This is a philosophy forum, if you think you have encountered an argument that isn’t valid and it bothers you enough that it leads you to create a whole topic based on it, why refrain from discussing it directly? You’re afraid you’re going to hurt the feelings of that person by pointing out a mistake they’ve made, or a wrong belief that they hold?

Should I create a topic to philosophize about why some people beat around the bush using analogies without tackling an issue directly (that could make for an interesting topic actually) or should I ask you directly? Well I can do both, but the point is it wouldn’t hurt to mention precisely what bothers you, we’re all supposed to be open-minded and reasonable folks, if sometimes we aren’t well we should work on it, so you shouldn’t be afraid to state what is bothering you, or send a private message to that person if you prefer.

Something I've long found interesting to contemplate and never come to an adequate resolution on is the relationship of love to fear and hate. I traditionally thought of hate as the opposite of love, such that when I first heard fear juxtaposed as its opposite, back before I studied any philosophy, I thought that sounded really weird. But after studying some philosophy and learning the Greek roots "phobia" and "philia", fear seemed like a natural opposite to love; but so did hate, still. I wondered, does that make hate a kind of fear, or vice versa? Are they maybe opposite love on orthogonal axes?

The conclusion I came to is that fear is a repulsive feeling (pushing away from something that seems bad) in relation to an object that is more powerful than yourself (so repelling it moves you away from it), while hate is the same kind of thing but in relation to an object that is less powerful than yourself (so repelling it moves it away from you). — Pfhorrest

I really like this and I feel you’re onto something, I too for a long time wondered whether the opposite of love was fear or hate. Love attracts while fear and hate repel. But then fear and hate can be seen as two sides of the same coin. The two can be mixed, it’s possible to both hate someone and fear what they may do to you. Hate is directed outwards (you want to push something away from you) while fear is directed inwards (you want to avoid what you fear).

I would say that’s the fundamental difference rather than a distinction between more powerful and less powerful. You may fear someone who is less powerful, for instance if you know they will hurt you not because they are more powerful than you, but because you don’t want to hurt them. Fear moves yourself away from others while hate pushes others away from you. Both move towards separation.

There is that which moves towards unity and happiness (love, understanding, compassion), and that which moves towards separation and suffering (fear/hate, ignorance, indifference).

That made me think that there should be something that bears the same relationship to love. Love is an attractive feeling (pulling toward something that seems good), but in relation to an object that is more powerful than yourself, or less? And either way, what is the other? One thing is wanting to go to someone or something else, the other is wanting to bring that thing or person to you. Are those both "love"? Are there terms to differentiate them? — Pfhorrest

Loving someone attracts you towards them, moves you towards them. But that doesn’t necessarily move them towards you, in order for them to move towards you they need to love you too.

To be clear on what we’re looking for:

Love: leads to move towards someone (opposite of Fear)
Fear: leads to move away from someone (opposite of Love)
Hate: leads to push someone away from us (opposite of ?)
? : leads to unite someone with us (opposite of Hate)

What is the opposite of hate? You mentioned tolerance, but tolerance is the opposite of intolerance which isn’t the same thing as hate. When we’re tolerant we aren’t actively looking to unite people. It’s possible to hate someone and still tolerate what they do, it’s simply that we force them to do it far away from us.

So what is the feeling which works towards bringing people together, towards uniting them? Don’t we call it love too? The love of the people. This isn’t the same love as the love that attracts us towards someone, but we call it the same. Is there another word that exists for it?

When we ‘love that dress’, we’re referring to an object: to its physical properties as we experience them. It could be the colour, the style, the feel of the material. We may desire that dress now, but as a person who desires, we’re not a static object but a developing and experiencing being who can change in how we relate to an object from one moment to the next. Plus, we probably won’t love that dress anymore if it shrinks in the wash, or gets a red wine stain...

When we love the taste of chicken, we’re referring to an experience, regardless of the properties of whatever object it may be attributed to. It’s the same when we love a person not necessarily for their physical appearance, but for how they positively contribute to the way we feel about and experience ourselves, that person and the world in general.

But love can be deeper than that. Because we can love a person not just for how they make us feel at the time, but for the potential we see in them, and the potential they bring out in us. At this level, we’re not deterred by bad moods or stressful situations, by their shyness or prickly personality, their embarrassing faux pas or bad taste in clothing. We can see past how others see them in that moment to who they can be, even if they don’t quite see it themselves, and we strive to bring out the best in them - not just for how it makes us feel, but for their benefit and the benefit of anyone else who interacts with them. This is not the same as trying to change, improve or ‘rescue’ them - it’s about potential, not possibility - we need to be honest about their capacity, and about ours. But it is this love that endures through the rocky patches of life and marriage, through illness and money troubles and teenagers and nightmare in-laws...

And we can also love a person for the added meaning that relationship brings to how we relate to the universe as a whole. At this level, the love we have for them intensifies every interaction we have with the world, because we relate to everything not only through our own experience, but through our relationship with that person we love as an experiencing being. In this way, what might otherwise have escaped our notice has meaning for us purely because we know it has meaning for them. We can relate to the world almost with two minds. It is this love that endures long after that person has been lost to everyone else. — Possibility

Yes loving someone isn’t just about how that person makes us feel, and it isn’t just about wanting them to be happier, and it isn’t just about seeing a potential in them, it is also about seeing who they are beyond appearances, about seeing a light in them despite how they appear or how they behave, about seeing their inner beauty that the eyes don’t see.

Either they appear to be obviously wrong to you because they see a connection that you haven’t yet uncovered (and so they’re actually right), or they’re really wrong because they are blinded by their own false beliefs.

The more general problem is: how do you know you’re wrong? It’s possible that there’s something you’re not seeing that makes you wrong, but you don’t know you’re wrong because you’re not seeing that thing. When the other appears obviously wrong to you: either he’s right and you’re not seeing what makes him right, or he’s wrong and he’s not seeing what makes him wrong.

So how can you tell for sure which one it is? If you can’t find out on your own you need help. If the person you discuss with is willing neither to help you see what you don’t see (in case he’s right) nor to consider that he may be wrong (in case he’s wrong), then you need other people to help you see what you don’t see (in case he’s right) or help him see what he doesn’t see (in case he’s wrong).

And so if you have encountered that recently I suggest that you share the actual example with us so that we may help you untangle the knot :wink:

Hahaha, so you DO think time goes more slowly in fridges?! It has been demonstrated conclusively that apples decay more slowly in fridges.

The apple in the fridge on the sideboard does not 'age' faster than the one in the fridge. They are both the same age. One is just more shrivelled than the other. Processes have happened in one faster than they have in the other. — Bartricks

I really like your example of the fridge. Indeed the observation of muons decaying more slowly when traveling faster is taken as proof that time is running more slowly in their frame, while all it shows is that their internal processes have taken place more slowly, just like for the apple in the fridge. And if one says that what we call a muon has no internal structure, well that’s a belief, an assumption, and not at all a proven fact.

Also one wonders how something that has no internal structure could decay into several other things ... :grin:

the muon is not believed to have any sub-structure—that is, it is not thought to be composed of any simpler particles

the muon decays to an electron, an electron antineutrino, and a muon neutrino

If the above two quotes aren’t a contradiction I don’t know what is. But that doesn’t seem to bother physicists too much... :grin:

It’s crazy what people are willing to believe when ‘scientists’ are saying it.

When my twin travels away from me, it seems to me that he is getting smaller and smaller than me. And from his perspective, as he travels away from me, I seem to be getting smaller and smaller than him.

Now, what do we conclude? That we are both getting smaller than each other? No, that's clearly impossible. And it remains impossible even if, due to the fact we've both travelling away from each other, we'll never meet to be able to compare body sizes.

We are not both getting smaller than each other - because that's impossible as a moment's reflection reveals - and that remains true even if, due to our impressions of what's happening, we're both equally justified in believing that we are getting smaller than each other.

Two people can be equally justified in holding contradictory beliefs - there's no problem with that. What is problematic is holding that something contradictory is actually true.

Two people cannot both be older than each other. Two people cannot both be smaller than each other. But two people most certainly can believe that they are older than each other, and be equally justified in that belief; and two people can be equally justified in believing that they are smaller than the other. — Bartricks

Thank you for the much-needed sanity.

Some other things that are worth pointing out:

In practice what we call time is a relative measure of change, and not a tangible entity that we detect to be passing or flowing.

The idea that relativity proves there is no absolute frame is false. The Lorentz aether theory is experimentally equivalent to special relativity, while assuming an absolute frame.

In practice an absolute frame can be detected: that determined by the cosmic microwave background radiation.

We can’t measure the speed of light in any one direction without using signals traveling faster than light, so the speed of light measurements are always average velocities on a round-trip. So there is no proof that light travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames, it’s a postulate of relativity and not an experimentally verified fact, indeed the Lorentz theory doesn’t start from this postulate yet it matches experiments just as well.

And since we don’t have to start from that postulate (that light travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames), we don’t have to accept as true the conclusions that follow from this postulate (such as that each twin is really aging more slowly than the other).

The existence of the aether hasn’t been disproved, only a particular model of it was shown to be inconsistent with the Michelson-Morley experiment. Just like experiments inconsistent with a particular model of gravitation don’t imply that gravitation doesn’t exist. In fact modern experiments do show that what we call the vacuum of space isn’t empty, isn’t nothing.

There are so many misconceptions surrounding relativity, and they’re spread everywhere, in books, textbooks, scientific articles, news articles, ...

