Pick this analogy apart, please.

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:09 pm

I'm not interested in defining this idea to the death, I'm just wondering if has any plausibility. So feel free to chew it up and spit it out.

Imagine there is an extremely complex machine, an thermonuclear bomb. It is in a stable state and following it's own "rules".

Then, it explodes.

In place of the largely static machine we now have an extremely energetic system that rapidly changes as it goes through the various stages of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

We have here two "states" that are very different. Unless we can understand the construction of a bomb we don't know what went before the explosion. And we can understand very little of the bomb design with only the explosion to study.

Anybody see where I'm going with this?
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

User avatar
FBM
Ratz' first Gritizen.
Posts: 45327
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:43 pm
About me: Skeptic. "Because it does not contend
It is therefore beyond reproach"
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by FBM » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:15 pm

No fucking clue. As usual. Hoping for Pyongyang, tho.
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken

"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."

"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."

User avatar
Mysturji
Clint Eastwood
Posts: 5005
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:08 pm
About me: Downloading an app to my necktop
Location: http://tinyurl.com/c9o35ny
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Mysturji » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:17 pm

yeah
Sir Figg Newton wrote:If I have seen further than others, it is only because I am surrounded by midgets.
Cormac wrote:Doom predictors have been with humans right through our history. They are like the proverbial stopped clock - right twice a day, but not due to the efficacy of their prescience.
IDMD2
I am a twit.

User avatar
Rob
Carpe Diem
Posts: 2558
Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2010 1:49 am
About me: Just a man in love with science and the pursuit of knowledge.
Location: Seattle, WA
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Rob » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:18 pm

I get where you're going and at a quick glance it seems okay, though I don't like referring to it as a bomb, since from my current understand there most likely was no bang.
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman

User avatar
cowiz
Shirley
Posts: 16482
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:56 pm
About me: Head up a camels arse
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by cowiz » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:24 pm

That's a Heinlein story
It's a piece of piss to be cowiz, but it's not cowiz to be a piece of piss. Or something like that.

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:24 pm

ScienceRob wrote:I get where you're going and at a quick glance it seems okay, though I don't like referring to it as a bomb, since from my current understand there most likely was no bang.
I'm using the bomb to represent the unknowable complexity of "what went before". I happen to be an expert on the construction of atomic bombs. I've read The Sum of All Fears three times!
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:25 pm

pawiz wrote:That's a Heinlein story
Which one? I may want to steal some more of it.
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

User avatar
tattuchu
a dickload of cocks
Posts: 21890
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:59 pm
About me: I'm having trouble with the trolley.
Location: Marmite-upon-Toast, Wankershire
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by tattuchu » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:26 pm

Yup, I like your analogy. But is a thermonuclear bomb (and the corresponding pre-Big Bang universe) necessarily extremely complex? :ask:
People think "queue" is just "q" followed by 4 silent letters.

But those letters are not silent.

They're just waiting their turn.

User avatar
tattuchu
a dickload of cocks
Posts: 21890
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:59 pm
About me: I'm having trouble with the trolley.
Location: Marmite-upon-Toast, Wankershire
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by tattuchu » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:27 pm

p.s. I picked your analogy apart, ate the bits I liked, and pushed the rest to the side of my plate. May I now be excused from the table? :awesome:
People think "queue" is just "q" followed by 4 silent letters.

But those letters are not silent.

They're just waiting their turn.

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:27 pm

tattuchu wrote:Yup, I like your analogy. But is a thermonuclear bomb (and the corresponding pre-Big Bang universe) necessarily extremely complex? :ask:
Is it just right, too complex or not complex enough? Who knows?
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

User avatar
Tero
Just saying
Posts: 51982
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:50 pm
About me: 8-34-20
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Tero » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:36 pm

What is this "before" you talk about? There is only now.

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:37 pm

Tero wrote:What is this "before" you talk about? There is only now.
Except that the now you refer to is in my past.
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

User avatar
cowiz
Shirley
Posts: 16482
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:56 pm
About me: Head up a camels arse
Location: Colorado
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by cowiz » Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:58 pm

Gawdzilla wrote:
pawiz wrote:That's a Heinlein story
Which one? I may want to steal some more of it.
"Solution Unsatisfactory" from "Expanded Universe"
It's a piece of piss to be cowiz, but it's not cowiz to be a piece of piss. Or something like that.

User avatar
Deep Sea Isopod
Bathynomus giganteus
Posts: 7806
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:09 am
Location: Gods blind spot.
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Deep Sea Isopod » Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:18 pm

Gawdzilla wrote:I'm not interested in defining this idea to the death, I'm just wondering if has any plausibility. So feel free to chew it up and spit it out.

Imagine there is an extremely complex machine, an thermonuclear bomb. It is in a stable state and following it's own "rules".
The highlighted area. You didn't do a good job at proofreading your post.


There. Chewed up enough for you? :biggrin:
I run with scissors. It makes me feel dangerous Image

Image

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Re: Pick this analogy apart, please.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Jan 16, 2011 7:29 pm

pawiz wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:
pawiz wrote:That's a Heinlein story
Which one? I may want to steal some more of it.
"Solution Unsatisfactory" from "Expanded Universe"
Thanks, I need to steal a copy of that book now.
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests