternative in a universe without an Anthropomorphic God.

Seems a weak and empty stance to me, to think that we are a random happening that would, just by chance happen elsewhere in the universe, identically, just by chance, and the force of odds and numbers.

The universe, in my opinion is not big enough, or old enough to support such a claim.

I read over the summer some claim that there is another TAR somewhere in the universe, that it has been figured out mathematically that I would occur again exactly, every so and so many million light years. I think that idea is a bunch of baloney.

For me to occur somewhere else, exactly, you would need my mother and father to have occurred exactly, all the things I have done and seen to have occurred exactly. You would need the whole Earth and solar system to be repeated exactly. You would need the Milkway Galaxy to have occurred exactly the same way, somewhere else in the universe. You would need the local group of galaxies to repeat exactly somewhere else in the universe. You would need the string of galaxies that the local group is part of to have its exact pattern repeated, elsewhere in the universe...at some point you get to a chunk of the universe that is too big to be exactly repeated, somewhere else in the universe, because there is not enough room in the universe for there to be 51 percent of it, repeated exactly in the other 49% of it.

So I therefore submit, that the universe is not by chance. Each piece and part of it, is unique, by virtue of its unique relationship to the rest.

[limbicloser]

While there are a lot of 'just so' matters, I cannot presently write those very states and circumstances off as being 'set' in any way. Thus, for now, I don't see that we can deny the likelihood of mere chance events leading to our present universe (including, of course, our so beloved solar system). {and this is not to say we have foreclose the other option of not being by mere chance, totally, though}

I fully agree with your rejection of that 'other TAR' notion; on the brighter side.

[tar]

limbicloser,

Is that to say that you are "thankful" that there is only one of me? Any more would be too much of a burden to bear!

But seriously, the "just so" matters are not mysterious to me at all. Certainly we evolved within the parameters of temperature and pressure, in an enviroment of certain chemicals and other patterns, that were "possible" on the Earth. Not mysterious that we should fit, that we should match, that we should exist, where and when our existence is possible.

One of my favorite sayings, that I came up with, while discussing "God does not throw dice", a number of years ago, was, "no matter how many times you throw a set of die, you are NEVER going to come up with the queen of spades. For that, you need a set of cards."

So when discussing "chance" you have to start with a coin, or a die, or a deck. You have to start with something that can be in this or that state.

So my question is always, not how probable it is to roll a seven with dice, but "how probable is it to HAVE dice to roll?

And my answer is that we have a 100% chance of existing. Because we do. And as likely or unlikely as you figure it might be, the evidence is in favor of existence.

Chances of there being a TAR=100%
Chances of TAR being unique in the universe=100%
Chances of there being a universe=100%

Where does the chance come in?

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

Jan 29, 2010 4:38:10 GMT tar said:

I read over the summer some claim that there is another TAR somewhere in the universe, that it has been figured out mathematically that I would occur again exactly, every so and so many million light years. I think that idea is a bunch of baloney.

I'm going to contradict you not on the grounds that I know to the contrary, but on the grounds that you cannot say what you have said with any semblance of certainty. You can't know. And, even with some initial assumptions, the odds tip in favor of the stance you oppose. Allow me to explain:

If you take yourself, as you have ad infinitum defined as your mind and body combo with delimiting points occurring at your skin, then your physical existence can be represented by some permutation/combination of atoms. This structure can be mathematically described and we will name it 'TAR'. Now, there are roughly a billion billion planets. If the odds of abiogenesis occurring are a billion to one against, then odds are it happened a billion times. If odds of 'TAR' forming out of these remaining planets which support life are one hundred million to one against, then odds are there are ten identical TARs in the universe.

I admit, however, that I pulled these numbers out of my ass. But the truth is that you don't know where the odds lie. Even if there are no other TARs right now in the universe, how do you know there never was one in the 14 billions years that our physical universe has been purported to exist? Further, how do you know that the multiple worlds hypothesis or the big bang/big crunch cyclic theory of universes or the anthropomorphic black hole hypotheses aren't correct? In any of these circumstances, it is more likely than not that an entity with the identical structure as what you call 'TAR' has existed before, exists now, or will someday exist again; in any of these cases, there exists/have existed/will exist an infinite number of universes.

