As purely philosophical question, would God be able to define an absolute frame of reference, — FreeEmotion

God is free to define a sorting of all the events into time order. No inertial frame of reference does that, so it would not be an inertial frame if it was done.
It would have no effect on us if such an arbitrary definition was made.

say the centre of the known (to Him) universe,

It is known to me even, so I hope God is aware of it. Didn't you see my post about that? The centre of the universe does not define a frame, even if it does suggest an origin for a non-orthogonal coordinate system.

and all that there is beyond the reach of light and time?

Don't know what you mean by that. All parts of the universe of which I am aware (including the ones undetectable from here) are temporal and lit up, even if only dimly. Perhaps you define the universe as more than just what came from the big bang.

Once we say God knows something, then it forces it into the realm of existence since God cannot know something that does not exist?

Not sure if that qualifies as a circular definition. What if God knows that something doesn't exist? Probably not a valid example since I seem to be playing epistemological meta-language games in making that statement. The nonexistent thing doesn't exist, but the fact that God is aware of its nonexistence does exist. But it must exist, having been referenced...

I'm not sure of your definition of 'exists' either. Does 2+2=4 exist? Surely God knows it, so it must exist.
I find existence to be a relation, not a property, so there is no 'exists', there is only 'exists in'. Your definition may vary, but I cannot comment clearly without knowing it.

Mr Cee is moving at about .9999c one way and Mr Bee the same speed in the opposite direction. Nobody is going faster than light. The separation is about 2 trillion light years and they both exist in that frame. — noAxioms

The above assumes a constant expansion rate to the universe, not a true thing. Given that it is accelerating, neither Mr Bee nor Mr Cee are in that frame of reference....
The trick works for fairly distant places, but my example put these events a couple trillion light years apart, too far.
So that brings us down to one's definition of existence to ask if Mr Cee exists.

So which one are you rejecting here? — Mr Bee

I'm rejecting the prior post saying that sufficiently distant places don't exist. I gave an example of an event 2 trillion light years away that exists now, and where nothing is moving faster than light, thus refuting my assertion of the nonexistence of the event.

Seems like the former, but if that is the case, then I still don't understand where the assertion that some things don't exist in some reference frames if they are moving away faster than light. Your response still amounts to this assumption that they do, but I am afraid I don't see how or why.

Well, in our frame, Mr Cee is in the future and does not currently exist, so is not moving faster than light. Similarly, we don't exist in Mr Cee's frame. The frame is not a valid one for us since it would have us moving at about 140c, far beyond light speed.

Also, since we are on the topic of absolute frames, I don't think that GR allows for the notion of a reference frame, due to the curvature of space-time.

Yes, it says that SR laws only work locally. They break down over any significant distance, and my example far exceeded that. Does it make it invalid? I was just trying to counter my prior assertion.
Messages could in principle reach distant places if the expansion of the universe was constant, but it isn't. Hence the event horizon, which delimits events that can never have a causal effect here on Earth.
But coordinate systems exist that map really distant events like Mr Cee's post. Mr Cee has a proper-distance from us (length of a tape measure that curves with space), and a proper velocity (how much that measurement grows per second) and that value can be greater than light speed without violation of GR.

Instead the idea of an absolute frame is replaced with a preferred global foliation, which though technically not a frame of reference, defines a global time like the correct inertial frame should under SR. I am not sure if your statements above apply there, but I think I should throw that out since GR is the theory we are currently using.

Yes, there is an obvious global foliation (comoving coordinates), and I was unaware that GR rules (with space and velocity expressed in actual distance, not proper distance) would be valid at all in that coordinate system. Yes, that's where 'proper-distance' comes from. It essentially paints 4D spacetime in polar coordinates instead of the rectangular coordinates that yield inertial frames. The math to do Lorentz calculations in polar coordinates would be an interesting exercise, perhaps beyond my capabilities.