If possible let’s try to not go into all directions at once here! Each conspiracy theory could deserve a topic on its own, but I doubt that the admins want to see a thread for each conspiracy theory in existence, and we won’t be able to discuss all conspiracy theories in this one thread, as addressing one at a time is already complex enough.

The point of this thread is first of all to show why it is important to consider conspiracy theories seriously, and not blindly dismiss them or ridicule them, which I believe I and others have shown quite well.

Then I want to show that there are conspiracy theories today which are true (beyond a reasonable doubt), while almost everyone still believe that they are false (and blindly dismiss/ridicule them). Since philosophy is in great part concerned with uncovering truth, I think you will agree that it is important to find out which conspiracy theories are true.

I don’t want to start with 9/11 because it isn’t the easiest one to prove and because it puts many people off, even though indeed as was mentioned the collapse of Building 7 is difficult to explain without invoking controlled demolition. Instead I want to start with the moon landings, because it is easier to prove that they were faked, because the subject matter is less bleak, and because almost everyone considers that theory (that astronauts never set foot on the moon) to be extremely ridiculous, so if it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that this theory is indeed true then this has far-reaching implications, and can serve as a motivation to look more deeply into other conspiracy theories.

And again there is an outstanding documentary that was released recently, which shows beyond a reasonable doubt that astronauts never set foot on the moon, that these landings were faked in a studio. If you can’t believe it, I suggest you watch the documentary, I suggest everyone watch it and then give their thoughts on it, it is well worth it, here is the link again:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/eZramDBFkXRU/

Among the conspiracy theories that are widely dismissed and ridiculed today, and for which there is in fact ample evidence that they are true, I want to start with one in particular because it is relatively harmless (it doesn’t have to do with our government killing citizens), and because it sounds so “out there”, so ridiculous, so crazy, that if it is true it implies that we have all been fooled on a grand scale for decades, and if we have been fooled for so long about that then we likely have been fooled about other things too, and this can then serve as a good starting point to seriously consider other conspiracy theories that are much bleaker.

This seemingly ridiculous conspiracy theory I refer to is the theory that astronauts never set foot on the moon. That theory is obviously false, right? Until recently that’s how I reacted. And yet when we look at all the evidence in depth, it appears that the rational stance is to consider that this theory is true beyond a reasonable doubt.

I won’t go into all the evidence in this post because there is so much of it, but the first questions that come to mind is why would NASA and the US government fake the moon landings, and how would they fake them? A reasonable motive that can be put forth is that ever since the beginning of the 1960s they had promised the American public that they would set foot on the moon by the end of the decade, and they spent billions of dollars towards achieving that goal, but as the end of that decade got closer they realized that they would never solve all the technical problems by then and so they decided to fake it, which would be much simpler. In fact there is evidence that as the years passed, the prospect of putting astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade grew more and more unlikely.

As to how they faked them, there is plenty of evidence that many photographs and videos were taken in a studio, and that sometimes what they show would defy the laws of physics if they had been really taken on the moon.

There is an exceptional documentary on the subject that I watched recently: American Moon (released in 2017). Unlike most videos about conspiracies it is very well made, very well reasoned, and it progressively asks a series of 42 questions that pinpoint contradictions in the official story. In order for the official story to be true, these 42 questions must be answered in a logically consistent way (the answers to different questions can’t contradict one another), and that seems impossible.

In fact as a general case this is a good methodology to uncover a true conspiracy: finding holes in the official story, inconsistencies, contradictions. If they can’t all be resolved in a consistent way, then the official story is self-contradictory, which implies that it is false.

I leave you with a link to this fascinating documentary, it is quite long but well worth the time, personally once I started watching it I couldn’t stop. I watched it believing I would find a lot of holes in the documentary, but instead the holes are to be found in the official story: https://www.bitchute.com/video/eZramDBFkXRU/

Your interests and my interests are not perfectly aligned. But that doesn't mean you should default distrust me, even in cases where it may be in my interests to lie.

The fact, then, that there are powerful people whose interests do not perfectly align with ours does not mean we are default justified in distrusting what they say. And thus a conspiracy theorist owes us evidence for the conspiracy. 'Conspiracy' is not the default. — Bartricks

I somewhat agree, but even though a conspiracy theory shouldn’t be blindly believed it should at least be seriously considered, based on its arguments and on the evidence supporting it, instead of being blindly dismissed.

Surely when we evaluate a theory we should evaluate it on its merits, and neither blindly believe nor blindly dismiss it simply because it is about a conspiracy.

Yet the default behavior is precisely to blindly dismiss conspiracy theories, to ridicule them without seriously considering their arguments and the evidence supporting them, and that’s a big problem, because it prevents us from uncovering the true conspiracies that are carried out against us, and enables the conspirators to harm us or take advantage of us without our awareness.

And in fact I would say the default behavior should be to consider conspiracy theories very seriously, and even to distrust powerful individuals by default until we have very good evidence that they are truly working for the interests of the people, because history is full of powerful individuals working against the interests of the people, and powerful individuals working for the good of the people are the exception rather than the rule. Also by virtue of their power powerful individuals can harm us greatly if that is their desire, and that’s why we should be extremely careful with them, question their true motives, look for inconsistencies in their narrative, look for contradictions between what they say and what they do, and not blindly trust them.

As examples of conspiracy theories that turned out to be true: mass spying by the NSA and tech giants and other intelligence agencies (as mentioned above), mind control project of the CIA (project MKUltra), false flag operations used as a pretext to invade a country or start a war (Gulf of Tonkin incident, Operation Northwoods), weather modification programs (Operation Popeye), Nazi scientists who went to work for the US government on a large scale (Operation Paperclip), tobacco and pharmaceutical companies manipulating politicians and scientific research to push their harmful products, CIA manipulating public opinion through mainstream media (Office of Policy Coordination, Operation Mockingbird).

And so many more:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/wtf/7-bizarre-conspiracy-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-true/news-story/51a5e8dee2b311fafa11511d72afa7b5

https://bestlifeonline.com/true-conspiracy-theories/

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/wiki/lopc

It all happened, and that’s only ones that were acknowledged as correct. How many more conspiracy theories are true while being still presented as false by the mainstream media or thought to be false in the public opinion?

For instance are we to believe that there is no more mass spying? No more mind control programs? No more false flag operations used as a pretext to start a war or invade a country or topple some government? No more weather modification programs? No more powerful companies pushing harmful products while manipulating politicians and scientific research? That the public opinion is no more manipulated? That somehow powerful governments/agencies/companies have all come clean and everyone is suddenly working for the public interest now, that there are no more lies?


I’d like to talk about conspiracy theories that are still widely ridiculed or dismissed as false today, and yet when the evidence is thoroughly researched and analyzed it appears that they are most likely true, beyond a reasonable doubt. The first one I want to talk about you will probably laugh when I mention it, not long ago I thought the idea to be ridiculous myself because I had never really looked into it, it seemed so far-fetched, and yet once you look at all the evidence and consider the arguments for/against, it is true beyond a reasonable doubt. And if we can be lied to on such a great scale for so long, it is a sign that this may be just the tip of the iceberg.

A recent Aeon publication by Prof. Piggliuci, Consciousness is Real. (I lost interest at mention of Dennett.) — Wayfarer

I think of consciousness as a weakly emergent phenomenon, not dissimilar from, say, the wetness of water (though a lot more complicated). Individual molecules of water have a number of physical-chemical properties, but wetness isn’t one of them. They acquire that property only under specific environmental circumstances (in terms of ambient temperature and pressure) and only when there is a sufficiently large number of them.

It seems he doesn’t see that even if the motions of a liquid can be explained from the motions of the molecules that compose the liquid, that doesn’t explain in any way how the motions of these molecules can give rise to the sensation of wetness. Going down that path we can hope to explain the motions of a brain based on the motions of the molecules that compose the brain, but that still won’t tell us in any way how these motions of the brain give rise to any sensation. We’re only explaining motions in terms of other motions, we aren’t at any point bridging the gap between motion and emotion.

Also he repeatedly dismisses dualism through appeals to authority, that’s not much of an argument.

The expected value for x, E(x) = P(x) * T = (3/6) * T where P(x) is the theoretical probability[/i[ of event x.

The law of large numbers states that (x1+x2+...+xn)/n will approach E(x) = P(x) * T

Note: my math may be a little off the mark. Kindly correct any errors — TheMadFool

You have a flawed understanding of expected value, it is 1*P(1)+2*P(2)+3*P(3)*4*P(4)+5*P(5)+6*P(6) = (1+2+3+4+5+6)*1/6 = 3.5

That ‘law’ states that the average of outcomes will converge towards 3.5, not towards 1/6 times the number of trials (that wouldn’t make sense).

What about the law of large numbers which says exactly the opposite of what you're saying? The law of large numbers states that the average of the values of a variable will approach the expected value of that variable as the number of experiments become larger and larger. — TheMadFool

People have come up with plenty of ‘laws’, are they always correct? Just because something is called a ‘law’ that means it’s always true? A ‘law’ has a domain of validity, the law of large numbers doesn’t always apply. Try to understand how and why people have come to formulate this law, rather than assuming it’s always true and applies everywhere.

There are two main limitations to this ‘law’ here:

1. Even if you pick the initial states randomly, it is possible that the average of outcomes will not converge towards the expected value no matter how many times you throw the die (it’s possible that you always get some outcome, or never get some outcome, or get totally different frequencies, it’s rare but possible).