For me to occur somewhere else, exactly, you would need my mother and father to have occurred exactly, all the things I have done and seen to have occurred exactly. You would need the whole Earth and solar system to be repeated exactly. You would need the Milkway Galaxy to have occurred exactly the same way, somewhere else in the universe. You would need the local group of galaxies to repeat exactly somewhere else in the universe. You would need the string of galaxies that the local group is part of to have its exact pattern repeated, elsewhere in the universe...at some point you get to a chunk of the universe that is too big to be exactly repeated, somewhere else in the universe, because there is not enough room in the universe for there to be 51 percent of it, repeated exactly in the other 49% of it.

This part of your post is one I find exceedingly ironic because it is very near the stance I held in the other thread about the definition of self that you so indignantly refuted. The idea that 'you' extend beyond your body in such a way is an idea that does resonate with me. Although again, you don't know how many universes there have been or that will be. You literally have no idea. Therefore, you cannot make any such judgment.

[tar]

Kyrisch,

Irony is my middle name.

However, I never said I was not part of the universe, and I never said I did not have an analog representation of it, existing in MY brain. You have a similar analog representation of the universe in YOUR brain. Thats two representations, and one universe. Thus we have three DIFFERENT real things we can be referring to, at various points, and my refutation consisted many of pointing out that the universe really exists, your representation of it, really exists in your brain, is real and is you, and my representation of it exists in my brain, is real and is me. Thus you cannot say you are holding the same stance as I am, regarding being a part of the universe, because you do not accept that you exist, and I exist, and we are two separate, individual, unique selves, on a rather small chunk of material in a rather large universe. And to have my stance, you have to see this, and from this understanding, then make the connections, historical, physical, evolution wise, that define both your uniqueness, and your connection to the universe. But the self, is the key. It is the perspective from which we view the universe, it is the perspective from which we understand "now", and "here" and from which we build all other models, projections, ideas, hopes, dreams, etc., etc.

And it is here, where I say, you cannot claim a perspective that is not your own. Well you can, but it is imagined, not real, and since it is not a real perspective, it is made up, and need not fit the facts.

For instance, in your above post, you said that there could be another TAR in the universe "NOW". How exactly do you define "NOW". There is not one time that fits all portions of the universe. The speed of light, being so freaking slow, in relationship to the size of the known universe, it takes "now" 10s of thousands of years, just to get to edge of our galaxy. (about 100,000 light years in diameter.) So one of those TARs that you say could exist now in the universe, has a good chance, since I have a lifespan of 120 years max, of either being dead, when now arrives where he was, or not born yet at the location where he will be born. In either case, such an exact TAR as me does not exist, "NOW".

So if you want to break the laws of physics, and say that there is an imaginary "now", that exists similtaneously at all locations, and all locations can be experienced and known at the same moment, you have to take a "God's eye" view. This is, by the way, why I say that scientists, believe in God, because they put themselves in the shoes, of such a being, to claim that there is such thing as "now" everywhere.

By the scientists model, the universe NOW is exactly 13.73xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx... billion years old, everywhere, and is composed of strings of galaxies of this exact age, with mostly third generation stars in them. This is not the universe we are looking at NOW, with images of the last scattering just reaching us NOW.

So we can go by the real NOW, that takes the speed of light to get anywhere, or we can go by the imagined, gods eye, scientist's view.

Our real now, reduces the chances of an exact TAR NOW, because of the lifetime issue, so we will go by the gods eye view 13.73billion year old NOW. This one will make another exact TAR more likely, because every location in the universe would have had the same time to develop third generation stars and heavy elements and all, and reproduce the kind of elemental environment in which life on this planet evolved. So hundreds of billions of 13.73 billion year old stars, times hundreds of billions of Galaxies, gives you a pretty big number, like 10 to the 22 power I think. 100000000000000000000000. Half them are two big and hot so we have 5 times 10 to the 21st left. Too small and cold leaves 2.5 times 10 to the 21st. I only have to come up with about 100 ways to half the number, give you the bigger half, and half it again. We could easily get down to a small number just to define the conditions required for life. Then the conditions to produce dna, and mitochondria, and cells and organisms. We would have very few planets that could produce the exact combination of biodiversity that exists on Earth. And we haven't even gotten humans, much less lucy, much less Plato and John Lennon, much less my Mom, or me.

