sordavie

"Handling 'chaos theory'?" What does Chaos theory have to do with problems in software and finding a "viable signal" in the static?

... Maybe you've been reading a bit too much pop sci.

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Gambit7

It's been said that "wormholes" would HAVE to exist for our universe to even be able to sustain itself. So far, the math only supports their existence for nanoseconds though. Like I said, only an artificial wormhole would be stable enough to actually use.

If we think more deeply though, one could say that the Universal Aether itself represents the best shot at a wormhole. In reality, all matter and thought really are is Information. If you can xmit that info. instantaneously across vast distances (which we can), then you've technically built yourself a wormhole of sorts. hehe

The seething froth that is our existence is actually a finite amount of interconnected "wormholes."

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Gambit7

If you look at the static as a chaotic system, then obviously understanding chaos theory would help you gleen useful info. from that chaos right?

I guess there's a terminology issue at work here also. What we're truly looking for is a meaningful pattern lost in apparent randomness. Of course, true chaos most likely does not exist.

(and now I'm confusing myself)

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sordavie

It has been said by who? This is currently accepted science within the scientific community? What math? Show me some respected theoretical physicists who think the math supports this.

How do you know an artificial wormhole would be stable? Even if worm holes are physically possible, it does not follow that artificial worm holes are physically possible. Where are you getting this from?

What is the "Universal Aether?" Where are you getting this term from and why do you think this "represents the best hot at a wormhole?"

Honestly, it sounds to me like you're just spewing a lot of techno-physics-mumbo-jumbo that you'd find on internet physics forums where crack-pot amateur "physicists" gather because nobody else will take them seriously.

I couldn't even gues at what your last sentence means.

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sordavie

Why would you think that the static is chaotic rather than just random? Chaos theory is used to describe non-randomness (deterministic systems) that are apparently random. It is, unfortunately, a very misleading term, since in normal English, 'chaos' and 'randomness' are similar in meaning.

For a basic example, consider the function -4x^2 + 4x. Call the function F. There is no randomness or indeterminacy in F. You so long as you input the same number for x each time you call F, F will give you the same output.

Now, consider a recursive iteration of the function. That is, pick an input x for F. This is your starting point. F will return some output y. This is the first iteration. For the second iteration, use y as the input. Do this a lot. You should notice some kind of pattern.

Now try it with some other starting points. Notice some unexpected behavior? That is chaos, as it is termed by those who study chaos theory. Again, there is nothing random or indeterminate about the function F nor anything random or indeterminate about recursive iterations of F. However, we get unexpected behavior that appears random. Chaos theory attempts to describe why that is.

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Gambit7

I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night

edit: seriously though, w/o an extensive "works cited" and pages of proofs coupled with irrefutable lab evidence one will always be considered a "crack-pot." I'm not going to do any of this in this forum (mostly because it's 0330). So if you wish to view it as mumbo-jumbo, so be it. My my, how convenient it always is for detractors to demand extensive proof for anything they disagree with. How about this logic? I dare you to mathematical disprove anything I said...

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MagnaCentipede

I've never been a fan of chaos theory, especially the butterfly example. They use this grand parable that's wholly deterministic, but base it on (what appears to be) a voluntary (free-will) event. Determinism is not to be handled lightly, because if you have determinism, you kill God, and there was no if regarding the flapping of a wing, and the weather is what it was determined to be at time .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds after the big kaboom.

This also irritates me to no end:So, Eddie used rounded numbers, got a different result, and that somehow substantiates chaos theory? NO. That 12345 x 67890 doesn't equal 10000 x 70000 is not a factoid that says anything other than "mind your significant figures, pupils." The only thing earth-shattering about that little blip in the history of mathematics is that it means that the six-digit internal registers probably aren't reliable either.

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Extinct

There is so much scientific evidence to support the "Theory" of evolution is all I'm saying, my wording is way off but evolution seems much more possible than a "divine spirit" that has been written thousand's of years ago.

El_Gringo_Grande

People, a theory is more powerful than a fact.

And I also disagree with many other statements made in this thread.

There is great things to be gained by communication alone. Just look at TG. All that is ever exchanged between most of us is information. Whether it be games or this forum.

But most of all I think everybody is missing the point. Think about what accepting the null hypothesis means. That the life on earth is the only life, period. That there is nothing else out there. And contrast that to the hypothesis that there is other life in the universe.

For me it is a complete, and I mean complete, change in my whole attitude/mind set. God, even if a complete admitted fantasy, becomes almost necessary for me just to keep sanity.

