Ask an atheist (the second coming)

[timtofly]

A major thought here is what is order to say nature brings it?

How do we define Order?

It is predictable?

 

[warpus]

A major thought here is what is order to say nature brings it?

How do we define Order?

Mathematically. I think Chaos Theory deals with all these issues, but I'm not too familiar with the details.

 

[erez87]

It is predictable?

So something disorderly is unpredictable and anything with order can be predicted?
Snow flakes are orderly - yet we can't predict their shape.
Quantum particles are random - yet to a certain level (statistic) we can predict things about it.

Mathematically. I think Chaos Theory deals with all these issues, but I'm not too familiar with the details.

Mathematics? I don't think Chaos theory deals with order and disorder, but with chaotic systems (System that heavily depend on their exact starting conditions).


You got any popular reading material about scientific definitions for Order?
The only one I know of comes from Entropy - disorder is defined as Entropy. And as entropy grows disorder grows -> and of course entropy growing is the basic thing behind nature. So technically we get less and less order.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Question from an apatheist.
Why bother?

It's not necessarily directed to the OP or the people answering in this thread, but some "active" atheists really leave me baffled.
I find apatheism a much more rational stance about the gods or religion in general. I mean, why go out of one's way to prove something completely irrational is... irrational.

No one feels the need to prove the sea isn't pink or tomorrow isn't going to rain faeces from the sky. It's simply not going to happen.


A "real" atheist, in my opinion, shouldn't even have an opinion about the topic.
If someone comes claiming his pen is going to fall upward when he drops it, I don't start a debate. I simply dismiss him as drunk, on drugs, mentally challenged or very ignorant.

 

[erez87]

Question from an apatheist.
Why bother?

It's not necessarily directed to the OP or the people answering in this thread, but some "active" atheists really leave me baffled.
I find apatheism a much more rational stance about the gods or religion in general. I mean, why go out of one's way to prove something completely irrational is... irrational.

No one feels the need to prove the sea isn't pink or tomorrow isn't going to rain faeces from the sky. It's simply not going to happen.


A "real" atheist, in my opinion, shouldn't even have an opinion about the topic.
If someone comes claiming his pen is going to fall upward when he drops it, I don't start a debate. I simply dismiss him as drunk, on drugs, mentally challenged or very ignorant.

Because religion and religious people constantly attempt to control my life and put religious laws in them. Oh and attempt to stop Scientific advancement in health and technology etc... They also want me in jail for being gay.

Why would a "real" atheist not have an opinion? He can, it just have nothing to do with Atheism...

 

[zjintz]

Free will is almost certainly a false construct of our brains. But this doesn't mean that our brains can't make choices.

There's a really good summary of the current state of understanding here:
http://blog.case.edu/singham/free_will/index
It's in reverse chronological order, so start reading from the bottom.

What a nice reading!. thanks.

sadly I can't see the clips right now. .

 

[warpus]

Mathematics? I don't think Chaos theory deals with order and disorder, but with chaotic systems (System that heavily depend on their exact starting conditions).


You got any popular reading material about scientific definitions for Order?
The only one I know of comes from Entropy - disorder is defined as Entropy. And as entropy grows disorder grows -> and of course entropy growing is the basic thing behind nature. So technically we get less and less order.

They're all interlinked topics and ideas, imo.

A "real" atheist, in my opinion, shouldn't even have an opinion about the topic.
If someone comes claiming his pen is going to fall upward when he drops it, I don't start a debate. I simply dismiss him as drunk, on drugs, mentally challenged or very ignorant.

It's hard not to have an opinion. I have an opinion on everything

I'm an atheist who doesn't really care much, though. I just don't believe that gods exist, and that's it.

 

[erez87]

They're all interlinked topics and ideas, imo.

I don't think so. I have never heard of any connection between Entropy and Chaos theory. One is a mathematical subject for systems that depend greatly on starting conditions, and the other is a statistic way of managing the direction to which chemical and some physical system will move to.

BTW claiming we have more order now than when the universe begin would not be correct according to entropy laws. But that's mostly because there is no actually simple definition of order, only a mathematical one.

 

[warpus]

I don't think so. I have never heard of any connection between Entropy and Chaos theory. One is a mathematical subject for systems that depend greatly on starting conditions, and the other is a statistic way of managing the direction to which chemical and some physical system will move to.

Both deal with order/disorder and the complexity of systems.

BTW claiming we have more order now than when the universe begin would not be correct according to entropy laws. But that's mostly because there is no actually simple definition of order, only a mathematical one.