2. You don’t know in the first place that you are picking initial states randomly. For instance if you unwittingly always pick initial states that never lead to outcome ‘6’, then it’s wrong to say that outcome ‘6’ has probability 1/6 of occurring, it has probability 0 of occurring, and then the average of outcomes won’t converge towards 3.5.

What could be more obvious than saying if there are more ways of x happening than y then x will happen more frequently if the probabilities of all outcomes are equally likely? — TheMadFool

Firstly, what’s not obvious is that there are more ways of x happening than y.

Secondly, the probabilities of all outcomes are the same only theoretically, in practice the effective probabilities depend on how you throw the die.

Bear in mind though that I don't mean deterministic systems are non-deterministic. I just mean that sometimes, as when we have incomplete knowledge, we can use probability on deterministic systems.

Considering we can use probability on non-deterministic systems too, it must follow that probability theory has within its scope non-determinism and determinism,some part of which we're ignorant of. — TheMadFool

OK we can agree on that. With the caveat that it would be wrong to expect that throwing the die many many times will always yield each outcome with the same frequency as the others, it would be wrong to expect that the observed frequencies will always match the theoretical probabilities we’ve come up with, it would be wrong to expect that if you throw the die a gazillion times you will always get 1/6 frequency for each outcome.

But still...

This is an obvious fact and doesn't contradict anything I've said so far. — TheMadFool

It isn’t an obvious fact, it’s not easy to prove. And I would venture to say that if it was so obvious you wouldn’t have made this thread in the first place, and you still wouldn’t be saying that observed frequencies fit the probabilities too well.

Say you pick a number in the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} and you do that 100 times. You get a combination of 100 numbers, each number being either 1 2 3 4 5 or 6. You can compute how many times each number appears in the combination, compute what its frequency is.

If it was obvious that there are many more such combinations in which each number’s frequency is about the same than there are combinations in which the frequencies are very different, then it would be obvious that when we throw the die arbitrarily 100 times we often get each number with about the same frequency, and we wouldn’t think that it’s weird even though we’re dealing with a deterministic system. If the latter isn’t obvious then the former isn’t either...

Also, it is misleading to say that the system behaves probabilistically, it creates confusion, what’s more accurate is to say that the outcomes of a deterministic system can be distributed evenly when the system is run many times. Fundamentally there is nothing mysterious about that, what appears to be mysterious is why oftentimes the outcomes of a die throw are distributed evenly, but this is explained as above.

Welcome and happy holidays to you too :)

I would say confusion can arise in many ways, both in communication with other people and within one’s own mind.

Regarding communication there is the problem of other minds, we don’t have direct access to what other people experience, to what they see and feel and think, we aren’t them, so we attempt to infer what they experience from how we see them behave, and from the symbols they have written or the sounds that they emit, which we interpret as words.

From this we have one potential source of confusion: mistaking a word for another one (if the person writes or utter one word and we read/hear another word instead).

A second potential source of confusion is that since we don’t know for sure what others see/feel/think, we can’t be sure that different people assign the same experiences (the same meaning) to the same word. Plenty of misunderstandings are evidence of that, different people assign different meanings to the same word. Using the same dictionary definition doesn’t always help, since the definition of a word is made of other words and we don’t know in the first place whether other people assign the same meaning to these words...


Within our own mind confusion can arise in that we don’t have perfect memory, sometimes we think about something and forget what it was a few moments later, with only a faint memory remaining that we were onto something but we can’t precisely discern it anymore. Then some time later it may come back, or not.

Another source of confusion can be attempting to solve a problem and not finding the solution. Sometimes the problem is ill-formulated and we don’t realize it and so we attempt to pursue something that cannot be found. Or the problem has a solution but because we don’t see/understand everything we have a hard time finding it.

Being tired can lead to confusion, eating or not eating some things can lead to confusion, having false beliefs can lead to confusion, ...


From all these examples, I would say more generally that confusion arises from the fact that we don’t see everything. We don’t have perfect memory. Our senses show us a limited picture of the world, of others, of ourselves. We have a limited ability of processing information which can make us get lost in complexity. There are ways to get better at all that though. Memory can be improved, our senses can be enhanced (with the help of tools but also through training), and through thinking/observation/experiment we realize that what seems to be incredibly complex or random can often be explained on the basis of simple principles, so it is possible to untangle the apparent complexity and see things more clearly.

Do you agree that loving somebody isn’t the same feeling as loving the taste of chicken? The use of the same word doesn’t mean that it’s the same feeling underneath.

When you love someone you want to take care of them, you want for them to be happy, this isn’t the same as loving the taste of chicken. A taste is not a person, and a taste can’t be happy, loving a taste is about yourself and not about someone else, it’s surely not about the chicken as a living being, you don’t really care about the chicken since you’re eating him.

It can be true that loving someone brings good to yourself, but it is directed towards someone not towards yourself. Well you can certainly love yourself, but when you truly love someone else, when you truly care about their well-being, it’s not about yourself, even if it can be good to yourself too. Love can make you sacrifice some of your own well-being (safety, comfort, health, ...) so that the other(s) can have more of it.

So true love is certainly not selfish. Just because something can be good to you that doesn’t make it selfish, if through loving someone you feel better that doesn’t mean you’re loving that person so that you can feel better. I would say it is important to love both others and ourselves, to care about the well-being of others and about our own well-being.

But if a man says he loves a woman and he doesn’t care about the well-being of this woman, then in that case he’s being selfish, he thinks about how this woman can be useful for him, he is focused on how this woman makes himself feel and not on how she feels, he sees the woman as a mean rather than an end. It would be less confusing if we used another word than ‘love’ for this, maybe we should call it a craving, a desire to possess or something like that, which isn’t what true love is.

However, there's a major difference between A and B to wit the probabilities on a single throw of the die will be poles apart. In situation A, the probability of any outcome will be between 0 and 1 but never will it be 1 or 100% but in situation B every outcome will have a probability 1 or 100% — TheMadFool

In situation A the probably of one outcome is also 1 or 100% once the die is thrown, it is simply our incomplete knowledge that makes us say that any outcome is possible, but the outcome that is about to be realized is already determined.

So there is no fundamental difference between A and B, the only superficial difference is that in situation A we don’t know what the outcome is going to be, the difference lies in our knowledge of the system and not in how the system behaves.

When we have no knowledge of the initial states, the frequencies of the outcomes are often similar simply because we pick the initial states arbitrarily, and there are many more combinations of initial states where outcomes have a similar frequency, so we pick such combinations much more often. That’s all there is to it.

The die behaves deterministically, there is no fundamental randomness, there is no magical force guiding our hand or the die in order to yield these frequencies. The probabilities we talk about are not a result of an underlying randomness but simply an expression of our incomplete knowledge. The observed frequencies often match these probabilities not because the system behaves probabilistically (randomly, non-deterministically), but because most combinations of initial states lead to these frequencies.

And you can see that it is a coincidence that these observed frequencies match these probabilities, it isn’t always true. For instance if the initial states are picked deliberately so that the observed frequencies do not match these probabilities, then this is what happens. And in some cases the initial states are picked arbitrarily and still the observed frequencies are very different from these probabilities, even after many throws.

we must resort to probability theory and it seems to work pretty well; too well in my opinion in that the die when thrown without knowledge of the initial states behaves in a way that matches theoretical probability. — TheMadFool

I want you to focus on that, on this feeling that it seems to work too well. That feeling is telling you something, that there is something off in your understanding that you can’t quite pinpoint yet, so don’t stop now thinking that the confusion has disappeared. But we’re circling in on that confusion, and I think you aren’t far from finally seeing it.

A. The usual way we throw the die - randomly - without knowing the initial state. The outcomes in this case would have a relative frequency that can be calculated in terms of the ratio between desired outcomes and total number of possible outcomes. It doesn't get more probabilistic than this does it? — TheMadFool

You absolutely have to understand this: the theoretical probabilities do not tell us about the relative frequencies that we will observe. They merely express the best knowledge that we have when we don’t know the initial state we’re in. And indeed as you have correctly noticed, it seems strange that the observed frequencies match the theoretical probabilities so well, why would they?

And the “why” is what you need to understand now.

When you throw the die arbitrarily many times, what you are essentially doing is picking an arbitrary combination of initial states. Now why would this combination contain each outcome with about the same frequency? That’s what you can’t explain yet. Why is it that the bigger the combination, the more similar the frequencies of each outcome are? Once you understand that you will finally see the confusion, and you will finally get it.

If you pick an arbitrary combination of initial states, and most of the time that combination contains each outcome with about the same frequency, do you agree that either something magical is going on and guiding your hand when you pick the initial states, or it means that there are many more combinations where each outcome has about the same frequency, than combinations where the frequencies are different?

And indeed this is something that we can prove: in the example of the die, there are many more combinations of initial states where each outcome has about the same frequency, than there are combinations where the frequencies are different.

If you want we can focus on proving that, if you finally understand that this is the only way that we can make sense of what we observe, without invoking magic or randomness, without saying that our ignorance of the initial states somehow makes the die behave differently.

I see we’re in disagreement over what is more fundamental, more reliable, more certain: change or being. That’s good, it means if we can uncover the root reason why we disagree we will make progress.

I’m going to (re)state reasons for seeing change as more fundamental and against seeing being as more fundamental, and address your points in that regard, let me know if I missed something important.

