Is potential the same as actual?

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Well, to consider this scenario to help decide if there is a difference between potential energy and potential event:

In a gun, say a revolver or rifle, potential energy is stored between the bonds of the reactants in the gunpowder. When the gunpowder is ignited, then the reaction ensues and the projectile is launched. However, the location the projectile is aimed at and who controls the triggering or aiming of the projectile are independent of the nature of the chemical reaction. Someone points the gun and pulls the trigger... in a sense the potential energy in the chemical bonds, as well as the rest of the system of the firearm, do provide potential for an event to take place, but so would a bow and arrow, a bottle of gasoline, etc, in the same sense as does the firearm. In terms of committing the deadly sin of target practice, the bottle of gasoline wouldn't work so well, though a bow and arrow would, but in terms of homicide gasoline is just fine. The potential energy stored between the bonds also can be used for the event of locomotion as well as burning a person, just a the potential provided by a handgun can provide the fun of shooting bottles or cans at a distance, can provide the potential for murder, or can even provide the potential for self defense. So, it is possible that the potential energy provides potential for an event, but I see it as at least a bit different. Maybe only by a shade, but not quite the same.

Ah Letum - thanks for your post. I really enjoyed reading it. If you want I'd be interested to know more as to why science thinks that both infinite regressive time and space cannot exist simultaneously. I would have thought the opposite - that is, a simultaneously infinite regressive time and space would make more sense than a simultaneously future infinite time and space. Also, I'm trying to think how this could allow time and space to maintain their relativity? Although I sort of have the idea that there can simultaneously be an infinite space with a finite future time (which, in the future would be 'now' of course!).

iamnotaparakeet - I would like to suggest differentiating the term 'potential' from the term 'possibility'. I think that the intricacies of the many causes and conditions that ripen into a result are too subtle for an ordinary mind to fathom. So therefore a result may appear as a chance occurance, but when every minute detail that contributed to the effect could be analysed it would be discovered that there was really only the one potential to ripen - and that would be the potential that actually did.

If possibilities do not eventuate into an actuality then they must necessarily be devoid of the potential to do so. That's why I would distinguish the two terms apart from one another.

So potential can be a possibility. But a possibility is not necessarily a potential.

And I apologise if I'm speaking a totally different language to everyone else!! I am, after all - in a world of my own here. And it's good too! haha!

I'd just like to add that this theory lends well to the idea that every outcome - no matter how seemingly insignificant - is actually significant in some way, and not a product of chance. It is only the limitations of our mind that prevent us from seeing how the past causes and present conditions combine to result in a determined effect. If the universe worked in any other way I'd be freaking out. haha!

As per the usage of potential versus possible, I don't actually know so much of the differences in modern usage. Perhaps in this discussion it would be better to differentiate using possible instead of potential, as you suggest.

Etymologically though, both potential and possible come from the Latin verb "posse" whereby in the present active indicative it is shown in conjugation as

Possum, "I am able"
Potes, "you are able"
Potest, "he/she/it is able"
Possumus, "we are able"
Potestis, "ye are able"
Potent, "they are able".

It's a matter of whether something can happen, that it is able. I suppose though that actual and possible would be just the same as actual and potential then.

I'm glad you enjoyed my post, thanks.

That's from observation, although as a philosopher, you might not want to rule it out.

If the universe was in a steady state and had been forever, populated by stars and galaxies
for infinite extents in space, there would be an infinite amount of light coming to us from all
the infinite amount of stars. Even if the universe is infinite in size, this would not be the case
if it had a beginning because hardly any of the light would have reached us yet.

More compellingly, now, with better observing techniques, we have loads of evidence that
the universe is expanding and doing various other things that don't make sense with out a beginning.

It could be the case that before the beginning there was another universe, but as evidence of that
is impossible, it's not a question science concerns it's self with (apart from a few cosmologists
who still have one foot in philosophy/theology). It's not something we can learn about.

Most theories tend to treat the universe as being of finite size because parts of the universe are
expanding away from us faster than the speed of light. That means that the light from them loses
all of it's energy via redshift before it reaches us. Science considers that an edge to the universe
because no observation is possible beyond that point. Again, for a philosopher, that doesn't mean
there really is an edge to the universe; it can still be infinite in size, even if good science is
obliged to treat it as finite.

