Is potential the same as actual?

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Is potential the same as actual? Does a possibility entail a certainty? Since something can happen, therefore it will happen?

Discuss.

What kind of math are we talking about - probabilistic such as 30% chance of rain or logical errors such as 'cigarettes and mixed drinks are on the slippery slope to heroin addiction'?

In general. Not necessarily involving math, unless it is in statistical sleight of hand, for instance. Or the weather. Or gun ownership. Or abiogenesis. Or whatever else where there is either an actual or imaginary potential for an action to occur. Does a potential for such action to occur mean that it shall occur?

I'd say, unlike in the science lab, you'll never isolate the variables and it seems like most people - even given their best efforts will miss perhaps half of them, people who try to read books by the greatest minds - still perhaps 1/4 to 1/3. Beyond identifying these different variables comes understanding how they interact, which will take dominance over the next, under which circumstances - even if we had all that in order, the best we'd likely be able to do is forecast.

No.

If you mean that potential is not the same as actual, then your stance on this is the same as mine.

No, look up gambler's fallacy on wikipedia

Probabilities are theory, maths and physics used to determine the chance of something happening. They have no "value" in reality, rather they make a useful guide to help us understand or predict things in reality.

Certainties are what actually happened and even then some are uncertain or relative (relativity of simultaneity for example)

No.

Potential constrains the actual, but generally does not determine the actual.


ruveyn

No

If time and/or space are infinite in extent in any direction, then anything that can
happen, eventually will. However, saying "what can happen; will happen" might
be a tautology in a finite universe anyway, depending on whether or not 'god plays dice'.

If the universe works with probabilities, then the things that can happen will always be
constrained to a single course of events. In other words: the things that do happen will
always be the only things that could have happened.
Current science obliges us to treat the universe as if this where not the case. We must
explain quantum events as if they are the result of truly random probability events, rather
than mechanical, predetermined events. However, we are obliged to treat the universe
this way, not because we have evidence that the universe is truly behaving in a
probabilistic way (such evidence could not exist, even if this where the case), but because
we lack an alternative deterministic explanation.

To sum up:

So:
If the universe is finite in all extents and probabilistic
then there are potential events and they might never happen.

If the universe is infinite in any extent and probabilistic
then there are potential events and they will all eventually happen (if the universe is infinite in time)
or there are potential events and they are all happening right now (if the universe is infinite in space)

If the universe is finite in all extents and predetermined
the idea of probabilities does not make sense as the only things that can happen are the ones that will happen

If the universe is infinite in any extent and predetermined
the idea of probabilities does not make sense as the only things that can happen are the ones that will happen


Good science tells us that the universe is probabilistic, but only by lack of evidence one way
and the impossibility of evidence the other way.

Good science tells us that the universe can not be both infinite in regressive time and
simultaneously infinite in space, but there is no possible evidence as to whether future time
and/or space is infinite in extent.

On the face of it I would say they are not the same.
But then Letum's post is thought provoking, But I still think potential is not the same as actual. For example the fact that I am a human male, who is alive on this planet at the same time as Jessica Alba, means that potentially we could meet up, practice horizontal folk dancing and make babies together. it does not matter how inifnite the universe is once I die and this potential is not met, the possibility is gone forever.


Also take the example of a loaded, tensioned catapult, the potential for the missile to fly of is high, but only if there is a sudden release of the stored potential energy in the catapults mechanism, if this is slowly released or the missile is removed then the potential is lost.

The above example does then lead to the question of potential energy and whether not in a infinite universe all PE will eventually be released

In the case of the catapult, there are two main options though, for how the stored, or potential, energy is released. Either the trigger mechanism will be used or break, allowing the projectile to fly, somewhere, or if the tension is held too long, then the ropes of the onager or ballista would be stretched. Not quite the same situation with a trebuchet though, as the potential energy is held in the form of gravitational potential energy and not a spring/tension type system.

Catapults and ancient/medieval siege engines were some of my primary fixations as a teenager.

But is the stretching of the ropes etc, still the release of the potential energy. And with a trebuchet slowly lowering the counterweight to prevent the rapid release of energy is the energy used to do this still a release of the PE stored in the trebuchet

The stretching of the ropes is using the potential energy stored in them. Instead of the kinetic energy of a projectile, it is becoming force times distance, basically. This is a bit different from potential in the term I was using here, but are you attempting to equivocate the two terms "potential" with each other in this thread? And yes, in the trebuchet, slowly lowering the counterweight rather than letting it fall does decrease the stored gravitational energy.

Depends on how you define your terms. In a deterministic universe (which you really must accept as a Christian unless you are one of those rare Open Theists) there is only one possibility, thus what can happen does happen. However, if by "can happen" you mean "is conceivably possible" then the obvious answer to your question is "no," and this is easily verified by simple observation.

No, well at least not intentionally, I am just considering what letum wrote and and my understanding of potential. Also is there really a difference in the term potential, whether it is used to describe energy, circumstances etc