Why do you think the Sun will rise tommorrow.

[eigen]

I have been thinking about this alot lately, what do you guys think? I find my conclusions to be both debilating and somehow comforting.

 

[imported_Nail]

I expect nothing, yet it would be immensely convenient if it the Earth were to complete its rotation.

Then again, it has done the same thing for billions of years without fail. Or so I hear.

 

[gsellis]

Let's see, a body in motion... so we will still be rotating. Nothing has changed the sun's 'fire triangle', so it will still be going.

Next.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: gsellis
Let's see, a body in motion... so we will still be rotating. Nothing has changed the sun's 'fire triangle', so it will still be going.

Next.

Yeah but that is the point, you assume on past experience, 20 billion years worth, that the laws of physics, in this case conservation of angular momentum will still hold tommorrow.When in fact there is absolutely no reason to hold this belief. In the end the point that I reached was that ALL knowledge is probablistic i.e it is based on the fact that we can without limit increase our basis of belief for an idea ( by observing it happen N times). However what happens at N+1 is a mystery. It is the chance that tommorrow everthing may change that worries.Moire specifcally it is the uncertainty that comes along with such a notion.

 

[silverpig]

Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

 

[cybergen7]

b.c. it will

 

[Vee]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

But this is really so! He's right. Everything is part of an, _EXACTLY_ORGANIZED_ system (that's why the liers refer to it as "Chaos Theory") that is guaranteed to be _UNPREDICTABLE_ (that's why the liers insist on using the term "Deterministic").

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Vee

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

But this is really so! He's right. Everything is part of an, _EXACTLY_ORGANIZED_ system (that's why the liers refer to it as "Chaos Theory") that is guaranteed to be _UNPREDICTABLE_ (that's why the liers insist on using the term "Deterministic").

Yeah, he's got a couple of neat techniques which (in my surface glances) seem very promising. See if you can find anything on Bayesian detection.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

That then assumes that there is not free will.

Zeno's Paradox sounds good too on the surface. But to deny chaos only assumes that the universe is perfectly ordered. There is no such thing as perfect information, so he is save as he cannot be disproved.

 

[Dinominant]

Originally posted by: gsellis

That then assumes that there is not free will.

Care to prove that there is?

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Dinominant

Originally posted by: gsellis

That then assumes that there is not free will.

Care to prove that there is?

i made the choice to reply to this ignorant flamebait, but i didnt have to.

 

[gururu]

because all sources on the opposite side of the earth have not informed me otherwise.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Quote:
Originally posted by: Dinominant

quote:
Originally posted by: gsellis

That then assumes that there is not free will.



Care to prove that there is?



i made the choice to reply to this ignorant flamebait, but i didnt have to.


That does not necessarily mean that there is free will. That is only a perception you are making about choice being spontaneous with the understanding that time is linear and not occurring instanteously. If time is linear with no "intelligence" running the show (i.e. the universe is a mechanistic machine created by random chance {quantum physics says otherwise} than free will could indeed exist. Unfortunately, or not, Quantum Physics has shown and is showing (as the Hindus stated 4000 years ago) that perhaps consciousness manifested (manifests) the universe and consequently consciousness can alter the universe. Consiousness exists outside of time, or rather I should say time is a externally manifested tool of consiousness much like the body houses the mind and merely uses that as a tool of self-exploration. HMMM

I am not saying you are wrong or that you are right.

Maybe, there is free will and no free will concurrently. Perhaps like the branches of the tree we are free to choose which branch we go up but the branch we choose has already been chosen hence free will without free will.

As for the answer to whether the sun will come up tomorrow my answer is

"I am that I am" which precludes all other distinctions therefore rendering that question moot (in a universal sort of way)

 

[Vee]

Originally posted by: gsellis
That then assumes that there is not free will.

Not at all. To think about "free will" at all in this context, means we have to concider what is meant by the concept. You will then find that it is a concept that only exists within a smaller reference frame, a delimited part, severed by borders. In any way the concept "free will" has any meaning at all, we do have free will, even in an exactly organized universe. In the intuitive sense.

One possible reason for the misleading 'political' and 'ideological' terms, is that peoples thinking wanders astray with established common concepts, that lacks meaning or content, in a bigger context.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

Aspect's experimental confirmation of Bell's Theorem argues against this view, though it only forbids local hidden variable theories. David Bohm proposed an alternative version of quantum mechanics, which was a nonlocal hidden variable theory (i.e., particles can instantaneously exchange information across the entire length of the universe, violating relativistic limitations.)

