| | Fred,
I understand all you are saying...
=== Random, Improbable, & The Origin of the Universe ===
What is the meaning of "random"? "Random" is a descriptive word. "Random" is always said in reference to a particular Reality Simulating Systems (RSSs) (whether explicit or implied). A collection of random observations are those in which an RSS's collection of outputs are inconsistent: the RSS failed to predict the observations.
Improbable is just a further constraint of "random" descriptive word. An improbable observation is one in which an RSS's output was inconsistent, and furthermore the time between each occurrence of the RSS producing such an output is large. The larger the time between each occurrence of the output, the more improbable the output is. (Time is a measure of how much reality has changed, one can measure time by the position of the Earth relative to the Sun and the stars, by how many times a digital RSS's clock cycles, or how many times a collection of neurons fire).
Improbable events don't explain why anything exists, nor why something couldn't exist. Improbable events are just the recognition that reality is complex, and that its constituent parts are so vast that all of its possible states that it potentially could change through are infinite (given our reality's parts don't repeat through time in their state (state = relative position/velocity of parts). Even if reality did go through a forever looping cycle of exact repetition of states, I'm sure we can agree that all of the states it continually goes through are still ridiculously vast.
Someone might say: "Given all of the potential states a reality could be, isn't it just amazing that we exist? Ya know, just too improbable, like one out of 10^10000000000000... different states I could imagine! How ever many zeros I want to stack on to think of all the different ways reality could be, and yet here we are!"
And I would reply: No, its not amazing. Because here we are, so I'm not amazed. Its clear, we are here, its not impossible, it is true. We are part of a self consistent system. I imagine all such systems exist, in fact, there are an infinite number of such systems. So it doesn't matter how many zeros you raise that 10 to, there is truth system which exists for each of those possibilities too.
I would just point out that the O2 needs a container, and furthermore without a massively complex system of energy/matter external to the container influencing the vectors of movement of the contained O2, someone with a supercomputer could probably predict exactly how such a system would behave... unfortunately it wouldn't be possible to observe the position and vectors of all the O2 and N2 due to observation altering position and/or velocity. But yea, its totally conceivable to me that given such a system, once in a while the system would be all sorts of things. Like once in a while O2 and N2 separate w/ all O2 on the top, as you suggest.
And in the coin flipping, if it was performed in a vacuum, or performed in air who's flow was known, and the force vectors applied to the coin were known, and the coin's initial position & orientation relative to the floor were known, then it would be quite easy to predict which side the coin would land on. It becomes harder to predict as the system that applies the force to the coin applies force that is of such a high magnitude that the period of coin rotation is smaller than force application measurement noise floor (you would need better instrumentation), or that you would have to include air drag in the calculations too (more calculations). Or the frequency of rotation is so high that when the coin collides with the floor it will collide with so much energy that it wouldn't just fall on that side, it would then result in a mix of inelastic and elastic collisions, of which you would need to compute all sorts of physical details from the deformation of the coin and the floor to all of the surface imperfections maybe down to the atomic level and in order to correctly predict the 3D position, rotational velocity, and linear velocity after the collision is complete. But eventually as we continue to increase the force that we'd apply to the coin, in practical, its not possible to predict which side the coin would land on because little things like the position and speed vectors of all of the air molecules become important factors that need to be included in the prediction calculation system in order to get the prediction up over the "noise" floor.
This is my understanding of random events: random events are just events that are determined by such great complexity of deterministic causes that its impossible for an observation & prediction entity to correctly know all of the initial state and perform all of the detailed physics simulation in order to come up with a prediction that has any expectation of being better than using some other part of reality as a practically random outcome generator. Random events, from the perspective of us prediction capable entities, are only “random” because we are unable to make a prediction of the outcome that is any more likely to be correct than a prediction coming from any other source. You must have enough information about the system's initial state and know how the system changes and have the computational ability to apply the change formulas to the initial state... in order to be able to predict the outcome of a coin flip better than using ANY other source of heads/tails information, then the outcome is no longer considered random. Yet, from the perspective of reality, which is all of its initial state, and does do its process of change, the future result is inevitable. Inevitable, and yet not yet extant until reality becomes. The ridiculously complex truth system that is our reality is consistent with becoming with such a state, it does become it at one moment in its continual flow of state change. It is its combination of current state and continual process of change.
Now as for your system of matter and antimatter being launched in opposite directions: lets say there was first nothing. Then from nothing matter and antimatter of equal but opposite mass separated in opposite directions. First let me note that its not just conservation of mass/energy, but also conservation of momentum. This would be a case of conservation of energy, but not conservation of momentum. Lets say matter goes in the positive X direction and antimatter goes in the -X direction. E = (1/2)mv^2 and p = mv. If the mass and velocity of the matter was 1 and 1, and the mass and velocity of the antimatter was -1 and -1... then for the entire system E = 0 and p = 2. But when there was nothing, p = 0. A contradiction.
So I'll give you that maybe there's a bunch of antimatter elsewhere in our reality, but I won't give you that matter and antimatter just split without cause... unless you want to deny conservation of mass and energy. Before they split there was something else. So knowing whether there is antimatter elsewhere is completely irrelevant in answering the question “Why is there anything?”. We've already agreed on this so far.