Not sure I am getting the connection between things that expand from us at a speed faster than light and them not existing. Sure they won't ever interact with us given the light speed limit and all, but that does not imply that they would cease to exist for us. — Mr Bee

I'm going to have to eat my words then.
I am on record for saying that the distance between any two events (points in spacetime) can be expressed by pure spatial separation or by pure temporal separation, or if right on the edge between the two, then undefined singularity. That assertion contradicts my denial of existence of things not in our reference frame.

So consider the event of you making that post, and Mr Cee on some other forum on some seriously distant planet making a similar post. Mr Cee does not exist in the frame in which Mr Bee is at rest, but that just means the wrong frame was chosen. Consider the frame where some spot about halfway is at rest. In that frame, the universe is now about a trillion years old and Mr Bee and Mr Cee are very near opposite edges of the expanding universe where time is dilated about 70x. Mr Cee is moving at about .9999c one way and Mr Bee the same speed in the opposite direction. Nobody is going faster than light. The separation is about 2 trillion light years and they both exist in that frame.
Words eaten. Thank you for the correction.

Sort of its own disproof then. The logic is sound, and the conclusion obviously contradicts reality, thus at least one of the premises must be wrong. I happen to take issue with all three of them.

Imagine, if there was a God, or an "Intelligence" that knew everything, and whose knowledge is not limited by the speed of light. Would this allow the possibility of an absolute centre of the universe, or an absolute frame of reference? Could God know if one 'correct' inertial frame exists, or not? — FreeEmotion

It's not that we don't know the absolute frame. Any designation of one would render over 99% of the universe nonexistent since only a tiny percentage of matter exists in any particular frame. Most of it is increasing its distance from that frame at a pace considerably faster than light and thus can never ever interact with the matter reasonably stationary in the frame. The bulk of all matter is nonexistent in any given frame. So it is not a matter of us simply not knowing. There cannot be one correct answer.

There is a center of the universe, but it doesn't suggest a frame. Most people deny it for the same reason the center of the Earth appears on no map. If it did (Paris??), it would define the correct time zone, no? Look at the entire Earth and the center is obvious. Look at the entire universe, not just one surface of it, and the center becomes obvious.

I might also add that the Lorentz transformation is used to preserve the laws of physics when translating any event from a moving frame to a non moving or say local (your) frame. — FreeEmotion

Frames don't move, and there are not fast and slow ones. They all are references defining zero velocity, so we might for instance consider the frames in which the Earth, the moon, the ship, or the muon is stationary. None of these different frames is 'faster' than another. Yes, the Lorentz transformation is used to translate time and distance between various frames.

In effect, when we observe things happening in a fast - moving frame, it looks like the laws of physics are violated, but when the proper transformations are made, it all comes out right in the end. Is this more or less correct?

Well, at no point does it look like any laws are being violated. The laws would be wrong if that was observed. That's how ToR came about: The laws appeared to be violated, so they knew they needed better ones. I think I see what you mean though. The muons in the atmosphere appear to violate half-life laws (under Newtonian physics) until the transformation is used to yield the actual age of the typical particle measured here near sea level.

Take the statement

There are fast particles that get created in the upper atmosphere (60000 m up) that have a lifespan long enough for light to travel about 600 meters before decaying. Almost none should reach the ground, but a vast percentage of them do because their decay is delayed by the time dilation from moving at about 99.5% of light. They age slow enough to reach a destination well beyond their life expectancy of about 2 microseconds. They could not do this if the dilation was but an illusion.
— noAxioms

"There are fast particles that get created in the upper atmosphere (60000 m up) "

Fast as measured in our frame

Yes. Those particlues (muons I think) are stationary in their own frame, and Earth is what moves fast.

"that have a lifespan long enough"

A lifespan in our frame of reference

No, in its own. I have a halflife of 72 years in my own frame, and an arbitrarily large one in other frames, which is why I can get to places more distant than 72 light years away.

" for light to travel about 600 meters "

in which reference frame?

2.2μs half life multiplied by c. In its own frame I guess, since duration is otherwise ambiguous.

"before decaying. Almost none should reach the ground, but a vast percentage of them do because their decay is delayed"

When measured in our FoR

Yes, only in our frame. In its own frame, it doesn't travel at all, but Earth moves and hits the particle before it dies.

