What is the Threshold of Intolerable Miraculousness?

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by Eugene Shubert, May 19, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    Look forward to the result of your thinking because I gave up after

    1 = 1 + 1

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  2. Guest Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,935
    Dictionaries are an terrible source of definitions when it comes the specifics of a topic of conversation. They are far too general to be of use as an argument.

    You ignored the part about
     
  4. Guest Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,935
    I don't think that is a sufficient definition. Myriad fantastically improbable things happen all the time.
     
  6. Guest Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Seattle Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,857
    The only miracle I was willing to accept is that Sciforum.com is still here.
     
    danshawen and DaveC426913 like this.
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    I took this part of your definetion of religion (only this part) to

    The Association of Septic Waste Plumbers of High Rise Building

    I was a keynote speaker

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    They were thrilled to find out they were a religion

    Took up a collection to build their first church

    Sent for the documents to claim tax exemption

    Also the paperwork to make sure their association was added to the list of 4,200 religion already on the list

    I pass on their thanks and regards to you

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  9. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    Here we go (an actual "miracle"):

    http://www.critical-thinking.org.uk/conspiracy-theories/apollo-moon-landing-hoax.php

    "The odds of a successful Moon landing were once calculated by Bill Kaysing of Rocketdyne in the late 1950s to be 6000 to 1 against, or a probability of 0.000167." That's a slim chance of success by anyone's measure. The reason I believe this is credible is because I still remember a NASA scientist on television describing the feat as equivalent to firing a pistol vertically from a spinning merry-go-round and trying to land the bullet in a wine glass over a mile away.

    Be sure and read this to the end. The moon landing was no hoax. It actually happened in July, 1969. I watched it happening on a black and white Philco portable television set using vacuum tube technology. I also seem to recall, Walter Cronkite had rather a lot to say about the event. So did the late Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, the most famous news anchor team at the time. Chet Huntley died of lung cancer from smoking some years later.

    http://wwwbraeuig.us/space/hoax/htm

    "As a result of the tremendous resources poured into the problem over the next decade, the reliability studies improved dramatically." When the Saturn V booster launched Apollo 11 after several dozen other space missions, each one improving systems reliability, NASA estimated the probability of mission success to be over 90%.

    Was this still a miracle, even though, like most miracles, it took that 1% genius and 99% perspiration to pull it off, and the program was not without its setbacks? I would say that it was. That Apollo 13 made it safely back to Earth after a ruptured fuel cell exploded in space was also miraculous. The odds for mission success only improved from a lot of hard work. That made the event no less of a miracle.

    Like the origin of species by means of natural selection, science and the scientific method as well as engineering succeeds by means of a vetting process similar to the one nature herself uses. Any failures are learned from and re-engineered or else discarded and it's back to the drawing board. Designs that have failed, like nature's failures, never make it into the next attempt. This process is miraculous too, is it not?

    So let's give Eugene a "threshold of miraculous" calculation a whirl here.

    To be clear that the Apollo moon landing was really a miracle, I'm going to go ahead and use the numbers originally calculated for the event in the 1950.

    1. Probability of landing a man on the moon: p1 = 0.000167

    2. Probability of returning a man from the moon safely to Earth: p2 = 0.000167
    (this step simply assumes a similar risk for the round trip)

    3. Combined probabilities: p1 * p2 = (0.000167)^2, or about 1 chance in 36,000,000

    Easy Peasey, huh? Does that help, Eugene?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Last edited: May 21, 2017
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    You mean to say you haven't visited the warehouse where they built the movie set?

    Shame on you

    Go to

    Miracles are Made Here a subsidiary of

    We Make Moon Landings Happen

    Make sure to have your photo taken with the Spacesuit stand up where you put your face into the cut out

    Can't have people not believe you didn't go there

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    danshawen likes this.
  11. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,067
    Necessity is the mother of invention. If there is no "threshold of intolerable improbability", then what is so impossible about inheritable, maximally-magical molecules as I have defined them? http://www.sciforums.com/threads/do...s-four-postulates.159338/page-10#post-3454643
    They're just a matter of fantastic improbabilities.
     
    danshawen likes this.
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Simple. They don't exist other than in your imagination.

    What is so impossible about the Death Star blowing you to bits tomorrow? The fact that it does not exist.
     
  13. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    The "threshold of intolerable improbability"

    is just BEFORE

    you reach the level of INCREDULITY and

    at the BOUNDARY of

    DEFYING physics

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  14. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,067
    I don't believe that a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater exists but I wouldn't claim that the imagined existence of such a creature would threaten humanity as well as violate the fundamental laws of physics.

     
  15. Eugene Shubert Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,067
    My definition of a fantastically improbable, inheritable, maximally-magical molecule is useful because it thoroughly eviscerates the common descent postulate.
     
  16. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    At least 2 reasons I can think of
    1. No necessity
    2. The "threshold of intolerable improbability"
      is just BEFORE
      you reach the level of INCREDULITY and
      at the BOUNDARY of
      DEFYING physics
    3. Oops sorry 3 no magic exist in the real world

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  17. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    It eviscerates the common decent postulate

    with about the same affect as

    a baseball bat eviscerates a bus sized block of marble

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  18. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    People will believe what they will believe.

    I trusted everything Walter Cronkite ever said, and I don't think the man ever lied to anyone in his life, nor did he ever broadcast a story that wasn't verified by a reliable journalistic source.

    Norman Leer's "All in the Family" was supposed to be a comedy, too, but somehow, Carroll O'Connor's character of Archie Bunker got confused as being a guide for how to be a good American. Go figure. Now Archie Bunker is president.

    I seem to remember, even Archie was suspicious of the Russians. How could he not be? All of their ICBMs were aimed at us during the Cold War. They tried to install missle launch facilities in Cuba (kind of like Kim Jong Un feels about South Korea right about now), as a response to our arming NATO in similar fashion.

    If you are going to make up conspiracty theories, why not make a conspiracy theory about something that really matters, instead of insulting the memory of a real life hero like Neil Armstrong? There is no shortage of dangerous situations in the world to make them up about.

    Did you know, Kim Jong Un used to be Archie Bunker? He's trying out for Apprentice next season.
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2017
  19. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    This is one of the best threads ever started here, and it made me think very hard about those miracles I have always believed in.

    Thanks, Eugene.
     
  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    Thinking hard about all subjects, mudane and miracle, is good

    Seperating fact from fiction is even better

    Explaining fact from fiction is a work of art

    Having others accept your explanations

    as valid puts you in the realm of a great teacher

    if they are true

    A waste of space if shown to be nonsense

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    danshawen likes this.
  21. Ted Grant II Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    188
    I would rather define a miracle in two ways.
    If there are no gods (or similarly miraculous producing beings) then miracles can only occur in fiction, either written or imagined.
    If there is at least one god, which we can assume created the universe as part of its definition, then every event and every object is a miracle.
    A coin or the flip of a coin either is, or is not a miracle, entirely dependent on the existence of a god or gods.
    Which ever is the case, the word "miracle" has no use, except in fiction. In fiction, it can mean anything you like.

    If an accident occurs and several people are killed, but a baby survives, it is common to report such news as a miracle.
    All it means is that it is surprising. It isn't a miracle. God didn't save that baby.
    If our plan is to allow miracles, then God should have saved everyone.
    That would be a much better miracle.
     
    danshawen likes this.
  22. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    Are you oblivious to humour and Poe?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  23. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    That there is a God would not be surprising.

    That he cared about us or even the same things we cared about would be a miracle.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page