(note that when I say that change is more fundamental I’m not saying that there is nothing that temporarily stays the same within the change.)


1. Change is immediately evident to us, you agreed with that, whereas being is not immediately evident.

2. If being (absence of change) was most fundamental then there wouldn’t be change by definition, yet there is change. If being changes it is no more being.

3. Change cannot be an illusion because it would be a changing illusion, and thus there would be change. Whereas absence of change can be an illusion, it can be change appearing to be unchanging.

4. An experience is made of parts, for instance there can be simultaneously a feeling and a thought. There may be one part that is seen to be unchanging, but in order to see it as unchanging there is another part that is changing, for instance a thought that is interpreting some part of experience as unchanging. The thought itself is changing, if it wasn’t changing it wouldn’t come to see the other part as unchanging, it would remain stuck on a past thought. So within experience there is always change, the experience as a whole is changing.

5. As another way to rephrase 4., a part of experience doesn’t exist independently from the other parts, they are parts of one whole, so as long as one part is changing the whole is changing.

6. Even if we can find regularities within the change, these regularities wouldn’t exist without the change. Even if something remains temporarily the same within the change, that doesn’t make it more fundamental than the change. There can be sameness within change but there can’t be change within sameness.

7. You might say that if change was fundamental then fundamentally there wouldn’t be truth, because truth is what remains unchanging. However I would say that what is true now isn’t guaranteed to remain true forever. Something that remains the same while everything else is changing may not remain the same forever. Maybe what remains the same depends on what beings do, and the very continued existence of beings may depend on what they do, and what they do is change.


And to address specific points you made:

8. As a reason against seeing change as fundamental, you said you think if change was fundamental then everything would change and the world would be complete chaos and randomness. However I disagree, because why would we have to assume that everything would be changing randomly? Smooth change still counts as change.

9. You say that “the idea of a thing which never changes comes from the necessity of ending the infinite regress”. As to how that infinite regress arises, you say: “Change is a difference in relations between things. So if a thing changes, the relations between its parts have changed. But if a part can change, then it must be composed of parts, and so on to infinite regress.”. But notice that in this reasoning you assume in the first place that there are unchanging things that exist, which is what you end up concluding. If you don’t assume that unchanging things exist fundamentally, then there is no infinite regress and so no necessity to conclude that there are things which never change.


So based on all this I still think that we have to see change as a solid foundation for knowledge, rather than being. And the whole quest is to understand how that change evolves, and to change it.

A die is deterministic and it behaves probabilistically. This probably needs further clarification because it looks like you're confused. — TheMadFool

I explained carefully why saying that “the die behaves probabilistically” is at best meaningless and at worst a contradiction, and yet you’re saying I’m the one who is confused ...

A die is a deterministic system in that each initial state has one and only one outcome but if the initial states are random then the outcomes will be random. — TheMadFool

In a deterministic system where all initial states lead to the same outcome, even if the initial states are picked randomly the outcome isn’t random.

In a deterministic system where all initial states don’t lead to the same outcome, there are subsets of all initial states within which if you pick initial states randomly the outcomes aren’t random.

In the example of the die you can pick the initial states deterministically (rather than randomly) and still get outcomes with frequency 1/6.

Clearly, the underlying reason why the observed frequencies are often 1/6 is not that the initial states are picked randomly, you are still confused about that.

It is correct that picking the initial states randomly in the example of the die leads often (not always) to frequencies close to 1/6 for each outcome, but it is incorrect to believe that randomness is required to obtain such outcomes. The same frequencies can be obtained deterministically.

With your current understanding, you can’t explain why we can pick initial states deterministically and get outcomes with frequency 1/6 each. Because your understanding is incomplete. Now you can keep believing I’m the one who is confused if you want, but meanwhile you’re the one who hasn’t addressed many of the points I’ve made.

This is what I've been saying all along. Deterministic systems can behave probabilistically. — TheMadFool

No no this is where your confusion lies. What do you mean exactly by “behave probabilistically”? It can be interpreted in various ways:


I. Either you mean “behave non-deterministically”, but by definition a deterministic system does not behave non-deterministically. Also in order to arrive at the result that “1/6th of initial states lead to a specific outcome” we had to assume in the first place that the system behaves deterministically, so this result does not mean at all that the system behaves non-deterministically.


II. Or you mean that the behavior of the system depends on probabilities. But as we have seen, probabilities in a deterministic system are an expression of our incomplete knowledge of that system, and surely the behavior of a deterministic system does not depend on the knowledge that we have about it. So it isn’t meaningful to say that a deterministic system “behaves probabilistically” in this sense.


III. Or you mean that when we throw the die many times, the observed frequencies converge towards 1/6 for each outcome, which is similar to how a non-deterministic would behave. But you have to realize that this is false, because:

a) If we have complete knowledge of the deterministic system, we can throw the die such that we always get the outcomes we want, and then the observed frequencies can be totally different from “1/6 for each outcome”. Would you still say that the system “behaves probabilistically” then?

b) Whereas in a non-deterministic system, you might always start from the same initial state and get 6 different outcomes each with frequency 1/6, you never get that in a deterministic system.

c) In the experiment of the die the observed frequencies converge towards 1/6 only in special cases: when the initial states are chosen such that they lead to outcomes with similar frequencies. As it turns out, when we have no knowledge of the initial states we often choose them unwittingly in this manner, for the simple reason that there are many more combinations of initial states that have this property than there are combinations of initial states without this property (this result can be arrived at through combinatorics, if you understand this it will finally click for you, but you will never understand if you keep ignoring this).

1. In a deterministic system there's a well defined function that maps each initial state (I) to a unique outcome (O) like so: f(I) = O.

2. In a non-deterministic system there is no such function because there are more than one outcome e.g. initial state A could lead to outcomes x, y, z,...

You mentioned a "function" pf(I) = O but if memory serves a function can't have more than one output which is what's happening in non-deterministic systems according to you: one initial state and multiple outcomes. — TheMadFool

A function maps inputs to outputs. Deterministic functions (the ones we are used to) map one or several inputs to one output. Non-deterministic functions can map one input to several outputs.

One example of such a non-deterministic function would be: when input is I, there is 90% probability that output is O1, and 10% probability that output is O2. Each time you run the function you only get one output, either O1 or O2. But when you run it a very high number of times, you would get O1 90% of the time and O2 10% of the time.

If that makes you uneasy, you can consider like I do that non-deterministic systems fundamentally do not exist, that if we get different outcomes from the exact same initial state, it’s simply that we falsely believe that it was the exact same initial state, while in fact there was something different about it that we didn’t take into account.

So, there's a difference between non-determinism and randomness but you have to admit that both can be described with mathematical probability. — TheMadFool

There is randomness involved in non-deterministic systems, sure. And randomness can be described with probabilities, sure. But this does not imply that there is randomness in deterministic systems. Because the probabilities in deterministic systems refer to incomplete knowledge, not to randomness. A deterministic system only seems to have randomness in it when we don’t fully understand it.

For instance with a poor understanding of how planets move, their motion in the sky can seem to be partially random, but apparent randomness isn’t fundamental randomness. As another example, you believe there is fundamental randomness involved in the throw of a die, because you haven’t yet understood fully how the frequencies that we observe can be explained without invoking randomness.

In your definition of non-determinism you concede that there is something you don't know viz. the outcomes and then you go on to say that probability is about incomplete knowledge. So it must follow that non-determinism is just probability or are you claiming that there's a difference that depends on what you're ignorant about- only the initial states or only the outcomes - and probability would be an issue of ignorance regarding initial states but non-determinism would be ignorance about outcomes despite having knowledge of the initial states.

If that's the case you're making then non-determinism can't be understood in any way because the outcomes will not exhibit any pattern whatsoever. In other words non-determinism is true randomness with every outcome having equal probability and that brings us to where we began - that non-determinism = probability. — TheMadFool

Long post here, I hope you will read all of it carefully in order to understand, I could have made it shorter but I wanted to answer you as clearly as possible.


1.
In a deterministic system, the outcome is a deterministic function of the initial state, let’s write it O = f(I). No matter how many times you run the system from the same initial state I, you get the same outcome O.

You can have incomplete knowledge of the initial state I, or incomplete knowledge of how the system behaves (the function f), or incomplete knowledge of the outcomes O, or any combination of the three.

1.a)
Without any knowledge about that system, we don’t know anything about the outcomes, anything is possible.

1.b)
If we know that the system involves the throw of a six-sided die numbered from one to six and the outcome is the top face of the die when the die has stopped moving, we know that the outcome can be any number in the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. This counts as partial knowledge of the outcomes O.

You can express that by saying that any outcome outside of this set cannot occur, that it has 0% probability of occurring. But for now you have zero knowledge of whether all outcomes in this set actually occur, in principle it is possible that the outcome is always ‘3’, so at this point you can’t assign any probability to the outcomes in the set.

1.c)
If we know that the initial state of the die is the initial position/orientation/velocity of the die, we can determine the range of possible initial states that exist, this counts as partial knowledge of the initial states I.

But we still don’t know anything about the function f, we still don’t know how any initial state transforms into any outcome, so we still can’t assign probabilities to the outcomes {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.

1.d)
If we know that the die is perfectly symmetrical, then combining that knowledge with our incomplete knowledge of the initial states and outcomes described in the previous paragraphs, we can conclude that 1/6th of the initial states lead to outcome ‘1’, 1/6th of the initial states lead to outcome ‘2’, 1/6th of the initial states lead to outcome ‘3’, and so on. This is the same as saying that each outcome has probability 1/6 of being realized, that’s the definition of probability. This result isn’t obvious but it can be proven mathematically, offering us partial knowledge of the function f.