We have localised pockets of order, such as the cities we build on this planet, etc. As a whole, entropy is increasing throughout the Universe though.

 

[erez87]

Both deal with order/disorder and the complexity of systems.

I really doubt chaos theory deals with order and complexity. I have found nothing to indicate it does.

We have localised pockets of order, such as the cities we build on this planet, etc. As a whole, entropy is increasing throughout the Universe though.

That's not exactly true. Entropy is a closed system trait. Cities aren't a closed system and so we cannot consider cities as pockets of order. And a city, as complex as it might get, is still far less orderly (in entropy measures) than the universe at the age of say, 5 million.

 

[warpus]

I really doubt chaos theory deals with order and complexity. I have found nothing to indicate it does.

Chaos Theory in some cases deals with the emergency of complexity.

That's not exactly true. Entropy is a closed system trait. Cities aren't a closed system and so we cannot consider cities as pockets of order. And a city, as complex as it might get, is still far less orderly (in entropy measures) than the universe at the age of say, 5 million.

Nothing (except for the entire Universe) is a fully closed system though. If you want to talk about the entropy of systems that aren't the universe (or multiverse or whatever), then you've got to consider non-closed systems.

 

[erez87]

Chaos Theory in some cases deals with the emergency of complexity.

Do you have a source for that?

Nothing (except for the entire Universe) is a fully closed system though. If you want to talk about the entropy of systems that aren't the universe (or multiverse or whatever), then you've got to consider non-closed systems.

True. I was going too far. But at least try something somewhat closed. A city is far far from a closed system. A factory is closer to it. But in both we only see an apparent rise in order because somewhere else there are huge drops in order...

 

[warpus]

Do you have a source for that?

sure

Chaos theory has investigated the sensitivity of systems to variations in initial conditions as one cause of complex behaviour.

True. I was going too far. But at least try something somewhat closed. A city is far far from a closed system. A factory is closer to it. But in both we only see an apparent rise in order because somewhere else there are huge drops in order...

That's what my example meant to illustrate - while entropy increases as a whole, small pockets in the universe increase in order, the example being a city, or a factory, or whatever.

 

[erez87]

sure



That's what my example meant to illustrate - while entropy increases as a whole, small pockets in the universe increase in order, the example being a city, or a factory, or whatever.

Thanks! But now while reading I noticed we kind of mixed something.

Order and Complexity are not the same thing. A complex system can be disorderly and a very orderly system can be totally simple (and many times is).

 

[timtofly]

Is it not the fact that predictions happen that shows us "Order"?

I did not mean the diferrence between predictable and unpredictable.

Order is only in things that have the ability to be predictable and when a prediction results in a fact. This fact is law until it is no longer predictable, but a fact comes up to prove it otherwise.


Chaos is at the lowest level, but the more complex something is the less predictable it becomes. Order is the balance between the two, or the equalibrium of chaos.

A city has too many variables and more complex than a factory.

The universe is predictable until a comet is found on course to hit the earth in 5 months?

 

[cardgame]

That doesn't mean it's not predictable, merely that we missed a spot or variable...

 

[El_Machinae]

Actually, the way people mean that the universe is 'unpredictable' is that some fundamental laws of reality are determined by probability functions and not by set figures. In aggregate, or macro terms, the net effect of all the probability functions are going to be predictable. But each individual component is not predictable

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

How can the universe be predictable (for the most part), but yet random at it's "core"?

I heard you like analogies

A river is predictable. We can say it'll flow to lower areas, we can predict were erosions will take place prominently, like in bends. But the motion of each atom vibrating in a single molecule which is tossed around amongst other molecules is chaotic.

Now if you really want to go into mental physics you could imagine an electron 'circling' an atom. Not really circling since such an atom zips in and out of existence. Then it gets really unpredictable.

But unpredictable in this case simply could mean: according to rules we have yet to discover.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

That doesn't mean it's not predictable, merely that we missed a spot or variable...

Nope. It means we cannot measure the initial conditions to an arbitrary precision. Chaos Theory shows us that certain dynamical systems diverge wildly away from each other even when the starting condition differences are too small to be measured, and the underlying algorithm is the same, just applied to slightly different initial conditions.

Here's an image of a simulation of a pendulum being attracted to two magnets depending on where the magnet pendulum starts.



In the chaotic regions the more you zoom in the more unpredictability arises, it's very difficult to tell whether a pixel is red or blue. All measurements are necessarily inaccurate, and this means in a chaotic region you cannot tell with any certainty where the pendulum will come to rest.

 

[cardgame]

Yeah, I should have amended my post with a 'necessarily'.