Could there be any other explanation for this? I accept it as is, but just wondering.

No other theory competes at this time. If you want, you can interpret the data as one 'correct' inertial frame, and none of the clocks or tape measures are accurate unless stationary in that frame. In that sense, time and space dilation would be an illusion born of not having accurate measuring tools, but then we would have no tools to measure actual time and space at all, so we're not really measuring anything accurately. That's a pretty useless interpretation.

If the forming-Sun, at the time that the ecliptic disk outspread from it — Michael Ossipoff

The disk spreads out??
— noAxioms

Yes.

I find nowhere in your descriptions where material moves outward.
Everything in moving inward, which is what makes it spin faster, yes, like the figure skater. Once orbital velocity is achieved, it moves inward no further. Outward requires expenditure of energy that needs to come from somewhere.

Yes, the centrifugal force experienced by material at the solar equator overcomes gravity, and the material spreads out as a disk in the plane of the forming-Sun's equator.

There is no centrifugal force pushing anything out. All matter is accelerating inward, not outward. If matter is in low orbit, energy must by supplied to put it in a higher orbit. Where does that come from?

But no, the angular momentum needn't have increased during the gravitational contraction. The pre-existing angular momentum, and the conservation of that angular-momentum, meant that, as the rotational radius decreased, thereby decreasing the forming-Sun's moment-of-intertia, the angular velocity had to increase.

My bold. Yes, radius is decreasing in each description. But then you claim it increases, that the disk is spreading out, not contracting. Your descriptions are contradictory all the way. I never claimed a change in angular momentum, which seems to be what your attempting to teach me.

No increase in angular-momentum was needed to spin-out the ecliptic disk. The decreasing overall radius of rotation, of the forming-Sun, meant that a large increase of angular-velocity was needed in order to conserve angular momentum.

No, the sun spins faster as it contracts. None of this pushes the disk out. Saturn has a nice disk, the rings. It did not emit those rings. It simply is not capable any more than the sun could produce orbiting material.

Gravity tended to form a sphere.

Only nonrotating matter, so no.

The pre-existing angular-momentum, and the reduction in moment-of-inertia, inevitably (due to conservation of angular-momentum) resulted in a great increase in angular-velocity, spinning-out the ecliptic disk along the plane of the forming-Sun's equator.

Absolutely not. The angular velocity cannot increase if the radius is growing.

That's not my idea. It's the now-accepted explanation for the formation of the ecliptic disk from which the planets were formed.

Argument from authority, as was used in the reply to Bitter Crank. I'd accept it better with a link to this "accepted explanation". He pretty much quoted from the NASA site which is about as 'now accepted' as the explanations are going to get.

Mechanical energy (gravitational potential energy) was of course being converted to heat of contraction, so, yes, mechanical energy was being lost.

Gravitational potential plus kinetic energy is what I called mechanical energy, for lack of knowing a better term. The cloud always had it (even if gravitational is negative), but some of that energy is lost to friction in the contraction process, hence the heating up of all the places where matter is clumping. That energy is lost to entropy. You have not posited the source of the energy propelling the matter in the disk to higher orbits. The sun can spin all it wants and not transfer any of that energy to the orbiting stuff.

If your cognitive faculties are a result of evolution by natural selection and random genetic mutation you don´t have any reason to trust your cognitive faculties. For evolution "aims" to survival and not to produce true beliefs. — nixu

While I might agree with you that evolution does not produce true beliefs, I didn't see where Michael Ossipoff said otherwise. There was no mention of truth nor belief in his post, and evolution selecting for fitness rather than truth is a far better reason to trust one's cognitive faculties. No, I don't trust my intuitions to be truthful for this reason. That much I recognize, if that's what you mean. But recognizing the lies is more difficult than one might expect. You seem to be arguing for one of them.

But will the solar probe offending enough to bring about the coming of the great white handkerchief? Probably not, but is just 'probably' worth that kind of risk?

