Thus, in short, two axioms about sensors are:
1) They are the lowest interval by which a thought machine can measure and interpret distance. They can't process any states that require knowledge of smaller intervals.
2) They always give a reading, and their properties are independent of the item being measured.

I don't understand this but formulating the problem is the first step to understanding. I dont know what these concepts mean (a thought machine is like a Turing machine maybe?) .

I can only repeat my previous thought. Only mathematical or physical theories are worth arguing about. If this is a mathematical model then you must be able to express your argument in terms of sets and the membership relation. If your model is a physical one then it uses the classical model hence it does not describe our observed reality.

Here are a some more possible scenarios:
1. The universe does not exist.
2. The universe does exist but everything we know about it is most likely wrong and your question has no answer.
3. The universe does exist and our knowledge is right about it but your question is meaningless because we cant even comprehend what happened at the start.
4. The universe has no beginning.
5. The universe is a fractal like object so it has and also doesnt have a beginning. It is its own cause. I contains itself.
6. Consciousness is a meaningless word.
7. Counsciousness exists but is completely material so there is no difference between the two versions.
8. The universe is created by unconscious means.
9. The quesion is subjective.
10. The universe was created by conscious means.

We dont know which scenario is true therefore each has 10% probability. Do you see now fdrake's point? (Of course the examples are so bad but thats what im capable of... We could list 9999999999..... scenarions all with the same probability and only one of them would be conscious creation. So according to your logic the probability of conscious creation is 0. )

I dont envision the sensor working. Im just saying that theoretically it is possible to store all information on the chessboard in a finite body hence your argument that says an infinite volume is needed is wrong. Unless you have other axioms about the sensors.

If you are a scientist, or a priest, or even a mathematician, you still have the same problems. One cannot check everything, and must rely on the community.

But then being a creationist does not directly imply being ignorant or stupid. It means you believe in the truth of a community different from the scientific community.
They teach the physical theory and not creationism at schools. How do they explain that? They surely have a criteria.

I agree with you; I've tried to make similar arguments before. Basically, scientific evidence is "taken on faith" for the average citizen in the West, in the same way that theological conundrums were taken on faith by the average person for centuries.

I'm glad that someone agrees with me. However I think science and religion are different, I'm just looking for a criteria that tells the difference. The self being the subject or being observeble are not correct ones (in my opinion).

Yes, and my response to that is that that's not how science works, and that the text is not something that a thoughtful scientist would say.

A politician would never say that we are slaves but in fact a lot of us are wage slaves. Same with the physicist. The scientific community has an institutional hierarchy with informational monopoly at the top. They also get a lot of tax money from everyone. (We are forced to believe in science.)

I recommend you reading this: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1554/definition-of-arithmetic-truth#Item_24

I had a similar problem. In fact there are formal systems in which every true arithmetical statement can be proved. But there are unprovable true sentences in that stronger formal system of course.

I dont think these problems can't be solved within mathematics since math is based on axiomatic systems.

No, I dont see why a second chessboard is needed.

By storing information I mean there is a one-to-one correspondence between the states of the chess board and the states of the sensor.

The easiest example for this is when the sensor is another chess board.

Every bit of information in the universe can be stored in a tiny sphere. So every (continuous) state of the chessboard can theoretically be stored in an object with finite volume. This shows that either
1. You have implicit assumptions about sensors or
2. You dont know what you are talking about.

I dont know what you mean by building from the bottom up either.

But after a couple of years it turns out that the priest was a criminal. Oh dear! We bet on red and our life and career was the price.

Later another priest turns up saying he has the truth. Do we bet again?
Then comes a scientist saying this priest is a liar.

Basically the origin of this problem for me is I read some flat Earth stuff and I was wondering if there is an empirical (or scientific in the strict sense) way to prove these people that the Earth is not flat. I have made some calculations which proved the flat earther guy was right in his calculations. I am still looking for the demarcation line which tells us what is the difference between science and pseudo science. But if no one has found this line for decades we also wont find it I suppose. I am turning into a nihilist.

So the question remains. Who do I cooperate with: the priest or the scientist? Based on what?

They are not arguments. They are descriptions of ways of life.

Both the priest and the scientist argue that their knowledge is true, observable and worth believing.

If it's a problem to you, get out of the chair and get to work.

Even if Im out of the chair, most probably I will never be able to observe an elementary particle at Cern or anywhere. Plus it is unreasonable and impossible to test every (most likely contradictiory) belief system.

Knowledge is like a line and the education system shows you discrete points of knowledge based on mostly economic or academic relevance. If you want to see the whole picture and the whys you need to educate yourself, even forget a couple of things taught at university.

My analogy is simply souls:world::quarks:world. I dont see why should I argue that quarks are a dogmatic creation. Or what you mean by dogmatic?

My problem is that the so called empirical facts are not empirical for me. So Im struggling with the definition of "empirical" maybe.

