Rumraket wrote:

Someone wrote:The coincidences seem to mean something because of their large to enormous scale, or they probably mean nothing because of their small to medium scale.

As I understand it you seem to be arguing on the basis that the impropability is so huge that you think it demands an explanation, and that this explanation must be some sort of intent or meaning.

If so, then I'm sorry but it seems to me you are simply wrong.

There are events happening all the time of which if we were to try and calculate their propability, would arrive at values that would be ludicrous and unfathomable(as in, possibly equal to or greater than that which you are trying to argue for). It doesn't mean they are the product of some sort of intent or meaning.
Consider for example the propability at their birth, in the core of a supernova before the formation of our solar system, that the specific atoms that now make up a particular grain of sand on a particular beach, on this earth, would have made their way into and so constitute that grain of sand, and lie in that exact position they now do, at this specific time.

Now consider additionally the presense and configuration of the grain of sand next to it, and the propability that the atoms that constitue the air arround it, that brush across it's surface, and have been doing so for the entirety of it's existence, would have moved around in the specific way they did, and now have been in contact with that grain of sand.

Etc. etc. etc.

I simply don't see enormous impropabilities in and of themselves producing some sort of evidence for intent or meaning.

Not much exposure to the word 'probability' in your lifetime?
Anyway, if probabilities of things have no meaning at all, why do scientists use them in their arguments? The probability that a certain atom was created in some supernova or is the decay product of one that was is almost 1, assuming our science is correct and the atom lies beyond iron in the periodic table. For all of the atoms, silicon and oxygen, in any grain of sand to have come from supernovae, not even to say as you did a single particular one, the probability is almost entirely neglible

Someone,

This will be my last ride on the merry-go-round unless you are prepared to meet me half-way and engage directly on the matters you yourself have engendered.


I have not 'disrespected the content of [your] coincidences' but have challenged the notions that they signify anything meaningful or profound. This is not a personal issue between you and I - at least not on my part.

I have found your ideas wanting that is all, and I have endeavoured to identify and explicate the grounds on which I have found your ideas unjustified and, in so doing, challenged you to qualify and support your assertion of intent and agency within your coincidental numbers.

Questioning the basis of your claims, and your belief in the claims being true, is not equivalent to attacking you personally - I am only trying to get to the bottom of what we can and cannot attribute to the coincidental numbers you have highlighted. If you feel that my comments have been inappropriate or have maligned you personally then I am truly sorry (perhaps my inclination toward light-heartedness does not go down well with everybody, or indeed anybody!) but I think I have also made it quite clear when I have been paying attention, taking you seriously, and addressing the matter at hand.

Your assumptions about my qualification for judging the merit of your hypothesis and conclusion are misplaced; the mathematics I can outsourced for validation to those with the relevant skills and experience, and I can point immediately to at least four posters in this thread who, to my knowledge, are more than qualified to deal with your workings-out if you care to present them in a formal and structured way. But even in accepting that your discovery of coincidences are correct 'for the sake of argument' I can still see that the argument for agency is flawed - and have explained why quite a few times in quite a few different ways.

Let me reiterate an element of my objection again, and perhaps you might care to deal with it directly:

in working with numbers you are working within an infinite set, and therefore coincidences and alignments between self-selected sequences of numbers are not necessarily unexpected. In fact such coincidences are explainable and in themselves signify nothing particularly meaningful or profound.

Please feel free to refute this statement, using your own work as example if necessary.

Okay, quite simply, your characterization of the sets of numbers as 'self-selected', by which I assume you mean that I've effectively thrown out all non-coincidental data, is not justified by a reading of the first page of this thread. Your failure to understand the scale of coincidences is clearly indicated by your refusal to tackle specifics and by your insistence that the fact there are infinitely many numbers is somehow relevant. Employing non-quantitative rhetoric, however well done, is simply barking up the wrong tree.

Note that this is not a refutation, but rather a repetition of my stance that I'll talk the way it's desired when I have some sense that there is somebody worth talking to. Why should I even start to get concrete about probabilities if I have found lfrom experience here that I can expect to get back the equivalent of 'probability schmobability'?

Oh, by the way, I suspect that Calilasseia was qualified to assess my ideas. If you review what was wrong with his attack on them, you'll see that he effectively refused (to be objective, that is).

Someone, for a person that's repeatedly stated his intent to disengage and no longer contribute to the thread, you certainly have spent a lot of time here making comments about other members' ability to understand what you are getting at.

You have been asked repeatedly what is the point of your mathematical coincidences. Perhaps you may actually grace us with an answer rather than continue to make snippy comments about members ?