If we knew nothing of the function f, even if we knew the initial states perfectly we couldn’t predict anything about the outcomes, we couldn’t predict how the die is going to behave while it is flying and bouncing, but the symmetries of the die and the determinism of the function f allow us to say that no matter how the die behaves, it behaves exactly the same whether in the initial state the side ‘1’ is facing upwards or any other side is facing upwards.

1.e)
Then if we have more complete knowledge of the function f (more complete knowledge of how the die behaves while it is flying and bouncing), and more complete knowledge of the initial state when the die is thrown, we can predict the outcome more accurately, and this changes the probabilities from 1/6 to something else that depends on the initial state. And if we have complete knowledge then we can predict the outcomes exactly from the initial states and we don’t need to talk of probabilities anymore.


2.
In a non-deterministic system, the outcome is a non-deterministic function of the initial state, let’s write it O = pf(I). Even if you run the system many times from the same initial state I, you don’t always get the same outcome O. You may get some outcomes more often than some others, but you don’t get only one outcome.

In such a system, even if you gain complete knowledge of the initial states and of the function pf, you still don’t know what outcome you are going to get each time you run the experiment. But you do know things, for instance you may know which outcomes are possible (have a non-zero probability of occurring) and which outcomes are impossible (have zero probability of occurring). You may know that some outcomes are more likely than others, and assign probabilities to them.

So as you can see, it is not the case that in a non-deterministic system the outcomes will not exhibit any pattern whatsoever, it isn’t the case that a non-deterministic system is totally random. You may know that starting from initial state I, the outcome will be O1 90% of the time and O2 10% of the time. But this probability is irreducible, in the sense that it cannot be removed from gaining more knowledge, because that additional knowledge doesn’t exist.

Basically in non-deterministic systems there is irreducible probability even if you have complete knowledge of the system, whereas in deterministic systems the probabilities are only a sign of incomplete knowledge, and disappear when we have complete knowledge.


Personally I believe that we shouldn’t even make a distinction, I believe that there is no such thing as non-deterministic systems, that probabilities are always due to incomplete knowledge. And when you see things that way you clearly see that formulating probabilities isn’t a sign that you’re dealing with a non-deterministic system, but merely that you’re expressing the incomplete knowledge you have of a system.

It is irrational to suppose that other people are irrational and that I am rational. So let's presume that we are all irrational and all open to manipulation by other irrational people.

I think on this basis we would be well advised to not manipulate each other but to try our best to help each other towards rationality without claiming to be the source thereof. — unenlightened

:up:

You can't manipulate irrational people. You can only manipulate rational people. — Harry Hindu

Good point also.

As to why the observed frequencies are often (not always) close to 1/6, consider the following:

Since in a deterministic system the outcome depends solely on the initial state, the observed frequencies of the outcomes depend solely on the initial states that are chosen.

And the key point to understand: there are many more ways to pick initial states leading to outcomes that have similar frequency, than there are ways to pick initial states leading to outcomes with very different frequencies. This is a result arrived at through combinatorics, something I have mentioned a few times but that you have consistently ignored.

And this result implies that in most experiments where the die is thrown arbitrarily (that is where we aren’t preferring some initial states over some others), the observed outcomes have a similar frequency, close to 1/6. Which in no way implies that the die is behaving non-deterministically at any point. Nor that the initial states are chosen non-deterministically.

What are the following in your view?

1. Probability

2. Determinism

3. Non-determinism — TheMadFool

1. Probability expresses incomplete knowledge that we have about a system.

2. The exact same initial states in a deterministic system lead to the exact same outcome.

3. The exact same initial states in a non-deterministic system can lead to different outcomes.

What are they in your view?

Also read my previous two posts carefully, I think eventually it will click for you. I’m taking quite a lot of time to help you understand, so it would be fair if you took at least as much time to read and attempt to understand my posts.

As evidence that probabilities refer to incomplete knowledge (and not non-determinism), consider the following:

If you don’t know anything about a die, you wouldn’t come up with any probability, you would say that the outcome of a die throw can be anything.

But through thinking, through making use of the symmetries of the die, you can conclude that there are as many ways to throw the die that lead to outcome ‘one’, than there are ways that lead to outcome ‘two’, than there are ways that lead to outcome ‘three’, and so on. This gives you partial knowledge, you know that if you throw the die once in every possible way, each outcome will be realized with frequency 1/6. That’s why we say that without knowledge of the initial conditions, the best we can say is that in all possible ways to throw the die, 1/6th of them lead to outcome ‘one’, 1/6th lead to outcome ‘two’ and so on, or in other words that each outcome has probability 1/6 of being realized.

But if you have also partial knowledge of the initial conditions you can determine the probabilities even more precisely. For instance if you know that in specific ways that you throw the die you never get a ‘six’, then you know that when you throw the die in these ways there is 0% probability to get a ‘six’, and the probabilities of the other outcomes change accordingly. If you know that when you throw the die in a very specific way you always get a ‘four’, then you know that when you throw the die in that way there is 100% probability to get a ‘four’.

And when you have complete knowledge there is no more need to talk of probabilities, you know exactly which outcome you are going to get each time, each time you know there is 100% probability you are going to get a specific outcome.


As another example, through making use of the symmetries of a coin you can conclude that in about 50% of ways to toss a coin you get the outcome ‘heads’ and in about 50% of ways you get ‘tails’. But if you think more carefully you realize that there are also a few ways that lead the coin to land on neither heads nor tails but on its side. So if you take that knowledge into account, you come up with more precise probabilities, you say that there isn’t 50% probability to get ‘heads’ and 50% probability to get ‘tails’ but slightly less, because there is a non-zero probability for the coin to land on its side.

And if you have complete knowledge of the system, of what outcome you get depending on how you toss the coin, then there is no need to talk of probabilities anymore, you have complete knowledge so you know what you’re gonna get, and if you want you can toss the coin so that it always lands on its side.

Whereas in a non-deterministic system, complete knowledge doesn’t allow you to say what outcome you’re gonna get, there are still probabilities that remain, the exact same initial conditions can give rise to different outcomes. Personally I believe that such systems do not exist, that even quantum mechanics can be formulated in a deterministic way, and that probabilities always refer to incomplete knowledge rather than knowledge that doesn’t exist.

Well, what is the best way to model a die throw in your view?

1. Probability

2. Determinism

Both right? — TheMadFool

I think you’re conflating probability and non-determinism. When we say that “there is 1/6 probability that the die will land on three”, do you agree that you interpret it as saying that the die behaves non-deterministically?

It is fine to say that there is 1/6 probability that the die will land on a given side. But this simply expresses our ignorance of the initial conditions when we throw the die, it doesn’t express that the die behaves non-deterministically, and I think that’s where your confusion lies.

To say that the die behaves non-deterministically would be to say that the die doesn’t have a determined trajectory once it is thrown, that it will behave differently even if it is thrown in exactly the same way and even if everything else remains the same, but this isn’t true, or at the very least there is no evidence of that, and the frequencies of the observed outcomes can be explained without invoking any non-determinism.

When the system is deterministic, probabilities refer to incomplete knowledge, but that complete knowledge exists even if we don’t have access to it. Determinism is not incompatible with probabilities, with incomplete knowledge, with ignorance.

But when a system is deterministic, it cannot be non-deterministic, that would be a contradiction. In a fundamentally non-deterministic system, even if we have complete knowledge of it, there are probabilities that remain, for instance the system can behave differently even if it starts from the exact same initial conditions.

Whereas in a fundamentally deterministic system, when you have complete knowledge of it the probabilities disappear, you know exactly which outcome you’re going to get. If after many throws the frequencies of each outcome are about 1/6, you can explain why. If they are totally different from 1/6 you can explain that too. You can explain why in many cases the frequencies are about 1/6. There is no non-determinism.

In experience, we tend to notice things which stay the same for some period of time. In fact, it appear necessary that something stay as it is for some period in order for us to even notice it. Imagine if at every moment, every little part of existence changed in some completely random fashion. So if we look at the ancient dichotomy of being and becoming (change) it would be difficult to say which is more fundamental to our experience. To notice one seems to require that we notice the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that in order to experience change there has to be something that stays the same in relation to what is changing, for instance a thought, because if everything was changing randomly including our thoughts we wouldn’t even have a static thought that would tell us we are experiencing randomness, we wouldn’t have any memory and so on. But even though some things temporarily don’t change in relation to some other change, we don’t have to assume that it is necessary that some thing never changes. We have no evidence that something can never change forever, while we have evidence of change.

We are certain of change but not of being. What we interpret as not changing might be simply change that is not perceived, for instance something might seem unchanging and yet by looking more closely we see change. Also, if one part of experience is not changing while another part is changing, the whole experience is changing as a whole, so again change appears as more fundamental than being. For these reasons I think it will be more fruitful to see change as fundamental rather than being.

I don't understand what you could be talking about here. A "relation" requires two things, therefore the relation necessarily has parts. It doesn't make sense to speak of a relation without parts. I definitely was not assuming a relation without parts.