True, but in an infinite amount of time, it occurs an infinite number of times, and that's nothing to sneeze at, cloud or no cloud. — Hanover

Resutling in a rotation free and satellite-free system of one object, perhaps large enough to be a star, or perhaps a lonely dark planet with neither year, month, nor day. I wonder what religion they'd come up with.

Whence all this spinning? — Bitter Crank

It is statistically almost impossible that a random group of matter happens to have zero net rotational inertial. For instance, Andromeda is coming at us, but not exactly straight at us, and impossible point target. The amount off target represents an obscene angular momentum, enough to throw a great deal of the stars away when the two combine.

Anyway, a cloud of dust is like that. You don't see the rotation in the nebulas when it is all spread out, but it's there. Contract it into a tighter radius and like the figure skater, spins far faster when the parts are pulled in. Ours actually had less rotation than is typical, and thus formed only the one star. Multiple-star solar systems are about as common as the single ones.

Well, I was referring to the forming-Sun, at the time of the outspreading of the ecliptic disk, as "the Sun", even if its fusion hadn't ignited.by that time. — Michael Ossipoff

If the forming-Sun, at the time that the ecliptic disk outspread from it,

The disk spreads out?? Gravity is pulling it in, not out. You seem to envision the process as something like a ball of pizza dough spreading into a disk as it is spun in the air, and thus the planets forming as bits of dough get displaced further out.
That requires an influx of angular inertia from the pizza guy, an influx that doesn't exist in the forming solar system. A large rotating cloud contracts (does not spread out) into a disk, losing mechanical energy (not gaining it) all the way to the heating of the places where it is collecting.

People will go to amazing lengths to avoid this conclusion, including the 'Everett speculation'. — Wayfarer

Well I'm one of those, since the interpretation does away with so many problematic things only at the cost of a thing-in-itself corresponding to 'me', which isn't much of a price to a non-religious sort that I am. That which I perceive as 'me', the thing for whose benefit I draw breath, seems to be just a carrot on a stick leading me on fit paths. Yea, I still follow the carrot, but at least I'm not suckered into buying an insurance policy for it.

With no one experiencing it, there is still something real out there, but it unknown what it is. — Rich

I went on a different direction, not basing existence on epistemology. The existing thing corresponding to "Jupiter" seems to be the naive realist thing that is the object of language, whether I know what it really is or not. But the thing-in-itself that we suppose corresponds to that name seems in fact not to have the sort of observer-independent existence we imagine. There is not still something real out there.
This is a strange turn in views that I have been recently exploring. I by no means assert any of this, and it probably runs into conflicts at some point, meaning it needs work.

The fact that you call it 'a cup' and that it performs that function is dependent on human designation, perception and convention. If you were a micro-organism-sized intelligence that lived in the water in the cup, it might be 'the ocean', as far as you're concerned. You imagine the cup 'being there', in the cupboard, when nobody's around looking at it, but that's still an image, an imaginary act, constituted by your human mind, which classifies objects according to their shape, function and so on and situates them in the imaginary 'empty space'. There is no intrinsic cup apart from that. — Wayfarer

I hate to butt in on a comment not directed at me, especially a comment not directly related to the reincarnation subject, but this one hit me. I, pretty much a realist-monist of sorts, agree with this assessment. Sans language that seems to render common definition that this semi-persistent state of not-really-particles makes up what we both agree is a cup, the designation has no existence.
It is idealism to a point, but one that cannot lead to solipsism.

This seems not a QM thing where consciousness is collapsing the complex wave function into cup. But a few million years ago, there was no Jupiter, there was not even particles. That Jupiter only exists now.
Somebody posted in my one thread that to exist is to be named. I brushed that off at first, but it has been working its way in all this time.

So you don't believe that the ecliptic disk was formed via conservation of angular momentum, when the initial cloud contracted? — Michael Ossipoff

Trying to figure out how you got that from what I posted.

On another subject, I don't dispute your definition of the Sun, as beginning with fusion-ignition. Definitions can be different, but not wrong. It isn't something to argue about, wouldn't you say?

I acknowledged your altered definition and still find the planets not coming from it. I called the Sun a central condensing pre-star. Not ignited, but it was what has now become our sun.