Durro wrote:Someone, for a person that's repeatedly stated his intent to disengage and no longer contribute to the thread, you certainly have spent a lot of time here making comments about other members' ability to understand what you are getting at.

You have been asked repeatedly what is the point of your mathematical coincidences. Perhaps you may actually grace us with an answer rather than continue to make snippy comments about members ?

I'll demonstrate something momentarily, but I can only assume from the responses I've gotten so far that it won't be understood. I'm not intending to be snippy; that's the way things appear to me. What I'm going to demonstrate is nothing about the broad significance, mind you, but only the fact it isn't unreasonable by scientific standards to assume there is one.

[Note: By 'momentarily' I mean 2 or 3 hours.]

Understanding a hypothesis and agreeing with it are two different issues. Given that some of our members are doctorate level scientists and educators, let's not automatically assume that your audience is mentally deficient. They may simply disagree with what it is you're trying to convey.

What I'm going to demonstrate is nothing about the broad significance, mind you, but only the fact it isn't unreasonable by scientific standards to assume there is one.

That seems to me to be like saying "I'm not going to demonstrate that there's a significance about relationship between my shoe size and my IQ, but I'd like you believe me that it's scientifically reasonable to assume that there is. I could explain it to you, but you probably won't get it."

Instead of just posturing and throwing out numerical coincidences/relationships, how about you get to the heart of the matter and explain what, if any, cause or significance you think there is behind these coincidences/relationships. Otherwise, it's like theists saying that they have proof of god, but only those that believe in god can understand the proof.

I totally disagree with both your tone and reasoning about what it is I'm doing. I hate to have to refer a moderator back to the history of this thread for evidence that the manifest efforts or abilities of the people I have been arguing with have been lacking, but I suggest you do so. You want meaning? All I can say right now is that I have good reason in probabilistic terms to assume there is one. For example, throwing all other features of the sequence that gave Calilasseia such difficulties aside, the fact that the 4th is the first to generate a prime in going from base-4 representation to base-10 representation and the 44th is the first to do it twice has a probability, assuming the list as given and applying standard number-theoretical heuristics, of less than 1.867*10^(-4). This totally ignores a) the coincidences in the leading digits (Not only are both trios the same for these two, but they're specifically 234 innately connecting them to the sequence by its definition AND attaching itself, along with the fact that 10th leads off with 365, to a larger complex of coincidences), b) the coincidence in the translation of the 4th from bases 6 through 19 never resulting in a prime and from bases 20 and 22 resulting in 4 of them, c) the inordinately long string of digits at the end of the last prime generated (the second prime in base-4-to-base-10 translation in the 44th element) being limited to only 2 digits, and d) the very long string of digits in the beginning of the list itself lacking a specific digit (8). It is not my claim that the congeries of coincidences is evidence that numbers themselves could possibly have been manipulated by some higher intelligence. That would be absurd. It's also completely possible that there is another base in arithmetic that could be used to find equally or comparable coincidental results, though I firmly doubt it and suggest that anyone seeking to claim the opposite will have a great deal of difficulty even setting terms within which to test the idea. What I am claiming is that the coincidences I have presented are clear evidence that I am onto something meaningful, and until the point is conceded by at least one qualified person, I have no motivation for trying to argue again about what the meaning is or might be in my opinion. In order to get a change in perspective, I ask that anyone who is interested in what I've presented actually prove it to me rather than use words I can automatically dismiss as rhetoric from a position of bias.

Note: Without spelling out in detail where the 1.867e-4 result comes from, I used the prime number theorem applied to the conservative estimates as powers of 10 of all of the numbers involved, taking into consideration that the numbers end in 1 or 3 by use of the factor 2.5. What I mean by 'conservative' is just that: Where choosing the power of 10 in the calculation required a larger power to get a larger probability, that was done, and similarly for when a smaller power was required for the same end.

Someone wrote:You want meaning? All I can say right now is that I have good reason in probabilistic terms to assume there is one.

And that meaning is....

And the cause of these numerical oddities is...

And the implications of your hypothesis is...

And the point you're trying to make is...

Feel free to complete any of the above sentences.

Durro wrote:

Someone wrote:You want meaning? All I can say right now is that I have good reason in probabilistic terms to assume there is one.

I'm not being facetious, but..

And that meaning is....

something I have opinions about that I might be willing to REPEAT when given the proper motivation.

And the cause of these numerical oddities is...

something intrinsic to numbers, i.e., there is no cause. They simply are.

And the implications of your hypothesis is [sic]...