Perhaps you misunderstood the point I was making. If two distinct things are shown to be in a relation to one another, then by virtue of that relation, we have indicated that those two things are parts of a larger thing. If the "relation" is valid then a larger unity is indicated. — Metaphysician Undercover

Would you agree with the idea that fundamentally what we call a “relation” is a thought, an experience? The idea that “change occurs” follows from experiences that are seen to change. Where does the idea of a “relation” come from? Doesn’t it come from seeing that some part of experience is correlated with some other, that the two parts change not independently from one another, but together in some way?

Where I’m going with this is that you were saying that a thing without parts cannot change on its own, but if you agree that a relation is fundamentally an experience, a thought, a thing, then again why would that experience or thought or thing change on its own? If you say that this relation is made of parts, and that this is why the relation can change, then we’re back to asking why do the parts of that relation change in the first place?

Basically it seems to me that you can’t escape the fact that a thing without parts can change, that it can become something different than it was, which again leads to the idea that change is more fundamental than being. It seems to me that it is a circular reasoning to say that “a thing with parts can change because the relation between the parts can change”, because in saying that you’re essentially saying that the relation can change on its own, or that the parts of the relation which are themselves not made of parts are changing on their own. Do you see what I mean?

Change is a difference in relations between things. So if a thing changes, the relations between its parts have changed. There is no other way that a thing could change, that is change, a change in relations. But if a part can change, then it must be composed of parts, and so on to infinite regress. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we see change as more fundamental than being then a thing is simply an absence of change in relation to some other change. And then we don’t have to explain how a thing changes, change is what’s fundamental, a partial absence of change is what has to be explained, and we can explain it simply by seeing it as two opposite changes that cancel one another (or as several changes in equilibrium). Would you agree with that?

And then it isn’t that “change requires parts”, we can simply say that parts of the change are seemingly unchanging in relation to other parts.

I think we could see that as a solid foundation for knowledge and move from there.

And with that, I see my effort here is not well-spent.

Carry on. — Mww

Since you don’t address the points I make, I have to agree. You’re not interested in understanding or addressing the points that other people are making in this thread, while I have addressed yours, apparently you’re not looking for a discussion, you don’t want to consider that you may be wrong, you just want people to agree with you, well I explained why I disagree with you, if you’re not liking that and you aren’t willing to explain why you disagree with my explanation then indeed your posts in this thread are a waste of time for both of us.

Tell me what is it that I didn't understand. — TheMadFool

I’ve done that repeatedly in the previous posts, do I really need to say it again?

You believe that the die behaves non-deterministically, that’s wrong. When you say that it behaves probabilistically that’s what you mean right? That it behaves non-deterministically. But it makes no sense to say that a deterministic system behaves non-deterministically, it’s self-contradictory.

The fact that the outcomes of multiple die throws exhibit often particular frequencies does not imply that the die behaves non-deterministically at any time. Just like the fact that the letters in an English book exhibit often particular frequencies does not imply that English books behave non-deterministically.

Now tell me, what is it that you don’t understand about that?

That you can find patterns in a deterministic system doesn’t mean that the deterministic system behaves non-deterministically. That you can find patterns in the frequencies of outcomes when you throw a die doesn’t mean that the die behaves non-deterministically. That you can find patterns in the frequencies of letters in the English language doesn’t mean that English words behave non-deterministically. That you can find patterns in the relative sizes of pizza slices when you cut a pizza doesn’t mean that the pizza behaves non-deterministically...

You are conflating the existence of statistics (which can be expressed as ratios or percentages) with non-deterministic behavior, they aren’t the same thing at all. Both deterministic and non-deterministic systems have statistics, so when you express the statistics of a deterministic system it doesn’t mean that it behaves non-deterministically. It seems to me you believe you have understood while you haven’t really understood.

Perhaps I don't see the relevance of what you're saying to what is a actually bothering me. Kindly read below. — TheMadFool

Yes you aren't seeing the relevance, because it precisely addresses what is bothering you.

I've given it some thought and I think you both are correct but not in the way you think. — TheMadFool

That's the kind of thing I was referring to yesterday, you assume that you know better and that there is something you see that we don't see, while it is the other way around. Your misconception is making you believe that, because you're still not seeing your misconception.

2. Non-deterministic or probabilistic patterns. A die throw is effectively random but any sufficiently large experiment will demonstrate that the outcomes have a pattern viz. that three appears 1/6 of the time, an odd numbered face will appear 3/6 of the time. — TheMadFool

This is wrong. It is false that "any sufficiently large experiment will demonstrate that the outcomes have a pattern viz. that three appears 1/6 of the time". As I keep telling you again and again and again, sometimes no matter how large your experiment is, it doesn't exhibit the pattern you mention. Sometimes you might throw the die 1 billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion times and always get the same number, or never get some number. It is extremely rare, that's the only reason why you haven't noticed it.

And to explain why most of the time there is the pattern you mention, the answer is, again: combinatorics. There is nothing non-deterministic in combinatorics. It simply says that for a series of X natural numbers between 1 and 6, there are 6^X possible combinations (6^X different series), and that in most of these series, when X is large, each number appears about as frequently as the others, and the larger X is the bigger the percentage of series in which each number has a similar frequency. But no matter how large X is, there are always series where the frequencies are totally different from 1/6. You have to understand that, otherwise you will never get it.

The outcomes that we observe experimentally can be explained fully deterministically by invoking the symmetries of the die and combinatorics, without invoking non-determinism at any point.

Also bear in mind that a deterministic pattern will differ markedly from a non-deterministic/probabilistic pattern. The latter will exhibit multiplicity of outcomes will the former has only one determined outcome. — TheMadFool

This is wrong also, you throw the die in different ways that's why there is a multiplicity of outcomes, otherwise what you're saying would imply that if the die behaves deterministically it would always land on the same side no matter how we throw it, THAT would be the weird thing.

Hum, I am having trouble focusing, so participating in the forum is difficult. I am having trouble sleeping knowing I have to empty out my apartment. I am having trouble emptying out my apartment because I get so little done before the pain is so bad I have to sit down. I am trying to thin out my library and I am making some progress but I think I am trying to save too many books. — Athena

I really hope things are going to work out for you, hopefully your sister can get you out of these difficulties.

Going on your concern of division, dividing things between good and evil can be problematic, and thinking a God controls what is happening instead of natural forces and human choices is problematic. — Athena

Yes many things can be problematic. But identifying forces that contribute to divide, to spread suffering, I don’t see that as problematic, precisely it’s what we need in order to solve problems that we haven’t managed to solve.

Dividing things between good and evil can be problematic if we classify something good as evil and something evil as good, if we classify wrongly because of false beliefs or because of an evil intent. Hopefully you agree that there is such a thing as true good or true evil, that good and evil aren’t purely relative. If you don’t agree that’s OK but that means I would have a harder time getting my point across as I would have to show you why this is true. But for instance I hope you agree that something like torturing and killing children to get a kick out of it isn’t good, it’s evil, it’s a destructive force that spreads suffering. I’m sure you agree with that, but when people don’t agree with that it becomes even more difficult to help them see the light, but it’s still possible.

And yes thinking that what happens is independent of human choices, that a God decides everything, is a problem. But many people who don’t believe in a God believe that we have no free will, that everything that happens is determined by physical laws, and that’s a problem too. However it isn’t necessarily a problem to believe that a God who has a limited power exists.

Holding that man can know the will of God, is a terrible, terrible thing that we must not tolerate because this belief can lead to evil. — Athena

A belief in itself isn’t harmful, it’s what we do with it that can be harmful. I wouldn’t really have a problem with someone claiming that they know the will of God if they don’t go around killing people or spreading suffering. What if one individual really does know the will of God? What would that say about us if we imprison that man or worse because we have decreed that we cannot tolerate such belief?

We agree holding false beliefs can be a serious problem. How do you suggest we correct the problem without causing division? — Athena

With promoting understanding, listening to one another more rather than forcing our beliefs onto others, not blindly believing what we are told, finding out for ourselves, considering what others say without blindly dismissing it even if we don’t agree with it. Finding what we can agree on and move from there. Caring about others and about ourselves, caring about other animals, about the environment. Realize that we are all in the same boat so fighting one another is counterproductive. Identify the evil forces that work to disrupt all that, in order to better understand what we’re up against. While being careful not to spread evil ourselves.

And at the same time be strong. Turning the other cheek in the face of evil is problematic in that it is an invitation to let evil destroy ourselves. We have to be strong to stand our ground and say no when faced with evil. If we turn the other cheek we let evil spread, and if we retaliate we spread evil, so the good thing is to prevent evil from spreading without spreading it ourselves. And ask for help when we can’t face it on our own. And be willing to help those who need help when we can help them, when it’s not about helping them spread evil.

Wisdom is needed to uncover what’s truly good and what’s truly evil, but blindly believing someone who appears wise is precisely not wisdom, that’s something we have to uncover ourselves, through introspection, observing, thinking, feeling, listening without blindly believing, discussing, experimenting, ...

In order to uncover our false beliefs, we have to uncover in the first place what it is that we believe, and then find out whether it is possible that our beliefs are false, and if they were false what would that imply. Discussing with people who have different beliefs can help uncover them too. There is so much to say on the subject, but all this can be a good starting point.

I hope things will work out for you, take care.

This is exactly what bothers me. It should be possible to bias the experiment towards a particular outcome. Yet this doesn't happen and the die behaves in a completely random fashion as is evidenced by the frequency of outcomes in an experiment of large enough number. Why? — TheMadFool

Because as I keep mentioning, it does happen! It is rare but it does happen, even with an incredibly large number of experiments. There is a non-zero probability that you will throw the die a gazillion times and always get the same number, or never get some number, or get some numbers much more often than the others. The reason you believe it doesn’t happen is that most of the time it doesn’t happen, but sometimes it does happen.