And how do you get my mom or me, who both knew of John Lennon, without John Lennon.

In anycase, you don't have enough planets to even come close to this one, completely impossible to reproduce it exactly.

So you are left with only the infinite universe argument. Start with a number you can't divide in half, and everything or anything is possible. But infinity is a concept that we have no way to verify, and no way to comprehend. Sort of a wild card thought. An imagined model. That can mean anything we want it to mean. I could use it against you, and say there are an infinite number of aspects to reality, and say the isotopes of carbon have to match my double's exactly, that the spin of the electrons around each necleus of every atom in my body have to match exactly, and the gravitational pull of the planets have to match exactly.

Even in your infinite universe, this TAR, WILL NOT, CAN NOT exist, exactly, again, other than this one, in any NOW you wish to define.

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

Quite an interesting response. I can see that the argument has already devolved into the semantics of 'now', 'self', and 'infinity'. My infinite universe argument can, you're right, very easily be used against me. But if you say something along the lines of there being an infinite number of variations in the information necessary to construct a double like you have, you've shot yourself in the foot. This means, of course, that your 'self' also is quite mercurial in nature. Each moment that passes, your constitution changes rather dramatically such that from one second to the next, it is highly improbable on the order of impossibility that you will ever be exactly the same at two moments separated in time.

Now I could easily take this as another reason why the idea of self is uselessly ambiguous, but I won't because that can be brought up in the thread about what you claim to be your 'self'. Instead I will say that since you take all these near infinite variations (infinite if time is continuous, very very large but finite if time is only decomposable to the Planck time) to still be yourself, a proper double will be any variation that is within this set of possible constructions of 'you' at any given time. This easily deals with your issue of imprecision because there are so many different variations to choose from, the odds swing in my favour once more that once upon a time somewhere there is a copy of TAR.

Of course, I'm only humoring you. My main point, not to forget, is one you actually did not really address. It is not that you're wrong and that the evidence points to there in fact being a copy somewhere, but rather that we don't have access to any kind of evidence either way and as such to make a claim like the one you made with any sort of certainty is downright ridiculous.

[tar]

Kyrish,

Feb 5, 2010 11:01:33 GMT Kyrisch said:

But if you say something along the lines of there being an infinite number of variations in the information necessary to construct a double like you have, you've shot yourself in the foot. This means, of course, that your 'self' also is quite mercurial in nature. Each moment that passes, your constitution changes rather dramatically such that from one second to the next, it is highly improbable on the order of impossibility that you will ever be exactly the same at two moments separated in time.

It is the awesome varitions, and possibilities in any one human's makeup, and lifetime, that make it very unlikely, if not impossible for the whole incident to be repeated exactly, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. This is the uniqueness that I am talking about. What you keep missing, or ignoring, or not understanding, is that my life has a reference point, a consistency, a constant thread, which is the human organism that is TAR. I can sleep, be unconscious, or awake and paying attention to any number of things, but this particular body, with all its complex organs, senses and functions, this particular pattern, different than that of a dogs, or a fish, or a worm, is maintaining its form and structure, no matter what I am thinking or what I am doing. That is the me, that is the TAR, evolved from Lucy, born of my Mom and Dad, that I am talking about, when I say TAR. Now along with this body, comes a heart, that beats a rhythm that paces my existence, that synchronizes me to the cycles of the Earth, the days and night, and the seasons, and announces the passage of time. And in the wonderous brain, that has evolved, that monitors and regulates the varied systems required to keep the body and heart and the brain itself functioning and supplied with oxygen and nutrients, are the memories of all the places and sights and sounds, and smells, and feelings and thoughts that this particular vantage point, this particular, unique body/brain/heart combo, has experienced since its brain and systems where developled enough, in my mother's womb, to start sensing and remembering. And this particular person, this particular human, this particular body/brain/heart combination, which is TAR, has been the same organism, since I was born, and will someday cease to function as an organism. In the inbetween, I am always me, and no one else. When I sleep others are awake, when I am awake others are asleep. My particular memories and thoughts, reside in my brain only, the language and symbols, are shared with others, the world I experience is shared by others, but the particular vantage points, the particular combination of events, scenes, thoughts, and people that make up my life, and my world, are not the same as anybody else's on Earth, much less what an organism would experience on another planet.