 

[imported_jediknight]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

That's my theory as well.. not that I have any hope of coming up with an explanation of the underlying phenomena...

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: jediknight

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

That's my theory as well.. not that I have any hope of coming up with an explanation of the underlying phenomena...

Wouldn't the law of thurmal dynamics that says something about enegry conseveation prevent random events.

lets for example take a coin and flip it. Now if we could go back in time and flip the coin again with the same envirioment and all other inputs being the same. The output would have to be the same otherwise energy one of the systems would have had more energy which is impossible because the inputs and the originial states where the same.

 

[f95toli]

But two states can have exactly the same energy, thus is known as "degenerate states".

Actually, assuming that the basic theories of quantum mechanics are correct there are TRULY radnom events. The decay of an atomic nucleus is probably the best known example of this.

Most macroscopic phenomena are probably not random in the strictest sens, they are just chaotic and impossible to predict because we can not exactly know the initial state of the system, turbulence would be one example of this.

Coming back to the original question: The reason why we belive the sin will rise tomorrow is that it is a good theory, so far there has never been an observation of the sun NOT risining, and there is no competing theory which suggests that the sun will suddenly stop rising.
Hoever, there is no way to PROVE that is will rise, but this is true for all theories in science, we can never prove them; just show that they are wrong (i.e. suddenly one day the sun does not rise) in which case we need a new. better. theory.

This has been the central question in science theory for several hundred years and a lot of work has gone into trying the "solve" this problem. The work done by Popper ("logic of scientific discovery" and other works) in many ways put an end to the attempts to "prove" scientific theories.

(I even think Popper used the rising sun as an example in one of hís books)

 

[Cogman]

"Because God made it that way. " Really, I fall under the catagory that Its been doing it for so long and there are no predictions of the sun blowing up or metior hiting the sun/earth destroying it. So I rely on the faith that it will rise.

 

[Tiamat]

my first post here, please excuse my ignorance, however this subject interested me.

If the sun were to instantly disappear for unknown reason, how many days would it take for us on earth to not see a sun rise? With the limited speed that light travels, could it be possible for us to have a sun rise even though the sun doesnt exist at that exact moment in time? Interesting...

 

[sao123]

If the sun were to just (**snaps finger**) disappear. You'd know it within 8.5 minutes or less.
the entire planet out side the tropics, would be frozen within 2-5 days. Tropical areas warmer water temperatures will freeze slower due to the slower heat loss of liquid water than land mass




BTW... I think the sun will come up tomorrow because the laws of conservation of mass and energy says that a million billion tons of fusing gasses bound by gravity cannot just disappear into nothingness.

 

[OrganizedChaos]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Actually there is a prof in my phys/astro department who is trying to get people away from using probability to explain things. His whole idea is that there really is some underlying mechanism to all probabilistic phenomena, but that they are too complex for us to figure out right now. In the mean time these phenomena manifest themselves to us in a way that seems to be purely random and is thus governed well by probability theory.

i hope not, this will destroy vegas.

 

[crazychicken]

hahahaha i agree with sao123

 

[PowerEngineer]

There is no guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow morning (or that the universe will not collapse into nothingness in this next instant).

It seems to me real question is: what assumptions are you going to make while deciding what you'll do next?

You can either assume that the sun will rise or you can assume that it won't. Either assumption could be wrong! But our own personal experiences and the track record established for scientific thinking both strongly suggest that assuming the sun will rise tomorrow is most likely correct. So we'll all decide to go to bed on a Sunday night to be ready for school/work Monday morning instead of going to that "end-of-the-world" party down the block.

:laugh:

This same logic applies to so many assumptions, including the one about dying in our sleep tonight... Pleasent dreams!

:evil:

 

[Jeff7]

Thus far, the sun's come up every day of my life. There aren't records that say "on this date, the sun failed to rise" or anything like that. Maybe it went out a few times (eclipses) or was darkened (clouds), but it's quite likely that it's always risen. And it probably has done so ever since Earth started rotating as it was formed.
Now granted, an asteroid could come by and smack into the planet. If it would be large enough to stop Earth's rotation, then the sun would indeed fail to rise tomorrow. Of course, even if it was just large enough to wipe out all humanity, but not stop the planet's rotation, then the sun would still rise. There just wouldn't be anyone alive to see it.