ZOMBIE FORUMS

It's a stinking, shambling corpse grotesquely parodying life.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 9:39 am 
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Rupert The Guerilla Rat wrote:
A/S/L Alibey?


Fixed it for you.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 10:10 am 
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Alibey wrote:
Rupert The Guerilla Rat wrote:

Wait, what the shit? Another servicemember on the boards? Rank/organization/MOS/time in service?


ok, I think that I got the Quote tags working this time.

SSG / US Army / USMTM Riyadh KSA / 2 years reserve and 19 active. probably one of the oldest on this board.

One of, yeah. We're up to what? 4 now, if you count Mr. Dead.

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 Post subject: Dammit, I intended my first post-hiatus Debate Club post to be in another thread... (Two guesses which one ^^)
PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 10:23 am 
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Emy wrote:
C_D wrote:
The theory goes "The random chances of evolution are so small that a higher force MUST have guided it."

Unless, of course, you except the (not unreasonable) idea that with millions of stars in the gallaxy, and at least dozens of galaxies, there are enough planets capable of supporting some kind of life, and enough different ways for something to be alive, that an merely improbable evolution of intelligent life was bound to happen on at least one of them.

I just wanted to add that if you take into account the Everett-DeWitt interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which all possibilities become manifest, and throw in the weak anthropic principle, then it's really no surprise we're here as long as it's possible for abiogenesis to occur at all (which, I might add, hasn't been proven yet), regardless of the odds.

Don't worry, you can always work God in at the level of basic cosmology, if you're so inclined (although some of those nasty string theorists are starting to get ideas about that, so you may not be able to indefinitely). As Emy noted, God tends to be placed outside whatever the limits of our current knowledge are, as a sort of placeholder.

But of course, one day we might find out enough to prove that there actually is one, and exactly what ve's responsible for...


Emy wrote:
It is an observed fact that life evolves. It is a matter of historical record that humanity has changed both physically and mentally in the course of human history. It is a widely accepted scientific theory, supported by numerous scientific studies that, life has evolved on this planet over the course hundreds of millions of years.

Evolution has been proven (even most Creationists, or Intelligent-Design types [which as I understand it is the same thing just without any particular mythological affiliation], accept that), but abiogenesis has never been actually observed. But there are plenty of other examples of isolated regions of greater complexity arising spontaneously from lower complexity, so in principle there's nothing to say it couldn't happen.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 10:39 am 
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WI wrote:
Abiogenesis has never been actually observed.

I thought there was an experiment that (repeatably) demonstrated this. Maybe i'm mistaken and it merely demonstrated spontaneous forumlation of amino acids or something. Or maybe they were forced to throw out the results because the base cultures were "contaminated" and it would be impossible under the conditions imposed by the detractor of the theory to produce an "uncontaminated" base culture.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 11:00 am 
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Wandering Idiot wrote:
I just wanted to add that if you take into account the Everett-DeWitt interpretation of quantum mechanics, and throw in the weak anthropic principle ...


The Everett-DeWitt interpretation is very suspect; it injects metaphysics into physics, which is a crazy bad idea. There is no need for any of these "interpretations": just do the math. The math works, irrespective of any "interpretation".

I suppose I am intellectually hostile to almost any metaphysical suggestion: with very few exceptions, metaphysical statements are absolutely insupportable by observation or demonstration. An example of a metaphysical statement that is observable is a performative, such as "I marry you"; but statements like "there are many parallel worlds" are statements of belief, not of fact or necessity.

As far as odds are concerned:

Chaos_Descending wrote:
The theory goes "The random chances of evolution are so small that a higher force MUST have guided it."


You are falling victim to an error known as the "gambler's fallacy". It matters not what the odds that a state of affairs should arise if that state of affairs has in fact come to be. If yesterday I flipped a particular fair coin a thousand times and on each flip it came up heads, I still will not bet for or against whether the next flip of that coin I make will come up heads.

If it is in fact very unlikely that intelligent life should arise in the universe, well, sobeit; though personally I am not so sure of that. Insofar as humans are intelligent, however, then that chance has come up. It does not mean anything save that the universe is lucky. (Or unlucky, if you happen to despise humanity.) It does not mean that we should expect other unlikely events to occur, e.g. the events described in the Revelation of St John the Divine.

The casinos of Las Vegas make very literally billions of dollars from people who play the slot machines thinking, "well, it hasn't paid off yet, so it's much more likely to pay off on the next quarter". No, it isn't.


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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 11:23 am 
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Couple math questions (don't answer, Tamayo, i know you can.)

G: X event has a 1% chance of occuring.
Q: How many iterations are required for the overall probability to reach or exceed 50%?

G1: X event has a 1% chance of occuring.
G2: X event occurs on the first of a series of 100 iterations.
Q: What is the probability of X event occuring at least once more in the remaining 99 iterations?