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Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
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I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

Gambit7

Is there anything in the Bible that says Earth was God's only project?

What's funny to me is, most religious texts point to a Universe that's actually FULL of life and potential wonder... so how people use those same texts to spout that we're somehow all that there is seems pretty conceited to me. In the end, it really boils down to Ego and making oneself feel "special." (pounds chest) "Yes yes.. WE are all that exists of value in the Universe..yes, WE! Feel my wrath!" (pounds chest) -this type of logic is really twisted to me and is what truly lies at the root of all Sin, and that's Vanity.

And again, how can you tout Creationism and then tout that the Earth was all that was created? That's an extreme example of an oxymoron right there. It makes absolutely no sense.

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MagnaCentipede

It's true that most religions speak of a world that is full of life, but many have a very small world to worry about. Open up your copy of Carl Sagan's Cosmos (you DO have it handy) and open to page 17 (you DON'T? Fail. Click here for a suitable example) and observe how limited views of the planet were in none-too-recent times. It is easy to speak of a universe filled with life when your universe is a habited region of three continents that you can surround with a vague ocean filled with hungry sea snakes with poor networking skills and feel confident that no one who challenges your statements will prove them otherwise in a manner that you can't argue away, or that you can't just yell WITCH! and burn the annoyance until he stops talking.


The religion factor is that it is as easy to say God created stars/space/out-there because they are part of His plan for Humans as it is to say they were created for any other reason. In fact, it is a stronger argument because since Humans are Special because Humans have the ability to say I'M SPECIAL AND YOU'RE NOT, ANIMAL to anything that isn't Human, clearly it is sensible that God wouldn't create stars for any reason other than for humanity's benefit.

this type of logic is really twisted to me and is what truly lies at the root of all Sin, and that's Vanity.
Ever notice that God seems to showcase all the amusing sins? He's got covered Wrath, Pride, and Lust; and probably Envy though a ripe example doesn't come straight to mind. Greed falls to the church since they need all your gold to absolve your sins.


Moving back to the topic of alien communication and humans yelling at animals, I'm highly disappointed in that humans have done such a poor job communicating with animals. We've gotten through to some apes and are started on dolphins, but really we've a long ways to go and solving communication with all species of significant brain mass is a critical bit of homework before we go about trying to establish the intergalactic party line. Lord knows the Omicronians aren't apt to make the connection between "I declare that you have been soundly defeated" and "omg u got pwnt nub!" (And that they'll leave the microphone on.) We need to at least be able to have Flipper guest-host a fishing show before we worry about what to say to ET after "Howdy, ya'll!"

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sordavie

Huh? How can I mathematically disprove what you said? You didn't make any claims that were mathematically evaluable. This is rhetoric typical of the crack-pots. They make some crack-pot claim and, when pressed for evidence, attempt to turn the tables by asking for disproof. Then, when the detractors can't provide disproof satisfactory to the crack-pot, they claim victory.

First of all, you are making claims about what scientists claim. A claim about what some other people claim is not mathematically evaluable. I did not ask you to give us some mathematical proof. At the least, you should be able to tell us who you're making these claims about. This doesn't need to be extensive. Just point us in the direction and we can go take a look at it for ourselves.

Second, I made a call for evidence. I did not state that what you said was wrong. I asked for you to back up what you said with some kind of evidence. I suspect you are wrong, because it doesn't appear that you understand the terms that you use; but I did not say that you were wrong. As far as I know, respected theoretical physicists believe wormholes to be hypothetical structures of the surface of spacetime. They believe this because it is mathematically consistent with certain well accepted models of the universe. There is, however, no evidence that spacetime actually has these structures. If this is not right, then you should be able to point us to some respected physicists who claim that wormholes are actual but fleeting or that artificial wormholes are physically possible, as you claim.

Lastly, the things you claim that scientists have said are not provable purely by mathematics. Perhaps you misunderstand the status that mathematics has as a tool to theoretical physics. Mathematics is used to model physical phenomena. But mathematics by itself cannot tell us which model is correct. So long as the model is mathematically consistent, you cannot mathematically disprove it. Perhaps there are consistent models in which fleeting wormholes are necessary. It doesn't follow merely from the model's mathematical consistency that it's a correct model, or a model that accurately depicts how the universe is.

I think you misunderstand what the butterfly example is supposed elucidate. A chaotic system is deterministic, and is highly sensitive to it's initial conditions. It doesn't matter whether those initial conditions are brought about by free will or otherwise. The example abstracts away many features of the world and assumes that the weather beginning from the flapping of some butterfly wings is deterministic. Nothing about determinism--the thesis that everything is deterministic--follows from that. Chaos theory doesn't say that the world is deterministic. Chaos theory isn't a theory, so I'm not sure what there is to be a fan or non-fan about it.

