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Old 06-08-2011, 03:39 PM   #31
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JW:
Science is built on the fact that most things are Impossible. Is it possible that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No need to answer.

Saying "nothing is impossible" is philosophy, not science. Medical science for example would assume that the explanation for a resuscitation could not be a resurrection because resurrections are impossible. No need to weigh the evidence for a resurrection.


Joseph
1+1+1 = 1 using a simple 1bit flip flop circuit.

The problem with impossible is that are possibilities not known at any given time. You stated that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 was impossible, but a possibility existed that that was possible.
JW does not know "logics"? IMPOSSIBLE!!!!
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Old 06-09-2011, 03:27 AM   #32
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Isn't there also an issue that history is a series of unlikely events. What are the chances that a drugged addled sci-fi writer would start a major cult. Or even a thug like Hitler could start a world war.

I think that whatever happened 2000 years ago is going to be radically different to what seems to be the most probable.
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Old 06-09-2011, 05:54 AM   #33
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Isn't there also an issue that history is a series of unlikely events. What are the chances that a drugged addled sci-fi writer would start a major cult. Or even a thug like Hitler could start a world war.

I think that whatever happened 2000 years ago is going to be radically different to what seems to be the most probable.
Orthodox Christianity got its break because it allied with the winner of a civil war. How can one calculate the probability of that.

I am into Civil War Reenacting. The Civil War was the end result of a bunch of unlikely events. The Industrial Revolution's need for cotton, the invention of the Cotton Gin(an accident in itself) so that short staple cotton was usable, the accident of geography where vast amounts of valuable cotton could be grown, the timing where cotton was at its peak and demand for slaves was high meant that northern political events rather than economic became a threat and the utter dependance on a single crop-cotton-mean the South was in an economic trap.

FWIW in the South, there is an unique view of history called Lost Cause which combines history and myth.

Yeah assigning probabilities to events for analysis is going to be as much an art as what we have.
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Old 06-12-2011, 03:48 AM   #34
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Isn't there also an issue that history is a series of unlikely events. What are the chances that a drugged addled sci-fi writer would start a major cult. Or even a thug like Hitler could start a world war.

I think that whatever happened 2000 years ago is going to be radically different to what seems to be the most probable.
Orthodox Christianity got its break because it allied with the winner of a civil war.

Or vice verse.
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