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09 Oct 08
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Originally posted by EladarIts tough to say for a fact. I don't have statistics on the subject, but in my Area, Churches are closing down, and I live in a conservative part of America...so I would say, in MY OPINION, that there is a decline in Church patronage.
[b]No, I would say they are not equally valid...Science is on the rise , and religion is on the fall
I supppose this is in respect to the nature of our existance. I was just wondering, do you believe your observation to be personal opinion or fact?[/b]
Listen, I'm not a fan of religion, but that doesn't mean I think you should share the same views...
i'm not sure i understood the first part of your statment "I supppose this is in respect to the nature of our existance," can you elaborate on the meaning of the statment?
09 Oct 08
I have no doubt there is a drop in people going to church, be it any religion. I just wanted to make sure you were talking about an opinion, not fact. I think Son likes to believe science's views on the origins of the Universe and the nature of our existance to be fact.
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09 Oct 08
Originally posted by Eladari'm not sure i understood the first part of your statment "I supppose this is in respect to the nature of our existance," can you elaborate on the meaning of the statment?
I have no doubt there is a drop in people going to church, be it any religion. I just wanted to make sure you were talking about an opinion, not fact. I think Son likes to believe science's views on the origins of the Universe and the nature of our existance to be fact.
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09 Oct 08
Originally posted by EladarI think that all depends on one's idea of 'god'
Nature of our existance. You know, prove that God doesn't exist. Prove that God did not at least have a hand in creation.
What is the nature of our existance? Are we created beings or simply the result of random natural acts?
09 Oct 08
Really? You think that science can determine if God exists or not?
Remember, we are not discussing what we personally believe. We are discussing the actual nature of existance.
Or do you think that what we believe determines reality? Remember, I'm not talking about how we veiw or lives, I mean what is actually around us and how things actually happened.
09 Oct 08
Originally posted by EladarWhy do you assume I think science is fact? It is clear that science produces cleaner answers as time goes on and when someone says the universe did not have a big bang but a big bounce I don't take that as fact, I take it as another piece of the puzzle from another viewpoint. That viewpoint changes daily as new information comes in, as opposed to your viewpoint which by its very nature can never change, your mind being firmly under the sway of a 2000 year old scam.
Really? You think that science can determine if God exists or not?
Remember, we are not discussing what we personally believe. We are discussing the actual nature of existance.
Or do you think that what we believe determines reality? Remember, I'm not talking about how we veiw or lives, I mean what is actually around us and how things actually happened.
09 Oct 08
Originally posted by PsychoPawnI can write code I cannot predict the outcome too, predictions was not
Computers do what they are told, yes.
The thing is, they can be told to produce random results in different cases. You can create a software system that can model a somewhat random process and then have a software model that acts upon that.
Since it is a computer they are really called "pseudo-random number generators" since they can't get to 100% ...[text shortened]... is very possible to create a software application for which you could not predict the output.
the point of this discussion it was does a program do what we program
it to do.
Kelly
09 Oct 08
Originally posted by KellyJayIt does if it is working right, the idea is to get some desired result, even if the result is not known ahead of time. Like my 'genetic programming' method. It takes a bunch of antenna parameters, desired bandwidth, element size, etc., and cranks on it, introducing small 'mutations' to the design and eventually producing a viable sellable much improved design that no engineer would have ever thought of.
I can write code I cannot predict the outcome too, predictions was not
the point of this discussion it was does a program do what we program
it to do.
Kelly
09 Oct 08
Originally posted by sonhouseYep, a great feat in programming to assist engineers.
It does if it is working right, the idea is to get some desired result, even if the result is not known ahead of time. Like my 'genetic programming' method. It takes a bunch of antenna parameters, desired bandwidth, element size, etc., and cranks on it, introducing small 'mutations' to the design and eventually producing a viable sellable much improved design that no engineer would have ever thought of.
Kelly
09 Oct 08
1 edit
Originally posted by joe shmo…Ask yourself this; Why do people try to model the universe?. .….
Ask yourself this; Why do peple try to model the universe? Is it not so we can look at the system as a coherent whole? perhaps I'm mistaken? Are you saying that we don't make parallel assumptions, based on our models, to our reality? I always thought we have been on a quest to decode the mystery of existence...which is probably why I won't make it as a ...[text shortened]... a?
To me, these questions are the most fundimental, relative to cognative self-perception.
Scientist generally do it to better understand the behaviour of the universe and to try and find
out what the properties of the universe are and what it contains etc.
-I am sure most good scientist don’t do it because they are searching for some vague mystical
thing called the “ultimate answer for existence” -this is not a scientific concept.
… What is your agenda? .….
To better understand various aspects of reality through the use of logic and scientific method
-this is, I assume, also the general agenda of most scientists.
09 Oct 08
Originally posted by NemesioIts all in the random numbers. If you ask your computer to generate a random number (In Microsoft Excel just put =rand() in a cell.), then you are telling the computer to generate a random number, and it will do so, but you are not telling it which exact number to produce. You can then base an if statement on the output and the actions of the computer thereafter are purposefully unpredictable, and not exactly what you told it to do. It is subtle but it is important.
As it pertains to computer code (and the only computer code I ever fooled around with was the
old BASIC that was on my Apple ][gs), it seems to me that KellyJay's point is a valid one.
Any flaw in computer programing (not resulting from corruption/bad hardware) is the product of
the programmer. A program may not do what the programmer wanted it to do, ...[text shortened]... apologize if I've misunderstood you, KellyJay, in trying to pose my question.
Nemesio
Kellys argument is that computers are intelligently designed so any output is a direct result of intelligent design. He is wrong.
The universe including chemistry, physics etc all acts according to certain rules. There is however some apparently random input. When life evolves it is a case of certain rules being followed while manipulating data that has some random inputs. Kelly claims that those rules combined with random inputs cannot give rise to more complex life forms.
If a computer simulates those rules including the random inputs, and the result is increased complexity in the data, then it proves that either kelly is wrong, or we are not simulating the rules correctly.
But the fact remains that however complex the rules, a computer can theoretically simulate it and kellys claim that a computers design rules that out is false.
Most importantly is that it has been proven that with a fairly simple set of rules it is possible for greater complexity to evolve - a fact that Kelly denies.