You say that I am just a certain amount of information. That this is reproduceable as a bunch of ones and zeros. I disagree. On two levels. One, you might be able to "describe" me with a tremendous amount of ones and zeros, but you wouldn't "have" me. To get me, you would have to have a universe, that evolved as this one did, creating the elements and planet that it did, and have biogenesis occur as it did, and evolution occur as it did, and western society occur as it did, with the colonization of North America and have all the people that married and had babies that married and had my parents etc. And then you would have my body brain heart combo, sans the experiences that I have had in the last 56 years. Once you have all that, then you would have me. You can't turn ones and zeros into me.

And two, I am conscious, which ones and zeros can't do.

So all in all, it is the perspective, from this particular human on this particular Earth, that is me. That cannot happen elsewhere. It wouldn't be me.

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

You disagree that say, your body and perhaps the cubic metre of environment therearound can be described with a finite amount of information?

[tar]

Feb 7, 2010 19:57:08 GMT Kyrisch said:

You disagree that say, your body and perhaps the cubic metre of environment therearound can be described with a finite amount of information?

Kyrisch,

Yes, I do disagree. You were brought up in a digital world, and don't quite get the analog nature of nature. You imagine that a quark or some elemental component is going to either be in this state or that, and you just have to string a bunch of these binary components together to get a universe. It is the relational aspects that you and others on this "information" kick, are missing, in my estimation.

For instance, take the angle of a "spin". I don't know exactly what a "spin" is, but I do know that, say the spin of the Earth, is a relational thing. If you are standing on the North Pole and look at your feet, the Earth would be spinning in a counter-clockwise direction. On the South Pole, you look down and find the Earth is rotating in the opposite direction. So what information is contained there? Plus or minus? One or zero? Clockwise or counter clockwise?

I think Turing is the culprit, or perhaps the scientific explainations of "closed" systems. Fact is, there is not anything "closed" about the universe, in my estimation. You can get some valuable work done, with asumptions and approximations along these lines, but simplifying the universe, does not do it any real justice, if your goal is to "get to the bottom of it."

Take an atom. Just going about its own business, trying to reach some "rest" state, popping off photons as its electrons fall to lower energy orbits. But darn, the rest of the universe's atoms are trying the same trick, and the photons they are emitting are hitting their neighbors and exciting their electrons into more energetic orbits.

When you look at a star, some atom in your eye is being struck by the energy that was released by an electron that fell to a lower orbit in an atom of hydrogen perhaps, in a star hundreds of lightyears away.

Closed system my eyeball.

The cubic yard of space around me is inundated by the energy fields, and particles that are bringing in "information" of all sorts. The nature of material hundreds of lightyears away is available in my cubic yard, on a starry night. Does this "finite" amount of information you are talking about include that information?

Every angle of incidence, every photon of energy, every electrical field established by a passing photon, is important, and effects the nature of the rest of my cubic yard. And in turn, my cubic yard has had, is having, and will have effect on its surroundings.
And since it is not a "static" situation, there is not a moment in time, when the whole cubic yard can be described exactly as a certain amount of "information" in a certain configuration and relationship to each other, because the speed of light does not carry "information" from one corner of the cubic yard, to the other instantaneously.

You need a point of view. A reference point, to make sense of any "information".

So no. I don't think that my cubic yard contains a finite amount of information.

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

Feb 11, 2010 6:36:22 GMT tar said:

Feb 7, 2010 19:57:08 GMT Kyrisch said:

You disagree that say, your body and perhaps the cubic metre of environment therearound can be described with a finite amount of information?

Yes, I do disagree. You were brought up in a digital world, and don't quite get the analog nature of nature. You imagine that a quark or some elemental component is going to either be in this state or that, and you just have to string a bunch of these binary components together to get a universe. It is the relational aspects that you and others on this "information" kick, are missing, in my estimation.