Also, I don't know of any reason to think that if determinism is true, then you kill God or God doesn't exist. Richard Taylor, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...r_(philosopher), argues that determinism follows from the existence of God. I'm unaware of any respected philosopher who thinks that determinism is not compatible with the existence of God.

What does this mean? What do you mean by the words 'theory' and 'fact'? As far as usage in academia is concerned, theories are sets of declarative statements that attempt to explain some phenomena. Facts are how the world really is--the state of affairs of the world. In particular, facts are not statements.

Contrast this with the common usage of these words: 'fact' is often used to refer to some statement that is widely accepted or purported to be proven; 'theory' is often used to refer to some unsubstantiated statements. When you hear scientists say that "evolution is a fact" or talk about the "theory of evolution," they mean to use these terms as academics use them--not as they are ordinarily used.

The theory of evolution is a set of statements that attempt to explain some observed phenomena. The fact of evolution is a state of affairs of the world. When a scientist says that evolution is a fact, they don't merely mean that the statements of evolution are well supported by evidence. What they mean is that the world actually is a certain way. When they talk about the theory of evolution, they talk about the statements that attempt to explain some (observed) phenomena.

So, I don't know what you mean when you say a theory is more powerful than a fact.

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Kerostasis

Well, the Bible doesn't really go into potential life on other worlds, either to say yes or no. It would be theologically consistent for Earth to host the only life in the universe, and equally consistent for there to be an intelligent lifeform in every other solar system spread through the whole galaxy. The only thing the theology will really insist on is that if there is any other life out there, it was also created by God. That makes it extremely hard to predict mathematically how likely it is that there are x many civilizations out there, because everywhere God wanted to put one, there is one, and everywhere God didn't want to put one, there isn't one.

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tau_neutrino

Scientific theories unite facts into a common framework in which to describe observed phenomena.

Evolution is both a fact and a theory.

Fact: Allele frequencies change over time within populations over time. (This is the definition of biological evolution)

Theory: ToE provides a framework which describes how/why allele frequencies change over time by describing genetic bottlenecking and drift, natural selection, as all as the entire field of modern genetics.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

sordavie

I think you're just being uncareful with your words here. Evolution is not both a fact and a theory. There is such a thing as the theory of evolution and there are certain facts which we may call the facts of evolution. But they are not the same thing. A theory is a set of declarative statements. A fact is a state of affairs of the world. Those are very different kinds of things. Definitions are not facts. Definitions are statements.

Facts are what philosophers sometimes call 'truthmakers'. These are whatever makes declarative sentences true. The truthmaker for the sentence 'The Sun is 93 million miles from the Earth' is some way that the universe is--namely that the Sun a certain distance from the Earth. (Here I use single quote marks to denote that I'm talking about a sentence or statement.)

To see that theories and facts are wildly different kinds of things, first, consider that theories are mind-dependent while facts are mind-independent. That is to say there would still be facts even if there were no sentient beings in the universe, but there would be no theories. That's because sentences and statements are mind-dependent.

Second, consider that facts cannot be true or false while theories can. Truth and falsity are properties of sentences or statements. They are not properties of nonlinguistic things in the world. The Sun isn't true. Declarative sentences which describe the way the world is--the facts--accurately or correctly are said to be true. There is a fact about where my car is located right now. It is in the garage. This fact is what makes the statement 'my car is in the garage' true.

Third, consider that many scientific theories are mathematical models. These are attempts to model or describe how the world is. Mathematical models themselves are sets of mathematical sentences or statements. They are not facts. Again, this is because sets of sentences or statements are different kinds of things than facts are.

There are a set of statements that, taken together, are called the theory of evolution. These sentences are true just in case there are facts, such that the sentences accurately or correctly describes them. These facts, taken together, are called the facts of evolution.

This is the kind of confusion between reality and language is what leads some post modernists like Derrida to say crazy things like "all of reality is text" or "everything is language." These people confuse facts with sentences or statements.

Scientific theories are no different than other theories in this regard. They are sets of sentences which attempt to describe how the world is. In other words, theories are attempts to describe the facts. (Notice again that 'describe' is felicitous with 'sentence' or 'statement' but not with 'fact'. Theories or sentences or statements describe things. Facts do not describe things. Facts are things to be described. The things that do the describing are different than the things that are described.)

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