Such is the edge of observation rather than an actual edge, as per the Gamov/"big bang" model of the cosmos. However, what if there were an edge to where the matter is, beyond which, there is nothing but void? Would there be a center of gravity in such a universe? Since the universe is expanding, it is increasing in volume with increasing time, then the universe would be decreasing with decreasing time; in the past the cosmos would have been more dense the further back in time one goes, to the point of it initially being a singularity. Would that be so, or not?

The original question becomes significant in the case of a fertilized egg. Is a potential living creature the same as an actual independent living creature. Is a seed the same as a tree? Is an interesting concept, such as the formula E = mc^2 the same as an atomic bomb?

Thanks for that Letum. I love to hear these types of theories.
Such is the necessity of light in observation it seems! Oh well - if the light won't come to us then we'll have to take the light to it!! Sorry - just tripping now! haha!

iamnotaparakeet - If we trace the beginning back to a dense singularity - then what acted upon that singularity to make it expand? IMO it had to be either something external from it, or something like a potential within it. If it was the latter - where did that initial potential come from and what factors contributed in the ripening of that potential?

Sand - That's so funny that you should mention a seed and a tree because I was thinking the same thing. But the potential seed can't be equivalent to the resulting tree because it needs the additional conditions of soil, water, sun etc for it to ripen. That's why I'd say that potential is a combination of very intricate components which eventually become an actuality. The more intricacies that we allow in the equation then the more determined is the result.

Astrophysicists hate singularities with a passion, so I think most would want to avoid that word
and all it's problems, but on the face of it; that seems like a reasonable conclusion.

But we do know things where dense and hot in the past because we can see far enough back
in time through telescopes to see the universe as it was when it was dense and hot. From earth
it just looks like an microwave glow; the microwave background radiation, but that is only
because the light has been redshifted in it's journey to us. When you correct for redshift we can
see a bright glow of hot hydrogen plasma, like the surface of the sun, in all directions.

I reckon that damm cool.

Is that like infinite light?

EDIT: Sorry - I was just getting excited!! I'm just trying to fathom how there could be a definite end to light. And then when you mention seeing it in all directions... I don't know! Have to think more....

I don't want to hijack this thread with cosmology, so I'll send you a pm in a few minuets to try and explain things a bit better than I have managed here.

Ed: Sent.

Potential is future possibility as actual is what exists here and now. It's the same as the past and what 'could' have been. Only the present is certain, not the future or past e.g. a car is heading towards you and you're in the middle of the road - you can step back, run forward to try to avoid it hitting you. The driver (if there is one) can try to hit you or to avoid hitting you. These are the possibilities but only the present is certain in this situation - you haven't been hit yet and might not be.

i do not usually talk in these threads so ignore me but i will post my perspective.

the definition of "possible" is something that i am sure can not be agreed on by everyone.
there is "theoretically possible" and "conceivably possible".

i believe that anything that is theoretically possible has a probability of becoming actual.
even if that probability is infinitessimal, given enough chances to occur, it will inevitably do so.
if time and space are infinite, that means that anything that has any possibility to occur will inevitably occur at some time some where.

but there is an impossibility of "certainty", so that nothing can be perfectly quantified probabilistically, therefore nothing is infinitely certain even if it is possible and has an infinite amount of chances to actuate.

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the idea of "conceivably possible" in my mind means similar to "can not see why it can not happen"
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i expect to be given advice to go and get educated and return to this thread when i know what i am talking about....but whatever.

i am only posting in this thread because there is nothing else much to post to tonight on WP.

Since current cosmology indicates time and space had a beginning it certainly is not infinite now although I cannot speak about an infinite future. The second law of thermodynamics is not encouraging.

can there be a finite past that progresses to an infinite future?
that is like a "ray". a "ray" has an origin but no end, and it's length is infinite. but how can it's length be infinite if it starts somewhere? surely infinity has no beginning otherwise it is finite.

i am very tired and i should have answered this post tomorrow.