Chance as a sole-product of the Universe

Oh Phat, please don't fall for this word game nonsense. It's designed to sound clever but is actually just intellectualised masturbation.

Chance is, of course 'a thing'. It's the name of the thing that describes how often a coin toss will result in heads or tails (amongst other things).

Phat writes: In your evidence based opinion...has there ever been a time in the history of time that nothing has existed?

I, like everyone else, have absolutely no idea.

Not only that, I doubt that the question has any meaning that three dimensional, temporal objects like people can make any sense of.

Phat writes: Its amazing to me how people see no difference between measurable probability and the whole idea of chance as a thing.

You're very easily amazed.

It doesn't matter whether 'chance' is a 'thing' like a table or the description of the probality of a 'thing' happening, like a coin landing heads. We all know what it means.

We know that it's the occurrence of a mutation (as an example) plus selection that causes evolution and that process involves chance. So what strange point are you trying to make? If it's that because chance isn't a 'thing' evolution doesn't happen, you're very, very, wrong.

If you're just saying that chance is not the causal factor, then it's a 'no shit Sherlock' moment.

Phat writes: What I am trying to do is to define this thing called chance.

You don't have to, it already has a definition - 2 actually.

chance
tʃɑːns/
noun
1.
a possibility of something happening.
"there is a chance of winning the raffle"
synonyms: possibility, prospect, probability, odds, likelihood, likeliness, expectation, anticipation, conceivability, feasibility, plausibility; More
antonyms: unlikelihood
the probability of something desirable happening.
"he played down his chances of becoming chairman"
an opportunity to do or achieve something.
"I gave her a chance to answer"
synonyms: opportunity, opening, occasion, turn, time, moment, window (of opportunity), slot;

2.
the occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause.
"he met his brother by chance"
synonyms: accident, coincidence, serendipity, fate, a twist of fate, destiny, fortuity, fortune, providence, freak, hazard; More

My take on it is it does not exist.

You've just been bamboozled by bollocks.

By total mass, micro-organisms win hands downd.

Haldene though thought it was beetles (quote later attributed to Darwin.)

The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals. Beetles are actually more numerous than the species of any other insect order. That kind of thing is characteristic of nature.

Phat writes: First of all, it is impossible for anything to at one time not exist and then to later exist. Out of nothing, nothing comes.

These are just bear assertions. The concept of 'nothing' is not something you or I understand. Hawkings thinks rather differently.

mtw writes: To read more about this issue, you may want to read the first message of the following topic but I don't wish to get into the I.D debate again because I've done it so many times now I almost fall asleep if it is mentioned

Bring your argument here or don't bother posting.

Phat writes: why is evidence held in higher regard than faith?

Faith tells us absolutely nothing about what is correct. Who is right the Hindu or the Christian?

Always this need from believers to make faith eqivalent to knowledge......

Evidence points to the best answers and increases our knowledge.

"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."

Phat writes: From a human perspective, this makes sense.

Fixed.

Seeing how this is a science forum, I will defer to you and Theodoric regarding evidence...although I still ascribe to the philosophy that nothing happens "by chance."

Coin toss, dice roll......?

quote:

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Is it possible to calculate a fixed probability for either of those?

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Coin toss p=.5
Dice roll p=.1666666666667

If you think differently you're about to lose a lot of money.

quote:

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Did someone toss the coin and/or throw the dice or did they simply toss themselves?

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Sometimes you worry me Phat. What on earth do you mean? Have you been smoking that funny stuff again?

Phat writes: My point is that you cant calculate probability on cosmic events.

You can calculate probability on anything with enough information. But in any case, none of this seems relevant to anything....?

Phat writes: My point is that I believe that the universe cannot be said to have occurred by chance. The universe was in fact created by necessary certainty. That it is means that we are. I struggle for the words I want to say. It may well be that one could assert that a Designer/Creator is unnecessary, but I would say that if the universe exists by necessity and if we exist and can intellectualize this stuff, than Certainty is involved rather than chance.

No Phat, what you are saying with all these mental gymnastics is that you don't understand how all this can have come about. You're tying yourself in knots with barely understood ideas.

Well nobody understands and it can't be resolved just by thinking and talking bollox - people far cleverer than you and me have failed to get anywhere with these sorts of arguments for thousands of years. The only progress we've made towards answers have come from mathematics and physics and those are beyond our comprehension.

I suggest you stick to your simple beliefs which are designed to get us over these difficult problems of incomprehension and not bother with trying to reconcile it with actual knowledge because it's pointless. It has never got anywhere and it never will - it'll just mess up your head.

The alternative, of course is to let go and realise that what you believe does not correlate to reality and get on with life for what it actually is without the waste of energy and time that is belief; quite short, but also quite interesting.

Phat writes: My point is that I see it as a spiritual war of ideas. Perhaps I am overthinking it in regards to science and physics...but look what this author suggests. He is basically describing chaos as a belief.

Well that was a huge pile of words with no obvious meaning.

I don't see any spiritual war; what I see is science trundling along creating knowledge and religious people getting upset when something is discovered that contradicts a personal belief. This war of yours is one sided - like Don Quixote tilting at the windmill - the windmill is oblivious.

Phat writes: My point is that I believe that the universe cannot be said to have occurred by chance. The universe was in fact created by necessary certainty. That it is means that we are. I struggle for the words I want to say. It may well be that one could assert that a Designer/Creator is unnecessary, but I would say that if the universe exists by necessity and if we exist and can intellectualize this stuff, than Certainty is involved rather than chance.

Well you may be right, some scientists think that the universe had to occur because the conditions for it exist. But it's a probabilty calculation and no-one knows yet.

All you're doing Phat, is telling us what you want to believe. It's not based on anything.

Phat writes: Sometimes philosophy cannot be explained through objective proof or maths. Does that make such ponderings useless?

As knowledge, yes. But it seems to make some people feel better about their lot to create these philosophical fantasies for themselves.

Phat writes: I need certainty and not probability.

For as long as all you have is belief, there is no certainty.

If you want certainty, I can tell you for certain that you have a short time alive and that it's a good idea to be happy while you're here if you can.

The happy afterlife is a very, very, very low probability. A very poor bet Phat.