Again this is explained with combinatorics. I’ll give a simpler analogy than earlier. Since there are N initial states, and N/6 initial states lead to outcome one, N/6 initial states lead to outcome two and so on, there are as many initial states that lead to each outcome. And once an initial state is picked, the outcome is already determined (even if we don’t know it in advance).

So a mathematically equivalent analogy of the throw of the die (6-sided and perfectly symmetrical) is to have 6 identical balls inside a box, numbered from one to six. Throwing the die in an arbitrary way without knowing the outcome in advance, corresponds to picking one ball arbitrarily without looking inside the box. Then you write down the outcome and you put the ball back inside the box, and you shake the box so that you have no idea which ball is which when you pick another ball after.

And if you do that many times, it is possible that you will always pick the same ball. As the number of picks increases it becomes rarer and rarer, but no matter how many picks you make it still can happen. Or it can happen that you never pick some ball, or that you pick some balls much more often than some others, or whatever.

So even though this shows that in some rare cases the observed frequencies will be very different from the theoretical probabilities, even with an extremely large number of picks, combinatorics also allow you to show that most of the time the observed frequencies will be close to 1/6 as the number of picks increases.

Because for instance if you make 100 picks, there are 6^100 possible ordered combinations of numbers from one to six (say 1-2-4-3-6-2-... or 3-1-1-1-1-6-...), and mathematically you can show that in most combinations, each number appears with about the same frequency. So most of the time the balls are picked with about the same frequency, most of the time each side of the die appears with about the same frequency, but that doesn’t always happen, because there are some combinations of 100 numbers from one to six in which the numbers have very different frequencies.

Mathematically it’s even possible to calculate how likely it is that after X picks, each number shows up with frequency less than say 2% away from 1/6 (or 1% away or 0.1% or whatever). And if you carry out the calculation (it’s not easy but it’s doable), you will see that there is a non-zero probability that after X picks the frequencies are very different from 1/6, no matter how large X is.

Is there something that still isn’t clear?

I agree for the most part, except:

5. Now imagine you throw the die without looking at which initial state the die achieves. You will see the familiar result that each outcome is 1/6 of the total number of times the die is thrown. This concurs with increasing accuracy the greater the number of experiments that are performed. — TheMadFool

If you don’t look at the initial state, you may pick unwittingly the same initial state every time (or a member of the set of initial states that yield the same outcome), so I don’t agree that we will always see each outcome with 1/6 frequency even with an arbitrarily large number of experiments. In some rare cases the frequencies will be very different, and in order to explain that we have to delve into combinatorics.

And since I don’t agree on this point (5.) I also disagree on your next point (6.), that the die is behaving randomly.

9. Somewhere in the chain events, randomness was introduced into the system. The only place possible is at the time you put the die in one of the six initial states and this was random. This makes complete sense when you consider what you said: — TheMadFool

I do agree that the frequencies of the outcomes are related to the way the initial states are chosen. However I don’t agree that there is a fundamental randomness that is introduced. For instance you can cycle through all the initial states deterministically, and yet you will get the result that each outcome will appear overall with frequency 1/6. So it is not randomness that leads each side of the die to appear 1/6th of the time. In order to explain that, you have to take into account both the symmetries of the die and combinatorics.

The whole reasoning goes as follow: in a deterministic system, for a perfectly symmetrical 6-sided die, it can be shown theoretically (using the symmetries of the die) that each side shows up with probability 1/6 (where probability of an outcome is defined as the number of initial states that lead to this outcome divided by the total number of possible initial states).

Then what remains to explain is why, most of the time, the frequency of each outcome converges towards 1/6 as the number of experiments increases, and yet in some rare cases the frequencies of each outcome are very different even though the number of experiments becomes arbitrarily large. In order to explain that, we have to go into combinatorics.

The probability that this happens becomes increasingly small as the number of experiments becomes increasingly large, but for any finite number of experiments, there are situations where the frequencies of all sides will be very different, even if we pick the initial states arbitrarily without knowing the outcomes in advance. Because for instance, if there are N possible initial states, and you conduct 1000000000000*N experiments, it happens in rare cases that you haven’t gone through all initial states, or that you have picked unwittingly some initial states much more often than some others. And if you don’t take that into account you get the illusion that experimentally we will always see each outcome with frequency 1/6 as we increase the number of experiments, while this isn’t true.

And at the same time combinatorics will also explain while most of the time each outcome shows up with frequency close to 1/6, even though no randomness is introduced at any point. Picking an initial state arbitrarily does not imply that it is picked non-deterministically.

So you're right that "unexpected" outcomes such as 20 threes in a row can occur in a 100 throws of the die. However, as the number of experiments are increased, say to a million throws, the frequency of threes in that million will be approx. 1/6. — TheMadFool

It’s possible to throw the die a million times and get three a million times. It’s possible to throw it a gazillion times and get three a gazillion times. Because, again, in a deterministic system the outcome is determined from the initial conditions, so if you always throw the die in exactly the same way you always get the same result.

Now let’s say there are 1 gazillion different initial conditions that yield the outcome three. That means you can throw the die 1 gazillion times in 1 gazillion different ways and always get the outcome three. You can throw it 1 billion gazillion times in 1 gazillion different ways and always get the outcome three.

However if there are N different ways to throw the die (say 6 gazillion ways), and you throw the die once in each way, and the die is perfectly symmetrical, you will indeed get each side with frequency 1/6.

So why is it that most of the time when we throw the die only 100 or 1000 times the frequencies are close to 1/6? The law of large numbers does not explain why if we don’t explain why that law works.

To understand why, consider the following analogy: you have a box in which there are N balls (6 gazillion balls). N/6 balls have the number 1 on them, N/6 balls have the number 2 and so on. If you pick 100 balls arbitrarily, without looking at them, without knowing what their number is in advance, most of the time that you do that about 100/6 balls will have the number 1, about 100/6 balls will have the number 2, and so on. Why?

As I explained earlier, it has to do with combinations, not with randomness. Basically there are more combinations of 100 balls where the 6 numbers show up each with about the same frequency, than there are combinations of 100 balls where the numbers show up with very different frequencies. Try to understand why. If you don’t understand I’ll attempt to find a simple example to make it clear.

3. Theoretical probability calculations has as a fundamental assumption that what is being calculated is random. — TheMadFool

Not exactly. In your OP you correctly said:

Probability of an event E = (Number of ways event E can be realized) ÷ (Total number of possible events) — TheMadFool

There is no randomness involved in that definition.

In an earlier post I gave hints as to how you can show that for a symmetrical die subjected to deterministic forces, the “number of ways event E can be realized” (for instance the number of ways that outcome ‘1’ is realized) is 1/6th of the total number of possible events:

If you keep the initial parameters p2, p3, ..., pn constant and only vary the initial parameter p1, consider how you can use the symmetries of the dice to prove that in 1/6 of all initial states the outcome will be "1", in 1/6 of all initial states the outcome will be "2", and so on. — leo

So with that definition of probability you can compute that it is 1/6 for each side of a perfectly symmetrical die without invoking any randomness.

4. An experiment is done and the die is thrown 1000 times. In accordance with the theoretical probability we'll get three on the die approx. 166 times or 1/6 of 1000 throws — TheMadFool

One important thing to keep in mind is that “probability = 1/6 for each side” does not imply that in practice that’s what we will get. It is possible to throw the die 1000 times and get the number three 0 time. Theoretically it is possible to throw the die an arbitrarily large number of times and never get three. As a simple example, if you always throw the die in exactly the same way, you will always get the same result. If you always throw the die in ways that never lead to the outcome three, you never get three.

What “probability = 1/6 for each side” means is that experimentally if you throw the die once in every possible way, each side will appear in 1/6th of all throws. And if you do that, there isn’t any randomness involved at any point.

When I talked of throwing the die randomly, I meant that if you throw the die in a specific way so as to get a particular result, that’s the result that you will get. So for instance if you can predict the outcome in advance for each way that you can throw the die, then you can throw the die in specific ways so that each side will show up with the frequency you want. You can make only one side always show up, or only two sides, or one side 10 times more frequently than the others, or whatever you want. But if you don’t attempt to throw the die in specific ways there is no fundamental randomness involved, it’s simply that you aren’t choosing a particular outcome in advance.

At that point the only apparent mystery that remains is why when you throw the die only 100 times, most of the time each side shows up about 1/6 of the time, and as I described in my previous post that can be explained with statistics, there is no need to invoke any fundamental randomness.

A deterministic system can't be random and the die is behaving as if it is random. This implies that a random element was introduced into the system (the die) at some stage of the experiment (throwing the die 1000 times) and I think this happened when we chose the initial states of each of the 1000 die throws - all initial states were chosen randomly and so the outcomes conformed with the theoretical probability which makes the assumption that the system (the die) is random.

Do you agree with my "explanation"? — TheMadFool

I agree very partially. The theoretical probability does not make the assumption that the system is random. The die doesn’t behave as if it is random. Throwing the die 1000 times doesn’t introduce a random element.

