JNathanK wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
JNathanK wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
thedaywalker wrote:
if time is endless is then not everything inevitable?
The impossible cannot happen no matter how long one waits.
ruveyn
However, if anything is possible, no matter how improbable it is, it will happen given enough time.
No.
This is basic statistical logic and probably explains the complex island of life we find ourselves on in the otherwise, mostly empty void. Given enough time, and enough space with enough matter interacting with itself, something as improbable as life can happen. Statistically, asteroids colliding are a much more common phenomenon than the emergence of life, so it happens more frequently, but life still happens, though very rare. If something can theoretically happen but doesn't have any supporting conditions in the real world, then its technically impossible, not improbable.
Your basic statistical logic is wrong then. If such a thing were true there would be a number of short cuts to predicting things such as the value of PI. One could take actions to eliminate alternatives to certain possibilities, thus ensuring they happened.
Flip a coin until you get heads 10 times in a row. Whats the odds that the next will be tails? Fifty percent. There is nothing to suggest you will ever flip tails again or that you must flip 10 tails to balance. Fortune favors the bold? Not so much.
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davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.
23 Nov 2010, 11:54 am
