@LEH.elven CHAOS?! CHAOS!!?? IS THAT NOT THE HUMAN CONDITION? to forever be trapped in the cycle of life and death looking for meaning in a world with out meaning? to hope and pray to nothing but air thinking their GOD is real? WELL IF THEIR GOD IS REAL THEN WHY WOULD HE CARE? Why would a god give a second look at such a failed species??!!! ANSWER ME!!!!! But yah we are a bit crazy am I right
hope you have fun here and don't do anything I would do
Chaos or not, that is the question. To see reality as a series of effects -- predictable by probabilities derived from the aggregate of similar cases or to see each and every case completely predictable based upon a complete knowledge of cause and effect. Two possibilities, both useful and both implying a significant response to being alive.
Chaos is not chaotic but if it is we can predict it's direction only as possibilities -- some of which are more probable than others. Every event can be measured this way so long as we have a significant number of similar events and have observed what appears to lead to what enough times to establish the probability of each of the available outcomes. This is the basis of the second level of scientific inquiry, the first being anecdotal observations). Once we establish the probability of outcomes we can then proceed to the third stage of scientific inquiry, which is the non-chaos, cause-effect level.
This third level seeks to answer why specific effects come from specific causes. It is explaining the "why" of the probability matrix by reducing the effects to the laws governing the physical universe. It seeks to derive 100% certainty that X will lead to Y because we know why X leads to Y as a set of laws. Those laws are, ultimately physical to the scientist, and our progress toward understanding them continues both down -- into the sub-atomic -- and up into the cosmological. The point is, science is driven to eliminate chaos by determining what causes what and why.
All of which leads to the question of one of the non-warranted premises of science, namely that all causes are within the physical universe and all effects can be explained by the physical laws of the universe. This is, of course, a necessary condition of the scientific process and is understood the minute you ask a question. When you say, "why does this seem to lead to that," the scientist will set up all sorts of measures and tests, all of which assume "this leads to that" because of universal and (eventually) knowable laws of physics (a subset of which are the various groups of chemical, social, linguistic, etc... laws). This assumption is, of course, not provable since it, by necessity, postulates what cannot be fully tested, what the philosophers called a "closed universe."
The closed universe assumption upon which science is built cannot be tested or proved though it can be dis proven (here I speak of a possibility, not that it may or may not have been so). To do so one would merely need to find an event which cannot be explained, now or ever, by the physical laws of nature. In doing so one would prove the universe to be open.
Now an open universe implies something or someone "outside" -- taken metaphorically of course -- who or which could effect things "inside" the physical universe. Science cannot account for such an event and would, out of the assumption previously stated -- either ignore the event as so unlikely that the time needed to discern if it actually happened or not would be wasted (i.e. David Hume's argument against miracles), or seek to offer an counter, physics based, explanation.
The first question this raises is why do some people believe the universe is open (i.e. usually theists who "pray to nothing but air"). Scientists, stuck in their closed universe model will reduce, by necessity, the belief to a delusion. No matter what a person may say about it, science declares anything "proving" the universe is open, to be delusion. The delusion may be due to tricks, ignorance, desire, or whatever, but it will be delusion and has to be since the universe, being closed, cannot have anything "outside" it.
The second question is why do scientists think the universe is closed? The problem is, they don't. I mean they don't "think" the universe is closed because they very, very seldom consider the question and when they do they simply discount any "evidence" (used loosely as referring to anything bought to bolster an argument), and carry on. In some ways they enact Ocam's razor -- the simplest explanation of an event is usually the right one -- and see the physical explanation as the simplest and therefore probably the right one.
The third question is why anybody is surprised that some people conclude that the theist prays "to nothing but air." We live in a culture (here I speak of the Western culture, specifically) which followed Descartes line of reasoning to disbelieve anything one could find any reason to disbelieve -- or to put it in the positive context -- to believe only that which one has to believe because one cannot find a way to disbelieve it. This "radical skepticism" eventually leads Hume to his conclusion (see above) and becomes the bedrock of both science and society. We are skeptical not by nature but by our cultural influences.
All of which brings us to the idea of skepticism in general. Most people cannot live as true radical skeptics. If you think about it, it's a philosophy of fear. The skeptic is afraid of being "taken in," or appearing "the fool" for his or her beliefs and thus sets up a strong barrier to belief -- but it's only a strong barrier to believing in an open universe. To science almost all skeptics hold dearly as the final arbitrator of what is real and what is not seldom realizing that such a comittment bind them to the unspoken premise described above. They are, I hope inadvertently, "taken in." Irony abounds.
As I said, most people cannot live as radical skeptics. They cannot because they feel the need for assurance that their lives are simply dust and ashes but they have some significance. The need for self-actualization is part, I think, of the human psyche. So when they encounter the closed universe model they grasp how it signifies insignificance and they reject it. Need drives them to the "felt" conclusion (most never do the hard work of logical examination of their beliefs) they conclude the universe is open and thus that when they "pray to the air" their prayers may be going somewhere else.
It is interesting that both the radical skepticism of Descartes and the rejection of miracles by David Hume are rooted in a confusion between psychological probability and mathematical probability. Descartes begins with the psychological need for certainty and comes to "I think therefore I am" (or philosophically speaking, action requires the presence of an agent or actor) and Hume assumes the probability of a miracle so low that he need not bother investigating the claim but has no mathematical measures of the probability of a miracle and thus relies on his own psychological sense of the probabilities. Descartes won't believe anything unless he's compelled by a 100% probability (deductive reasoning) and Hume draws the conclusion of 100% falsity because he is nearly 100% psychologically convinced against miracles.
Finally, it is also interesting to find people making the same errors today. They want things either 100% proved (and usually this means they want 100% psychological proof, not mathematical) or they assume 100% that the thing is not proved and thus they have no need of it.
Just some thoughts on chaos, probability and all that.
AJ
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