It is you who was not who does not understand the concept of information. An atom will be in either this state or that, or more accurately a superposition of the two. The relationship aspect is just how the information changes over time.

For instance, take the angle of a "spin". I don't know exactly what a "spin" is, but I do know that, say the spin of the Earth, is a relational thing. If you are standing on the North Pole and look at your feet, the Earth would be spinning in a counter-clockwise direction. On the South Pole, you look down and find the Earth is rotating in the opposite direction. So what information is contained there? Plus or minus? One or zero? Clockwise or counter clockwise?

-facepalm-

The cubic yard of space around me is inundated by the energy fields, and particles that are bringing in "information" of all sorts. The nature of material hundreds of lightyears away is available in my cubic yard, on a starry night. Does this "finite" amount of information you are talking about include that information?

Yes, at a single moment in time that would all be contained in a full description.

Every angle of incidence, every photon of energy, every electrical field established by a passing photon, is important, and effects the nature of the rest of my cubic yard. And in turn, my cubic yard has had, is having, and will have effect on its surroundings.
And since it is not a "static" situation, there is not a moment in time, when the whole cubic yard can be described exactly as a certain amount of "information" in a certain configuration and relationship to each other, because the speed of light does not carry "information" from one corner of the cubic yard, to the other instantaneously.

Then there would be a level of uncertainty, of superposition. But it would still be finite. To say that it would not be finite is to say that it would be infinite which is utterly ridiculous.

And your thing about reference points, your example about spin makes no sense. You can measure the angular velocity from any reference point. Information is not really dependent on a reference point, your reference point just determines how the information will be expressed.

[tar]

Kyrisch,


"Yes, at a single moment in time that would all be contained in a full description."

But here is the rub. Which single moment in time are you referring to?

This is my point about reference points. How in the world to you concieve of the universe at a single moment?

And you passed right by the point that there is not such a thing as a single moment in even a cubic yard of the universe. By the time you measure a state at one corner, that is no longer the state that that corner is in, at the moment you measure it. Light speed, or should I say, light slowness, parses the other portions of the cubic yard, into any measuring point any sensing point, any recording point that happens to exist inside the cubic yard.

What we do have though, as a reference point, is our human body, our human mind, our human conventions. Since you and I both operate at about the same speed, we can say stuff about the rest of the universe, that makes sense to the other. We both know what a second is, compared to a day or a year. We can figure stuff out using our selves as reference points.

Take the two of us out in a field 200 yards apart and each yell "one" at the same moment.

Soundwise, there would to each of us appear to be a discrepency.
But lightwise, there is also a discrepency. About 600 nano seconds. So whose moment is now?

So pick your moment, and measure the state of every partical, in every atom in your cubic meter, from the reference point of one chosen partical in your cubic meter, and you come up with one finite group of measurements. But think about that same moment, and look at your cubic from the outside, or from a different particle's reference point, and the information is different. Since every defined moment from one reference point would measure the information contained in your cubic yard differently, I submit to you that there is not a limit to the defined moments, and reference points that can measure your cubic yard, each finding the information is different, and therefore, not a limit, to the information contained in your cubic yard. Rather infinite, if you ask me.

[Kyrisch]

Fine, then, if that is your view, then we bump up against the same question we are wrestling with in the other thread; how can you possibly define a unique TAR? If there are an infinite number of things that can be called TAR, then the point is moot.

[tar]

Kyrisch,

Not an infinite amount of things that can be called TAR. Just one.
The infinity I was talking about, are the possible imagined perspectives that there are to take in the cubic yard. The difference being, that my perspective, the TAR perspective is real, not imagined.

The trick, the rub, the central point I am trying to express to you, is the constant thread that is alway "you". It has much to do with the history of life on Earth and the evolution of man. The organism, that is Kyrisch is unique in the universe. It is a compilation of many individual cells and organs which also exist, in form and function in other mammals and especially in other humans, and the actual forms and complex structures and patterns are alive and real, and worthy of much praise and wonder in their success in reproducing themselves and surviving in a universe that generally tends toward entropy. It is a tremendous accomplishment to be alive and so capable as a Kyrisch is. Your form and structure, separates you from other forms and structures in the universe. Your consciousness is a result of the form and structure which is Kyrisch, and your consciousness only ever existed where the Kyrisch organism existed. But this fact, that where ever the Kyrisch organism is, the Kyrisch consciousness is found (sleeping or awake) ties the two together, as one thing, one unique part of the universe, separate and different from all other parts.