What is empirical in Cern is dogmatic here in my room. What is empirical for a saint is dogmatic here.

@Wayfarer
When I was reading your answer I thought I found the criteria I had been looking for. But then I realized psychology also has a lot of subjective elements and the self is its subject.

@Bitter Crank
Not defining the soul was a deliberate attempt to show first we have to believe the existence of the soul and second we have to put a lot of effort and time just to be able to define it or to have an intuition about it.

@andrewk
Of course the speech did not occur anywhere. It is just a hypothetical text based on my understanding of how science works. The scientific community only accepts something if it was verified by science. And the proof for science is working is technology.

My idea of scientific method is about the same as the one you showed. But this definition still raises the same question (at least for me). Quarks are considered real because the theory which describes quarks describes reality better than the competing physical theories. Now my problem is I havent observed any quarks and I won't ever observe any. From my perspective the only option is to believe these observations exist.

What is the difference between the observations in CERN and the observations of saints and gurus? They dont have any significant predictions which influence my life in any way. And the priest's and the scientist's theory of everyday physical reality are the same in a sense.

You could say that religious predictions are not quantitative but some predictions of lets say evolutionary biology are also qualitative.

Edit: so when defining the scientific method we cant just say something is observable, we have to clarify what kind of observable phenomena we are talking about. What counts as observable? Phenomena observed by an authority?

I think both the quark and the soul are experienceable. I know some prayers. I have a pretty good grasp of how priests feel the spiritual world is put together and what role souls play. Also of how God told that to the priests. I have a reasonably strong confidence in the spiritual method and establishment that makes me believe what I have been told, at least as the best current explanation.

-The priest

The existence of quarks has been verified (?), confirmed (?), established (?) following a set of procedures known as the scientific method.

My problem is I don't know what you mean by scientific method. In my understanding observation is a basic concept of scientific method. I will never be able to observe quarks. Same with the soul. The method which is capable of telling which possible reality is real from the infinite possible mathematical universes is not accessible for me. So my observation is indirect. But I can also have an indirect observation of the soul if religion is true. So my question still remains. What is the criteria? What is scientific method?

I think both the quark and the soul are things we (everyday individuals) will never be able to observe. We can only believe what the church or the scientific community says. (edit: and this is why the other parts of the text are important and not for advertising reasons)

You say that "quarks exist" is scientific and "souls exist" is not scientific. Based on what criteria?

I don't really understand your arguments and I think this is getting a little messy. My philosophy is that we can only argue within the frames of a formal logical system and I don't really see if you have one behind your arguments.

I don't know if your model is merely mathematical or physical.

If it is mathematical then fractal-like objects like an infinite "regress" of chess boards can exist so I don't see a contradiction.

If it is physical then on a very small scale the universe is nothing like an euclidean space. Particles can act as waves. The world is much more homogeneous than we would think by observing the macro world. Basically everything is a form of energy and I think that your problem can be explained by using wave functions and probability theory.

If it is something inbetween then we need axioms about those sensors. And I am sure that a lot of people will disagree with those axioms.

My struggling with English makes it harder to express my thoughts. So again. My problems with your claim are that
1) Senses don't perceive every bit of information about the world. It is possible that our perception is finite.
2) Even if our perception is infinite that doesn't mean the sensors must have infinite volume (as your model shows: what if we have a sensor totally similar to the chess board).

"For example, we could divide a chess square into ten pieces, a.k.a. ten different sensors, each measuring whether its fraction of the square is completely occupied by a chess piece. The length could be the same as before, but the width is divided by 10 (or vice versa if moving the other way). Then when the first tenth is occupied, one state is triggered, and when the second tenth is occupied, another state is triggered. However, we still run into the problem of what to do about intermediate fractions of the ten subdivisions."

This discrete model you gave describes thought better than the continuous model and shouldn't be dismissed. Let's take vision. The human eye is only capable of perceiving a limited number of frames in a given time. So the information our brain gets is finite. (Even if the world is not)

My other problem with your argument is that you say in order to code an infinite amount of information we need a subspace with infinite volume. This contradicts your assumption that a chessboard has infinite states. Edit: There can be sensors with continuous states that encode every information about the chessboard.

Infinite divisibility and having infinite segments can be interpreted in the abstract set theoretic universe. Its your subjective opinion that you dont accept the set theoretic interpretation as "representation".

From your finitist formalist physicalist standpoint you cant even speak about the original problem because concepts like everything or possibility or probability are similar to divisibility in a sense they are built on concepts of infinity and unobservable events.
In fact tossing a coin infinite times is a supertask therefore you shouldnt accept it.

I dont see your point. You say using induction in an example from mechanics is just plain wrong yet your argument in your first post is based on the abstraction of tossing a coin infinitely many times. Where do you want to get with this?