Or do you want to claim that once in a while conservation of energy and momentum is broken? Just once in a while? Like how often? If it happens once every trillion years, why not a trillion times a second? Wouldn't such a system be complete chaos, where nothing happens via cause? I think we can agree that our reality, if it ever does have an instance where conservation of mass & energy is broken, that it happens ridiculously infrequently, or to such a small extent that we can't differentiate it from the causal effects of reality as we already know exist yet are unable to know position/velocity of nor do all of the calculations to simulate physics to predict.
Furthermore, I would say that our reality, everything that I observe, can all be explained by it being a deterministic system. So why would you want to add uncaused events that break conservation of mass & energy? Its is simpler to stick with determinism, just the same as it is simpler not to imagine a God. And to say that all possible truth systems exist (yet are independent of each other) is also very simple. Breaking conservation of energy and momentum, even just once in a while, just seems like nonsense to me.
=== Determinism, Free Will ===
And then for those who would like to jump in now and say: “But reality isn't deterministic, because I have free will!” I ask you to think about what you are saying. Are you saying that what you think about is completely arbitrary, uncaused by yourself nor anything at all? That neurons in your brain just fire, uncaused, not having any reason for happening, that the electromagnetic event breaks conservation of energy and momentum? Or do you claim that your thoughts have reason for being as they are? I would agree, if you are a well functioning human, then most of your thoughts are there because you've re-iterated over them over and over, and via the design of your brain, you increase the number of copies of information that is repeatedly thought, and you overwrite information that you infrequently think... that this is the reason why your memories are as they are. Furthermore, reasons to keep thinking of an idea is because you have identified it as both valid and useful. You can't control ALL of your thoughts, because you can't control your sensory information. Nor can you by will change what you are at this moment, you can only change to become what you will be in the next moment.
What is intelligence? To a vast extent you, your design and your memories, you take what information you have and perform the following process: You bring into active memory a subset of your memories of associations of actions with sensory state changes (ones related to your current observations), inducting the effect of the actions, and then using this information combined with your current observations, processing various sequences of actions and using the inducted effects of the actions to deduce (predict) what the future state of reality would be given these premises... and then comparing these predictions against your goals to determine the predicted goal attainment that would result from each plan, then compare the predicted goal attainments to find the one that has the greatest goal attainment, then selecting that plan and sequentially sending the commands for each action to your actuators (such as muscles) in order to actualize your plan and attempt to actualize your predicted goal. You perform the plan. You mark all of the used action->effect associations within the plan as “used again! (make another copy of the association)”. You observe the results of your actions, and you take big note of actions which produced results different than you expected (delete one action->effect association, make a new action->effect association). You identify actions that produced results consistent with what you expected, and you remember “It worked one more time (make a copy of the association of action->effect)!”. If the goal wasn't attained, but the goal is really important to you, then you take tons of time thinking about those action->effect associations which didn't go as predicted, and you try to come up with a new action->effect association that works more in more contexts. This process, intelligence, is the underlying process of the human mind, and our ability to store more memories, perform more induction, and more of all of the above, all with making fewer mistakes (yea there are tons of places where information could be corrupted or comparisons could be calculated incorrectly)... humans have more ability in each of those aspects of design than any other species on earth.
Furthermore, isn't this compatible with a deterministic reality? To the extent that a system is controlled, it must be due to a causal deterministic process. To the extent that we are objective, it is because we use observation, induction, and deduction, all of which are deterministic processes.
"Free will" is the recognition that every man has his own unique hierarchy of goals, and furthermore that every man observes and predict his actions, and then selects his own actions based on the reasoning of his own predictions. That men have such a great intellectual ability that they can identify self/friend harmful patterns of action that arise in one's mind instinctively due to unexpected events that trigger passionate desires and instead come up with detailed plans of sequences of minute precision actions which vastly improve his self/friends situation beyond the simple plans (like gouge, clobber, bite, grab, tear, thrust) that less capable living things can conclude to actualize.
Cheers,
Dean
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By definition, the universe is the totality of ALL that exists. It doesn’t define “part of what exists,” for this would be a contradiction against itself and require a new word to define ALL that exists, a useless undertaking, since there is already a word to define ALL that exists, namely “Universe”. It is, thus, an absolute which renders, in itself, those scientists that hold that there are many universes as ignorant of the definition of “Universe”. By definition, “God” is the totality of capacities, characteristics and existence in itself. It is omnicreative, omnipotent, all-knowing, etc. etc. It is not a partiality of what it is, but a totality of it. It is, thus, an absolute. Here we have two absolutes, which, thus, contradict each other. As philosopher Ayn Rand clearly stated, whenever there’s a contradiction, at least one of its premises is wrong. Above absolutes are the two premises of the contradiction, i.e. they are absolute oppositions. Hence, if “God” exists, then the universe doesn’t exist. On the other hand, if the universe exists, its existence renders the existence of “God” impossible. Therefore, since the universe demonstrably exists, “God” does not exist. This, in itself, solves the riddle.