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Last edited by Emy on Sat Nov 06, 2004 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 11:37 am 
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Tamayo wrote:
The Everett-DeWitt interpretation is very suspect; it injects metaphysics into physics, which is a crazy bad idea. There is no need for any of these "interpretations": just do the math. The math works, irrespective of any "interpretation".

"Shut up and calculate!" -attributed to Feynman ;)

It may be a practical point of view as far as current research is concerned, but I think long-term it's extremely unsatisfying to present a predictive framework without making any attempt to work out the mechanisms which underly it. It would be like accepting the gravity equations and not trying to figure out how gravity works.

There are plenty of objections that could be brought up as regards the Copenhagen interpretation (which I'm pretty sure most physicists still subscribe to) as well, but I won't get into that since I'm making a post about it in another thread.


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Emy wrote:
I thought there was an experiment that (repeatably) demonstrated [abiogenesis]. Maybe i'm mistaken and it merely demonstrated spontaneous forumlation of amino acids or something.

You're talking about the Miller Experiment and its later variants, I assume. Yeah, as far as I know, they haven't been able to get anything more complex than amino acids out of them thus far.

I've forgetten eveything I know about probability calculations (must... get back... to college), so I'll leave the other bit for someone else.


ARCHIVAL NOTE: This line of discussion was continued in the Whys and Hows thread. Because apparently, some people just don't see how interpretations of quantum mechanics relate directly to voting demographics. Go figure.

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Last edited by Wandering Idiot on Sun Nov 21, 2004 9:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 12:39 pm 
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WI wrote:
There are plenty of objections that could be brought up as regards the Copenhagen interpretation (which I'm pretty sure most physicists still subscribe to) as well, but I won't get into that since I'm making a post about it in another thread.

Yes, please do.

I've been wondering about the more or less philosophical issues that have been brought to quantum physics, and the validity of some of the popularized thought experiments. (Schroedinger's cat, parallel worlds, etc.)

One of my more acerbic professors (in an unrelated but similarly complex topic) was motivated to tell us, "Such things are best left to experts. Anyone else will just screw it up and then not understand why they're wrong."

And while I don't fully agree with that philosophy, quantum mechanics does seem to suffer some sort of fringe effect that attracts bizarre and not too credible theories from people who don't seems to ... er ... understand the math.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 12:44 pm 
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Emy wrote:
Alibey wrote:
ok, I think that I got the Quote tags working this time.

SSG / US Army / USMTM Riyadh KSA / 2 years reserve and 19 active. probably one of the oldest on this board.

One of, yeah. We're up to what? 4 now, if you count Mr. Dead.


Well, there's also a squid here, but seems like Army is the most numerous. And everyone else outranks me. Scary.

Wait, no, that's 5 Army, not 4: Emy, Alibey, Mr. Dead, Barghest, and me. 'Cept Barghest hasn't posted or anything since he left for Infantry OSUT.

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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 12:47 pm 
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Emy wrote:
G: X event has a 1% chance of occuring.
Q: How many iterations are required for the overall probability to reach or exceed 50%?

69. :P

Quote:
G1: X event has a 1% chance of occuring.
G2: X event occurs on the first of a series of 100 iterations.
Q: What is the probability of X event occuring at least once more in the remaining 99 iterations?

1-.99^99

I hope I am, in fact, remembering probability correctly... wuhoh.


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 9:31 am 
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Rupert The Guerilla Rat wrote:
Emy wrote:
Alibey wrote:
ok, I think that I got the Quote tags working this time.

SSG / US Army / USMTM Riyadh KSA / 2 years reserve and 19 active. probably one of the oldest on this board.

One of, yeah. We're up to what? 4 now, if you count Mr. Dead.


Well, there's also a squid here, but seems like Army is the most numerous. And everyone else outranks me. Scary.

Wait, no, that's 5 Army, not 4: Emy, Alibey, Mr. Dead, Barghest, and me. 'Cept Barghest hasn't posted or anything since he left for Infantry OSUT.


that many on the boards, eh? makes one wounder how many are still lurking.

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:33 am 
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1) You all suck for letting this get this far.

2)
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
The American system is designed more for the thinly veiled illution of fairness rather than any actual want of accuracy.

Also voting on Tuesday is so it is difficult for certain types of people to get to polls. (students, blue collar workers, etc.)

If America really wanted a fair system election day would be a national holiday.


In Canada, your employer must give you 2 consecutive hours to vote, allowing everyone the chance.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:38 am 
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Skjie wrote:
1) You all suck for letting this get this far.

2)
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
The American system is designed more for the thinly veiled illution of fairness rather than any actual want of accuracy.

Also voting on Tuesday is so it is difficult for certain types of people to get to polls. (students, blue collar workers, etc.)

If America really wanted a fair system election day would be a national holiday.


In Soviet Canada, your candidate votes you!.

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 8:48 am 
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In Minnesota, I believe your employer is required to give you time off to vote... although the exact nature of how much time is unknown. I had the day off anyway, so it didn't matter.


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