My "idea" in the first place was to provide an example of why "even in an infinite universe we will never reach the end of an infinite sequence of numbers" is not trivially true for me.
To give an answer to your question: yes, this is what I wanted to say. The mathematical solution to the paradox (in classical mechanics) is an example.

All this divisibility thing depends on the definition of time and space (in my opinion). As you can see I prefer the theoretic over the applied or observed aspects of science but I dont want to confuse math with physics. It all started with me trying to give an example using Zeno's paradox but it seems like mentioning the paradox pulls WAY too many triggers on a philosophy forum.

And as I mentioned earlier there are many different models of the Universe on which we can base our calculations.

Yes we can say that induction is bad, mathematics is bad, we know nothing about the real world, or that the world doesnt even exist. We can disagree in a lot of things. But I still stick to math and science. And I say that Zeno's paradox is mathematically conceivable. Is the mathematical interpretation the absolute and ultimate interpretation? Probably not. Can concieve the structures of Mathematics? No. Does it matter? No. Because Mathematics seem to work.
The mathematical interpretation of the paradox is the only one logically consistent with Newtonian mechanics. So "logically" I dont know why should I deny the possibility of an infinite chain of events. Of course we will never know what the ultimate truth about matter is. But still Maths provides the best answers.

I am really out of the discussion about that off topic.

Zeno's paradox was needed to show we can't state for sure that an infinite chain of events is impossible. In fact the only solution I know to Zeno's paradox uses infinite sums and that an infinite number of events can happen in finite time. I dont want to talk more about the paradox since the message of my comment is crystal clear.

Back to the OP. I don't think that "everything" can be formalized properly. But I think if you weaken the claims then you can get a positive answer. If you say "happen 100%" instead of "bound to happen" and mean "local" or "finite" events (whatever this means) when saying everything (and not global events like the whole life of the multiverse) then the answer may be yes, depending on how the universe is modelled.

Zeno's paradox "shows" that an infinite number of events can happen in finite time.

Edit: No this wont turn into a ZP discussion but you seem to be struggling with understanding basic concepts.

You can't be so sure. Zeno's paradox shows that for example.

Every finite sequence of heads will occur with probability 1. However this is not true for the infinite case.

I think the answer depends on how you formalize the question. It also depends on the model of universe you use.

In fact if you want to define S without having a truth value then you have to give up the X <-> X & (A or not A) tautology.
Because lets say A <-> X is true.
Based on your logic A <-> X & (A or not A) does not have a truth value. And therefore X and
X & (A or not A) are not equivalent.
Your logic is fatally broken I think. (Unless you specify it even more to get a standard naive multivalued logic)

It is not real freedom just an illusion of freedom. As Bitter Crank said: "You are free insofar as you obey."
You are free to do what the government or the corporations or the mass media wants you to do. The system is basically a slavery system with our eyes wide shut because we think we are free or that we are fighting for our freedom when being feminists or sjws. While the truth is our fight just increases the hate generated by people in power hence making their job easier.
But this is getting off topic.
(Edit: even animals have their tiny bit of freedom in the slaughterhouses, it's a matter of view.)

It is "freedom" not freedom. The devil is in the details.

I totally agree with you. Modern society rewards socipathic behaviour. I think this will lead to ugly consequences. We can become feminists or sjws or whatever but the system itself is flawed because of the reasons you mentioned.

I dont think, however that becoming a Christian solves any of these problems. Christians can get just as (if not more) frustrated sexually, emotionally or mentally as anyone else.

So these "isms" like feminism or masculinism are just like getting pills for the side effects caused by other pills etc. This "freedom" of modernity just polarizes society and is the biggest problem

I was a bit sloppy there. When I said A <-> not A I meant that the equivalence is the defining equivalence of A and in order to be a valid definition the equivalence must be true. The liar paradox is there. In propositional calculus. Not A cant be the definition of A.

For me the fact that the negation of a sentence occurs at the right side of the definition of that sentence does not make it a paradox (in naive logic), see my previous post.

Question: do you think that "All statements are true, false or paradoxical." has no truth value?

Sticking with naive logic. You say that the statement in the OP cant be false because of the liar paradox.
The liar paradox says that the statement A for which A <-> not A can't have a truth value.
Your statement has the form A <-> not A & B
This sentence is not contradictiory in itself because A can be false. There is no need to add a new truth value. However it is not prohibited. Just totally unnecessary.

Edit: Saying A is a paradox because it has similarities with the liar paradox is dogmatic and irrational imo and totally misses the point of what makes a paradox paradoxical.

Edit2: Let's say X is the statement: Every statement is either true false or a paradox.
Now X has similarities with the liar paradox and based on your logic it is a paradox. But I would say X is trivially true.

I think a better expression instead of self- referential would be self-containing maybe?
Like the symbol of the meta language denoting a sentence can not be a part of that sentence.

You must be right but these new logics must not have the same axioms as our classical one and must be weaker in at lest one aspect. (Could be stronger in other aspects.)