JackC 0 #276 June 15, 2007 QuoteI just believe that the odds are fantastically huge. Right, but luckily we know there are billions of galaxies containing billions of stars existing for billions of years which gives plenty of time to organise zillions of molecules into every conceivable order. The odds of winning the lottery are about 1 in 14 million. If I buy a billion tickets at random, what are my chances of winning at least once? Coversely, what are the odds that an entity capable of creating a universe just happening to exist? They've got to be larger than the odds of the universe just happening to exist, haven't they? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NCclimber 0 #277 June 15, 2007 QuoteQuoteI just believe that the odds are fantastically huge. Right, but luckily we know there are billions of galaxies containing billions of stars existing for billions of years which gives plenty of time to organise zillions of molecules into every conceivable order.Kind of like the "infinite monkey theorem". LOL QuoteThe odds of winning the lottery are about 1 in 14 million. If I buy a billion tickets at random, what are my chances of winning at least once? If you toss a coin and it comes up heads, what are the odds of the next toss will come up tails? What if it lands heads 10 times in a row... what are the odds of the next toss will come up tails? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,254 #278 June 15, 2007 God is a string of coin tosses?Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rehmwa 2 #279 June 15, 2007 Quoteif you toss a coin and it comes up heads, what are the odds of the next toss will come up tails? What if it lands heads 10 times in a row... what are the odds of the next toss will come up tails? if it's an honest coin, the answer is 50% for each example the 'next' coin toss is always 50/50 - we assume no edge lands.... that's completely different than calculating the odds a coin will come up heads 11 times in a row - before making the 1st flip this is a great example of how people don't understand statistics - you can't do the whole "what are the odds" kind of questions after the fact. That's a whole different thing. But it at least does relate to the thread title since it's about subjective fairness and concepts of religion and booking good deeds and chance and hoping for a balance someday - despite the laws of nature. If you lost the lottery 1 million times, you aren't any more likely to win the 1,000,001 time than the guy who buys his first ticket on the same draw. (frankly, if a coin came up heads 10 times in a row, I'd think it's likely a trick or defective coin and guess the 11th time will come up heads also.....) ... Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JackC 0 #280 June 15, 2007 QuoteIf you toss a coin and it comes up heads, what are the odds of the next toss will come up tails? What if it lands heads 10 times in a row... what are the odds of the next toss will come up tails? Don't give up your day job to become a statistician. If I have 10 coin tosses in a row and they all turn up heads, the probability of the next one coming up head is still 0.5. If I have 10 coin tosses the probability of at least one of them turning up heads is 1 - 0.5^10 = 0.999023 ie it's virtually inevitable. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NCclimber 0 #281 June 15, 2007 Quote If I have 10 coin tosses in a row and they all turn up heads, the probability of the next one coming up head is still 0.5. Impressive. Quote If I have 10 coin tosses the probability of at least one of them turning up heads is 1 - 0.5^10 = 0.999023 ie it's virtually inevitable. I guess the other side of the coin would be that it's virtually impossible to have the coin land tails 10 times out of 10 tosses. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,254 #282 June 15, 2007 Are you meandering towards a point any time in the near future?Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,395 #283 June 15, 2007 >Jakee post #248 said there were two planets in our solar system besides > Earth that come close to being able to sustain life. There are at least two planets and several moons. Venus, Mars, Titan, and Europa are all candidates. >As for the moon sustaining life, I can jump out of an airplane, and land >safely on my feet. The moon did indeed sustain life for twelve americans, but as far as we know has no indigenous life. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NCclimber 0 #284 June 15, 2007 Quote>As for the moon sustaining life, I can jump out of an airplane, and land >safely on my feet. The moon did indeed sustain life for twelve americans, but as far as we know has no indigenous life. By that rationale, human life can be sustained in space or in the Mariana Trench. Or were you thinking term "sustaining life", in the context of this discussion, included "by any artificial means"? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Remster 24 #285 June 15, 2007 Quote Quote If I have 10 coin tosses in a row and they all turn up heads, the probability of the next one coming up head is still 0.5. Impressive. Quote If I have 10 coin tosses the probability of at least one of them turning up heads is 1 - 0.5^10 = 0.999023 ie it's virtually inevitable. I guess the other side of the coin would be that it's virtually impossible to have the coin land tails 10 times out of 10 tosses. True. All coin toss being tails aodd's are very low. But one of them being tails is very high. So the odds of all instances of some probabilistic event happening are very low, while the odds of one or a few of these same instances, if the sample is very, very , very large, are very high, approching 1 as the sample approaches infinity. Reminds you of something?Remster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NCclimber 0 #286 June 15, 2007 Quote So the odds of all instances of some probabilistic event happening are very low, while the odds of one or a few of these same instances, if the sample is very, very , very large, are very high, approching 1 as the sample approaches infinity. Reminds you of something? Yeah... that there are some discussions on another website that need my unique je ne se qua. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iflyme 0 #287 June 15, 2007 I'm frightened when any believers are in a position of authority. Too often, they force their own belief system on others. An example that comes to mind is when the school trustees in Kansas tried to include ID in the curriculum a couple of years back. It's the same with those want to force children to acknowledge religion in the classroom by making them recite the lord's prayer. It's a terrible abuse of power, and demonstrates the poor judgment many believers have. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rehmwa 2 #288 June 15, 2007 QuoteI'm frightened when any believers are in a position of authority. "believers" of what? believers of global warming believers of affirmative action believers of holocaust denial believers of atheism believers of animals are more important than people believers of one political party over another believers of Christianity/Islam/Buddist believers of .....ad nauseum..... Don't you see a handful of the above constantly in conflict in public schools? c'mon Just about anything I'd say I'd worry about if they are of a certain mindset and want to force their own belief system on others. But you would be talking about rabid believers, not the everyday kind who are mostly harmless. I'd be just as upset at a school that tried to force my daughter to pray in class (never happened) as I would with a math class that assigns an essay on how global warming makes small animals feel about their homes (has happened). I'm more worried about the schools than the governments - adults deal with the governments and we can fix it. ... Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Royd 0 #289 June 15, 2007 >As for the moon sustaining life, I can jump out of an airplane, and land >safely on my feet. QuoteThe moon did indeed sustain life for twelve americans, but as far as we know has no indigenous life.Wrong. Twelve Americans survived a journey into space, being kept alive in a closed system. They just happened to land on the moon. Had they, for one instant been separated from their artificial environment they would have died. I have also survived several jumps from airplanes, just not without equipment that allowed me to survive. I know that had I presented your argument, you would have come back with the same counterargument. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Royd 0 #290 June 15, 2007 Quote I'm frightened when any believers are in a position of authority. Too often, they force their own belief system on others. An example that comes to mind is when the school trustees in Kansas tried to include ID in the curriculum a couple of years back. You mean sort of like the teachers forcing the first graders to put their new box of 48 Crayons, pencils and paper into a community box, and tell them that they no longer own them, because some other kid's parent could only afford a 24 count of Crayons. No socialistic brainwashing there. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,395 #291 June 15, 2007 >Had they, for one instant been separated from their artificial >environment they would have died. True of many people in Las Vegas and McMurdo as well. Without the artificial environment of aqueducts, air conditioning/heating, food shipments etc they would die pretty rapidly, although not as rapidly as people on the moon. With similar levels of effort the moon could sustain life as well. Not too much point to it though. Mars is an even more interesting proposition because we have all the ingredients of a biosphere there. Just dig a big hole, plant some crops and even today you'd get a biosphere started. > I have also survived several jumps from airplanes, just not >without equipment that allowed me to survive. Excellent point. Yet you would agree that our atmosphere sustains life, right? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iflyme 0 #292 June 19, 2007 Believers in a deity, a god, gods, etc. This discussion IS about religion, not global warming... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rehmwa 2 #293 June 20, 2007 QuoteBelievers in a deity, a god, gods, etc. This discussion IS about religion, not global warming... Most followers of any of the list don't REALLY use science and fact (even when it's available), they use blind faith and earnestness to make up for laziness. It fills a need. They get to quote mantras. They are told to just shut up and toe the line. It's all sounds like 'religion' of one kind of another. I thought most people get that. So when I ask you about "true believers" in positions of authority, I want to know if that is consistent for any type of "true belief' and brainwashing, or is it only biased to religious 'faith'. Because I find religious indoctrination in publicly funded schools to be abhorrent. I also find political indoctrination to be on the exact same level (as politics is more akin to an organized religion than any other structure out there). But I find political indoctrination much more prevalent in schools than religion and orders of magnitude a worse problem. I expect adults to be able to deal with it personally so I don't really care there. ... Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