The formation of the ecliptic disk wasn't a throwinlg-out of planets. The planets later formed from the ecliptic disk.

You said the sun was "the already compactly-formed sphere that's already emitting some radiation", not the ecliptic disk. If you're equating the entire disk to the sun, then any landfill is already garbage being dumped into the sun, so the probe is no different than that.

So you're defining 'the Sun" based on fusion-reactions, rather than from the already compactly-formed sphere that's already emitting some radiation (from compression-heating).

Fine. That's an individual matter of definition. — Michael Ossipoff

If there is a point of the beginning of the what is the sun, it would seem to be the moment of ignition. The change is quite abrupt and it isn't a star if it doesn't happen. The opinion of apparently all the other posters on this thread is that the material that makes up the vast bulk of the planets was never part of this central condensing pre-star. If the central mass had enough angular momentum to throw out the planets, our solar-system would likely have sported a binary star as so many of them do.
The star does eject material, but that only goes into orbit if deflected by something already in orbit. Otherwise it escapes, or falls back into the sun.

NoAxioms didn't say that. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, I did say that.

Nobody here has so far agree that the planets formed from the sun. The disk is not the sun. It didn't emit from the star. That's our opinion, and you differ. OK, we get that.
In actuality the disk formed from the collective center of gravity of the cloud, and the critical mass of the central object that later ignited into the sun is not required for disk and planets to form.

The Sun was formed from a cloud of material.

Then the planets were later formed from the Sun.

Yes, the Sun was was the immediate origin of the planets. They were formed directly from the Sun's material.

The sun does emit material, so I cannot deny that there is some sun material in each planet, but since most of that blows away (especially on the inner planets), I think I can say that nobody is going to agree with your assertion that they were formed directly from the sun's material. The sun does not emit iron and oxygen for instance, and Earth is more of those than anything else.

Any newborns--extremely gifted newborns with the ability to read--reading this? What the authorities are saying is that you, simply by being born, are a threat to other people's safety, a threat to the stability of the state, and a threat to those who are in power. How's that for the dignity that you supposedly have by being born human? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

The identity of the baby is so the government can give benefits. No identity, no benefits. The kid would die in a day or two without some form of identity. The larger numeric one from the government is for government benefits instead of interpersonal benefits.

Let's move on to mutual time dilation. It is often said that moving clocks run slow. This may be a misleading statement, or at the least, incomplete. — FreeEmotion

Incomplete I'd say. You can say that clocks run slow in frames in which they are not stationary. That's almost the same thing. Sans frame, a clock has no velocity.

What I think it means is that when transforming measurements between moving frames, we can no longer use Galilean transformations when the relative velocity (speed?) of the frames is comparable to the speed of light. This is because of the constancy of the speed of light within each frame, no matter which frame the origin of the light.

Sounds good. Frames don't move since they don't have a position, but they have velocity relative to each other and I think that's what you mean.

Does it mean that in inertial frames moving relative to each other, that mutual time dilation occurs? Is it just an illusion?

It's quite real. Not sure what you would consider an illusion, but none of it is fake and the clocks are not being inaccurate. It really is possible to get to a place 1000 light years away and not die of old age en-route or require cryonics. But alas, my car seems to be a bit underpowered for the task.

There are fast particles that get created in the upper atmosphere (60000 m up) that have a lifespan long enough for light to travel about 600 meters before decaying. Almost none should reach the ground, but a vast percentage of them do because their decay is delayed by the time dilation from moving at about 99.5% of light. They age slow enough to reach a destination well beyond their life expectancy of about 2 microseconds. They could not do this if the dilation was but an illusion.

The question only asked how to get to base the quickest. Maybe home base has a circular magnet that slows you down as you go through it. :) Or you can shoot the alien with the fifth projectile at lower energy. — Joseph

Then the answer provided is wrong.
Quickest was is to not do this perpendicular sidetrack. Blow all 5 ejections immediately straight towards home, which gets you there 14x pronto. Stopping once you get there can not be done by the rules, but you seem to have springy bumpers, so crashing is an option.