Where I agree is that how we choose the initial states has an impact on the frequencies of the different outcomes. When we throw the die in various ways, as arbitrarily as possible, most of the time the experimental observations will be close to the theoretical probability, but it is important to see that in some rare cases, even if you pick the initial conditions as randomly as you can, you can still get frequencies that are totally different from the theoretical probability (for instance getting the number three 1000 times in a row even though you have thrown the die in many different ways without knowing the outcome in advance, this is very rare but it can happen).

Okay, sorry for reacting that way, it’s just not pleasant to take time to explain something carefully in order to help you see your misconception only to be ignored again and again.

By the way I’m not a native English speaker and I just realized that the singular of ‘dice’ is ‘die’, so I just learnt something from you (I was wondering why you were always spelling it ‘die’).

Firstly, why did you say "you throw it quite randomly"? I would infer from it that it is necessary for randomness to enter into the system (the die) at some stage of an experiment. — TheMadFool

Yes, but randomly does not imply non-deterministically. For instance we have random number generators that are deterministic. We might say it’s not true randomness, but practically the outcomes appear random.

The reason I talked about throwing the die randomly, is that if you repeatedly throw the die in the exact same way then the outcome will always be the same, say you will land 100% of the time on number 3. In a deterministic system, when you start with the exact same initial conditions you get the exact same outcome. So clearly, the reason that the die doesn’t always land on the same side has to do with how you throw it.

If you always start with only two different initial conditions, you would only get at most two different outcomes. In order to have each side of the die showing up, you have to throw the die in many different ways. But throwing it in many different ways is not enough to have each side showing up 1/6 of the time, because if you can predict the outcome that results from given initial conditions, you could arrange to throw it in a thousand different ways and always get the number 3.

So in order to see each side showing up 1/6 of the time, you don’t just have to throw the die in many different ways, you have to not control the initial conditions, you have to pick the initial conditions in a somewhat random way. (well you could also arrange to select initial conditions so that each side shows up 1/6 of the time, but in practice the initial conditions are selected without knowing the outcome in advance).

Secondly it isn't the mere fact that I can express the outcomes as percentage but that these percentages agree with the theoretical probability which is possible if and only if the die is random. Yet, as you seem to agree the die outcome is deterministic in nature.

How do you reconcile the fact that the die is a deterministic system and yet behaves probabilistically? I'm as nonchalant about this as I would be if someone said s/he could predict the outcomes of random events. — TheMadFool

First you have to understand that the die itself does not behave probabilistically, you think it does because of your misconception. As you can see from what I said just above, the theoretical prediction that each side shows up 1/6 of the time is not always valid, in practice it is valid if you throw the die in many different ways without knowing the outcome in advance (without selecting particular initial conditions in order to get the outcomes you want).

Then the question becomes, if we throw the die somewhat randomly (without knowing the outcome in advance), why is it that after many throws each side shows up about 1/6 of the time? This is what seems like a mystery, but once you understand there is no mystery.

Since there are many different ways to throw the die that lead to a given outcome (say number 3), it is possible to throw the die in a thousand different ways and always get the number 3, even without selecting the initial conditions so as to get the number 3, even without knowing the outcome in advance. It is rare, but it is possible, it can happen. So in fact the theoretical prediction that each side shows up 1/6 of the time doesn’t always work, but most of the time it does work, most of the time that’s approximately what we get. Why is that?

The reason is the exact same reason why if you have 6 numbered balls inside a box and you pick a ball without knowing the outcome in advance, most of the time you will get each ball about 1/6 of the time. It can happen that you pick the same ball 100 times in a row, but it’s rare. The answer doesn’t have to do with probabilities, but with statistics.

There is only one way to pick the ball number ‘1’ 100 times in a row. There are only six ways to pick the same ball 100 times in a row (you might pick always number 1, or always number 2, ...). There are many more ways to pick only 2 different balls during 100 picks. There are many more ways to pick only 3 different balls during 100 picks. There are many more ways to pick each ball at least one time during 100 picks. And there are many more ways to pick each ball about 1/6 of the time, than to pick one ball 95 times and each other ball only one time. The number of ways that exist can be calculated, maybe I’ll do that when I have the time.

But basically, the reason that most of the time each side of the die shows up about 1/6 of the time, is that there are many more combinations where each side shows up about 1/6 of the time than there are combinations where some sides show up much more frequently than the others.

And this is only true if the die is symmetrical. If one side was much more sticky than the others, the die would land more often on that side, and then one outcome would show up more often than the others, and then most of the time that’s what we would get, even though in rare cases that outcome would show up as frequently as the others.

Let me know if something isn’t clear still.

Let’s go baby steps:

Say there are 6 numbered balls in front of you, they aren’t even in a box they are in front of you, one ball has number 1, one ball has number 2, one ball has number 3, one ball has number 4, one ball has number 5, one ball has number 6.

You pick ball number 1. Then you pick ball number 2. Then you pick ball number 3. Then you pick ball number 4. Then you pick ball number 5. Then you pick ball number 6.

You have picked each ball one time, right? You have picked each ball 1/6 of the time, each ball has been picked 16.666666.. % of the time. Does that mean the deterministic system is behaving probabilistically? No!

Just because you have picked a given ball one time out of six, just because you can express with a percentage how often a given outcome has been realized, this doesn’t imply that the system was behaving probabilistically.

Hopefully you agree with that. So stop saying that a deterministic system is behaving probabilistically simply because you can express the outcomes in terms of percentages, in terms of ratios. If you cut a pizza in 4 equal parts, each slice of the pizza is 1/4th of the pizza, 25% of the pizza, that doesn’t mean that the pizza is behaving probabilistically...

If you can understand that basic error you keep making then maybe you can start understanding the rest.

So basically you have ignored again what I have taken the time to explain to you in details. I have shown you where your error lies, and you keep ignoring it and keep restating your error again and again as if no one had addressed it. That’s not respectful. You assume that you have noticed something that other people haven’t noticed, but the reality is that some people understand why you’re wrong and explain it to you but you keep ignoring what they say, you keep assuming that you know better while you don’t.

I have shown you that you can prove mathematically that in a deterministic system, as long as the dice is perfectly symmetrical, and if there are n different ways to throw the dice, then there are n/6 ways in which the dice lands on number x (where x is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). It’s not magic, it’s not a deterministic system behaving probabilistically, it’s a consequence of the symmetries of the dice.

If you always threw the dice in the exact same way while the rest of the system remains the same, the dice would always land on the same number. But in practice you don’t throw the dice in the exact same way, you throw it quite randomly, and since there are n/6 ways in which the dice lands on number x, then in practice after many throws the dice lands on number x about 1/6 of the time. If you have 6 numbered balls in a box and you pick one randomly then put it back, after many picks you will have picked each ball about 1/6 of the time. Same principle.

If there is something you don’t understand about that, then ask. Otherwise stay ignorant if that’s what you want.

Sorry for the late reply

OK, but this is where we need to be careful in our description. Change requires that there is something which is changing And so we have the dualism problem again. We have the thing and the changes which occur to the thing. If we associate existence with change in the sense of "existence and change are the same", then when we direct our attention to the thing which is changing, we need to us terms other than "existence" in that description. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see where you’re getting at, but do you agree that without the experience of change we wouldn’t even come up with the concept of “existence”? Without the experience of change there wouldn’t be thoughts, there would only be a single thought, or a single color, a single experience that never changes, and we couldn’t even think about that experience. So it seems to me that “change” is more fundamental than a “thing”. There can be change that is so random that no specific thing can be identified within this change, and we can’t identify a thing without change.

In that view then and to avoid confusion, maybe we should talk of change instead of existence?

This is why we need to be careful in our description. A thing is a whole, a unity. Suppose that a thing is made of parts, and the parts are in relations with each other. When the relations between the parts change, the thing changes. but this doesn't necessarily mean that the parts themselves change. If a thing has no parts, there are no internal relations, and the thing does not change. The relations between it and other things might change, but this is not a change to the thing itself, it is a change to some larger unity of this thing and other things (as parts). — Metaphysician Undercover

But what are relations, if not things themselves? It seems you are assuming two fundamental distinct entities: things and relations. You are also assuming that a thing without parts cannot change on its own. Why would a relation without parts be able to change on its own, and not a thing without parts? It seems to me that if you assume a thing without parts cannot change you’re running into the same problem concerning a relation without parts.

Maybe if we start from the concept of change instead of starting from the concepts of things and relations, we won’t run into these problems. Change occurs, and within that change things can be identified, in that they are parts of the change that temporarily do not change in relation to the rest. What do you think of this?

The problem is that we want to avoid the infinite regress. If a thing can change, and a thing can be a part, then a part can change. Now we have an infinite regress of parts, and it really doesn't make sense to think that there is always smaller parts ad infinitum. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don’t see where there is the infinite regress when we say that a part can change, why would we have to assume that a fundamental part does not change?

But we must say something about "change", describe it, if we want to understand it. And we cannot do this with assuming multiple things (parts) in relation to each other. So it's pointless to just say "there is change", and therefore avoid talking about parts, because then we cannot understand change. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes we can describe that change. Let’s say you have the experience of ‘white’ (you’re close to a white wall and you’re only seeing white), you might say this is a thing that doesn’t change, but no there is still change, your thoughts are changing, you only see the white as not changing because your thoughts are changing and allowing you to think that. And there the change can be seen as made of parts, one part is the thoughts that you are having and the other part is the sensation of ‘white’ that is not changing in relation to your thoughts, but they form one whole, you can’t see the ‘white’ as not changing without having changing thoughts at the same time. Do you see where I’m getting at?