The Gestalt is you. Not the infinite components.

Regards, TAR

[Kyrisch]

Feb 18, 2010 3:20:42 GMT tar said:

Kyrisch,

Not an infinite amount of things that can be called TAR. Just one.
The infinity I was talking about, are the possible imagined perspectives that there are to take in the cubic yard. The difference being, that my perspective, the TAR perspective is real, not imagined.

The trick, the rub, the central point I am trying to express to you, is the constant thread that is alway "you". It has much to do with the history of life on Earth and the evolution of man. The organism, that is Kyrisch is unique in the universe. It is a compilation of many individual cells and organs which also exist, in form and function in other mammals and especially in other humans, and the actual forms and complex structures and patterns are alive and real, and worthy of much praise and wonder in their success in reproducing themselves and surviving in a universe that generally tends toward entropy. It is a tremendous accomplishment to be alive and so capable as a Kyrisch is. Your form and structure, separates you from other forms and structures in the universe. Your consciousness is a result of the form and structure which is Kyrisch, and your consciousness only ever existed where the Kyrisch organism existed. But this fact, that where ever the Kyrisch organism is, the Kyrisch consciousness is found (sleeping or awake) ties the two together, as one thing, one unique part of the universe, separate and different from all other parts.

The Gestalt is you. Not the infinite components.

Regards, TAR

Well then the gestalt is comprised of a finite amount of information... Even though most of it is encoded in the form of quantum superpositions and other reference-dependent forms. I don't see how anything that has transpired in this thread says otherwise.

[tar]

Kyrisch,

What about the analog nature of both the world outside our bodies, and the analog nature of the way we internalize it?

As you probably know, when an analog signal (like a sine wave) is measured inorder to turn it into a digital measurement it is "squared off", approximated over both the x and y axis, both the time duration and the magnitude of the wave. With this method you can get a "finite" result, a number, a digital number for the squared off magnitude of the wave over a sufficiently small time period to suit your purposes. But it is an estimation, and as Pi can be figured to more and more decimal places so can a sine wave be represented to finer and finer precision, by taking smaller and smaller slices of time, and squaring off and taking the average of the magnitude over that time period. There is not a barrier you will reach that says you cannot divide the last time period you used in half, and take the average again of the magnitude over that time period as your magnitude number. Here you will see, that in an analog world, the amount of information you can derive, from even a simple sine wave is infinite.

Add to this, the nature of the human internalization of the outside world, which is done in an analog fashion. The sine wave is internalized as a sine wave. The pattern is "filled" in, evened out in such a way as to comprehend it in a smooth analog fashion, not a digitized approximation.

You can imagine a perfect circle. Even though the pixel count in your eyes, might not be able to see a perfect circle. Your mind fills in the blanks, where the data, the information coming in through the optic nerve might be limited. But the actual circle you are looking at may be smooth and perfect beyond your eye's abilities to define it.

It does not take a whole lot of information for the mind to construct a pattern. After all, people see the face of Jesus in a cheese sandwich. But at the same time, the actual information contained in the outside world is not all reaching the brain, through the rough senses. Just meager analog signals that the senses sample and which the brain reconstructs into the smooth and complete analog representation of the outside thing which emitted the signals.

A truck, just a few hundred yards ahead of you on the highway can be hidden behind the tip of your pinky at arms length. But the meager angular size, the few photons reaching your eyes from the truck, is not the limit of the information you glean from the sight of it. You put it in context, you automatically make the geometric translations, you automatically do the calculus of speed and acceleration and the changes going on all around you, that maintain, in your perception, a solid, continuous, real, outside world which your body is a member of.

So both the world, and our perception of it, are analog in nature. Continuous, and smooth. Both the objects, and the energy waves that announce the objects' presence and character to us. This is not a finite amount of information. Not if the simplist of waves can be described to infinite precision.

Regards, TAR