Oh wait. Just smack into the alien. Let the springs do their work. Never mind then.

Thought of all that, but wouldn't you want to stop once you arrived at base? Absolutely no way to do that by these rules. So you just blast on by at some preposterous speed, no use to anybody except as a battering ram to one alien ship.

Let's face it, the Good Samaritan was "good" because he was able to help some guy struggling in the gutter on the other side of the road. How else could he be "good"? — Jake Tarragon

By being distinct from all the other passers-by that did nothing. If anybody would have helped, it would just be what people do, and not notably 'good'.

The sun is not the origin of Earth or other planets. They're all from a different star, which is what it means to be a second generation system.
The probe falling into the sun puts a bit of heavy metals into it to trivially add to the collection it already has. I can't see how this is offensive no matter the spin put on it.

That's a weak advantage. It takes more instructions (calculator key presses) to code with FPN.
RPN 3,15+ (where comma is <enter>)
FPN +3,15, <-- extra comma

Either one requires a stack, but an operation consumes less space than a number, so the FPN stack takes fewer resources to implement the worst case stack.

I could be wrong about this.

The point is choice-making is programmable. That nullifies the discriminating power of human ability to choose to make the distinction free will as opposed to no free will.

That effectively makes free will an impossible concept to even think of. ''Free will'' can't be defined and is meaningless 4 ÷ 0. — TheMadFool

This is one of those areas where the philosophy of mind matters.
Your example that choice-making is programmable only works under physical monism. A dualistic view has a different definitions of 'agent of choice', which is defined as the immaterial mind. The computer may or may not have one of those, but if it does, it is apparently not capable of altering the determined course made by the program, and therefore is not free.

Will is neither free nor does it have control of outcome. One can only try to make the choice. There are all manner of constraints and influences that affect outcomes. One can only attempt to move in a particular direction. Two football lineman exhibit this type of tug-of-war.

Insofar as responsibility is concerned, that is a issue of human condition. Since outcomes are unpredictable, responsibility is purely subjective which is why we have courts to adjudicate. — Rich

You seem to be under the impression that I'm asserting something. I'm just putting out a set of premises that I think works. If you disagree, tell me where my definitions run into conflict.

If you have a different set of premises, that's great. But your descriptions have been confined only to personal experience of the thing, and that doesn't tell me what the thing might be.

Will is a feeling that the body generates. That is how we know it and observe it. Sometimes its effects can be observed by others as one exerts themselves. It is strange that feelings are made subservient to words or other symbols. Will is directly experienced. — Rich

Again, you are describing human will. I have no way of applying that elsewhere. If humans are special, then that's a premise, and you have to tell me why. If they're not, then the introspection is useless in determining what else has will.

If x > 1 then 4/x else goto line 10

If choice is programmable then free will becomes nonsense. — TheMadFool

Only if you use inconsistent definitions. If going to line 10 is the right thing to do in this case, and there is no inhibition to the PC going there (such as there is no line 10), then this is an example of free will in my view.
If going to line 10 is the wrong thing to do, the will is still free, but the program must now bear whatever responsibility it holds for going to the wrong place. Perhaps it will malfunction and crash.

This is very similar to the responsibility relationship between my toes and my brain. The brain evolved partly to bear responsibility to keep the toes safe. If the brain (the agent) doesn't do its job and notice the rock, the toe is injured and the brain bears the responsibility. The pain is experienced upstairs, not by the toe. There is no evolutionary advantage to the toe experiencing pain for choices it did not make. The pain is in the correct place and serves as a deterrent to future toe stubbage.
Yes, that's a word.

I feel will as a force being generated from within me which creates the impetus to move in a particular direction, together fulfilling the choice. It can be imagined as a directed wave. — Rich

Not really asking how it makes you feel. That road leads to solipsism since even I don't have choice since I don't make you feel that way when I pick vanilla. You can presume I have similar feelings, but there is no way to apply the rule to anything nonhuman. I want a definition of will, not of human will.

I would think that at its core, 'will' is what an 'agent of choice' wants to do. It is the output of the choice, the volition. This definition seems to work regardless of one's view, even if we differ on what constitutes an agent of choice.
The will is free if the desired choice can be effected, and thus the agent can bear responsibility. So if I will to help a choking person but I'm inhibited by a barrier between us, the will is not free to perform the act, and thus is not responsible in any way for not helping the other person in need.

Anyway, that's sort of the basics in my view. None of the above presumes a particular philosophy, although 'bear responsibility' was not touched on at all.

The butterfly flapping its tiny wings represents the small changes in weather variables. — TheMadFool

In two worlds with the only difference being the butterfly flap or not, the weather in these two worlds after some months will bear no resemblance to each other (except for that storm in 430 days). One butterfly does not constitute a difference. Two do. 'Changes' is not part of it.
Any small difference amplifies, which is characteristic of a chaotic system.

It doesn't mean that a butterfly can actually affect the weather.

Unless the butterfly is outside the light cone of some event, or in Schrodinger's box (yes, these exist but not ones that hold a butterfly), the butterfly affects that event. But many dynamic systems are not chaotic. Some small meteor slated to hit Earth in 2 years is going to do that no matter what the butterfly or the weather is like. The Earth's rotational orientation will not be significantly different in a century.

One example they used a lot to develop chaos theory is that of a dripping faucet. The drips are completely predictable at low flow, but become unpredictable at a fixed pace, but then become predicable again at a slightly higher pace, but with more complex drip patterns with different size drops.

OK, I think you might not ascribe choice to the thermostat because the purpose it serves is that of it's installer (the house occupant), not its own. If so, I think I can drive that definition to contradiction, but perhaps we first need to figure out what we mean by 'will', and the distinction between free and not free.

A machine doesn't make choices. The choices are made by the human that programs the machine. Just like a hammer doesn't make choices. The choices are being made by the human that is using it. Similarly, a piano don't make choices. The pianist is making the choices. Tools used by humans are not human. — Rich

No, I may set the threshold but don't actually tell the thermostat when to turn on the heat. I simply design the thing to make its own choice based on a comparison between the temperature and the setting . I arrange it so it is capable of making that choice, but if the choice is mine, I would have no need of the thermostat, and there would just be a manual toggle on the wall.

So I disagree, but that is my definition I'm working from. You can define choice any way you want of course. The idea is to find a set of definitions/premises that don't contradict.
So what is choice that a machine doesn't have it but a human does? I'm not (yet) asserting it has free will. Just trying to get the terms straight.

Well, I'm working at this problem indirectly. Free will is central to morality, which in turn, necessitates the choice to do good rather than bad. — TheMadFool

Excellent way to approach it.

I feel as if the free will problem is nonexistent because I take this approach. First of all, various philosophy of the mind interpretations have completely different premises about what really is a person, morals, choice, volition, etc. So the confusion only exists if you take the premises of one view and apply them to a different view.

Computers don't make choices. They are programmed by humans who do make choices when writing the programs. — Rich

You have not stated your premises for this assertion, but I'm guessing a dualistic set of premises, in which case you're right.
A physical monist says choice is a purposeful selection of action, which is what a machine (thermostat say) does and a rock doesn't. It senses a specific condition and acts on that condition and not just a fatalistic random effect of prior causes, which is how a rock does not choose when to break in half.

I think I understand now. Small differences in initial states have vastly different outcomes. For example, the temperature may differ by 0.000007 degrees but this tiny difference can mean the difference between fair weather and storms. The butterfly is simply a metaphor for this small difference in a variable. — TheMadFool

Much better. The difference has no lower limit of triviality. One atom doing a radioactive decay or not is such a difference. The butterfly is an example, not just a metaphor.

I see. So, you do agree that a blink of an eye can cause weather changes. — TheMadFool

The weather will change, and there is no way, lack of eye blink included, to prevent that. So no, I don't agree with that statement.

What would distinguish this practical utopia from modern society? — Reformed Nihilist

Sustainability for one. Going for greater happiness is a lower priority than something that can last.