[*are] unavailable until I REFRAME the hypothesis. If by 'your hypothesis' you mean my claim that the coincidences are significant enough to justify looking at them and the means of their discovery/revelation for SOME deeper meaning than that they are, then the implications are that I should present the material wherever it may get a fair reading.

And the point you're trying to make is...

right now simply that there's justification for looking for a real meaning to the discoveries/revelations. To assume otherwise is to exhibit a lack of objectivity or competence or both. I'm sorry, but that's the truth as I see it.

Feel free to complete any of the above sentences.

Whatever service you think you're performing here isn't interpreted as such by me!

Someone wrote:

And the cause of these numerical oddities is...

something intrinsic to numbers, i.e., there is no cause. They simply are.

right now simply that there's justification for looking for a real meaning to the discoveries/revelations.

There is no cause, they simply are, but you think that there's probably "real meaning" to what you term "discoveries/revelations" ?

I'm interested in hearing your explanation for the apparent contradictions above.

Someone wrote:Not much exposure to the word 'probability' in your lifetime?

I know what the word means, thanks.

Anyway, if probabilities of things have no meaning at all, why do scientists use them in their arguments?

They do have meaning, just not in the sense you are trying to argue. The "meaning" could relate to the likelyhood that we should expect a given event to happen.
Sometimes we even do have to settle for highly unlikely scenarios. It doesn't mean we think it was engineered into place by an intelligence of some sort.

The probability that a certain atom was created in some supernova or is the decay product of one that was is almost 1, assuming our science is correct and the atom lies beyond iron in the periodic table.

Which we totally agree on, but that's not was I was asking. I was asking, given the supernova and all the atoms fused together in it, if we pick, lets say 200 trillion of those atoms at random, what is the propability that those 200 trillion atoms would go on to constitute that grain of sand 8 billion years later? In addition, what is the propability, at the moment of the supernova, that that grain of sand would happen to lie on that particular beach, on this particular planet, in addition to the propability that it would lie on that specific location on that specific beach, in addition to the propability not only that those 200 trillion atoms would constitute that grain of sand, but would result in a grain of sand that has that specific spatial arrangement?(have that particular shape).
All I'm trying so say is that some things are vastly impropable, yet are. It doesn't mean there is intent behind it.

You know, you could be right about the numbers, they could mean something. The problem is, they are just numbers to me. I don't see how you connect the dots. Number X is the product of the calculation of bla bla bla with number Y(etc. etc. etc.), therefore intelligent design of the human species and planet Earth?(I apologize if this seems derogatory of your work or position, if so it was unintentional) I'm sorry but it just doesn't follow.
Given that no meaning seems immediately apparent, we could also have to settle for the fact that they simply are coincidences.

To what end is all of this wordsalad supposed to achieve?

Rumraket wrote:

Someone wrote:Not much exposure to the word 'probability' in your lifetime?

I know what the word means, thanks.

I was remarking on your thrice misspelling.

Anyway, if probabilities of things have no meaning at all, why do scientists use them in their arguments?

They do have meaning, just not in the sense you are trying to argue. The "meaning" could relate to the likelyhood that we should expect a given event to happen.
Sometimes we even do have to settle for highly unlikely scenarios. It doesn't mean we think it was engineered into place by an intelligence of some sort.

Of course. In a sense. The fact that one finds an example of something that appears to mean something broader about our reality does not mean that we can't be extrapolating incorrectly in assuming that it really says much of anything at all. If I were to be handed a coin and told to observe what the outcome is upon flipping it but not to look at the other side, you can be sure that around the eighth toss in a row from the start showing heads that I'll be suspicious and by the fifteenth I'll be ready to wager a large sum that it's actually a two-headed coin. Rare coin-flipping strings in this way are actually going to happen only as frequently and no more so than any other string of the same length, but it's scientific to form the kind of hypothesis that leads me to my wager, even though I might well lose my shirt. Throwing one's hands up in the air at an unlikely event that may support a heretofore unrecognized phenomenon is not an approach that scientists normally employ. Sometimes it may well be that the occurrence of what's assessed probabilistically to be highly uncommon is properly met by saying that rare random occurrences do just happen occasionally, without resorting to anything deeper than that bare fact; but it all depends upon what is more parsimonious to assume, that the event is a freak random occurrence or something else lies behind it. Taking the fact that the single sequence just discussed is true doesn't imply anything at all about reality or numbers intrinsically until it is put into a larger context, that context being a) we use base 10, b) there are a lot of coincidences racked up historically and by one person with quite limited time and resources, c) a significant feature behind the discoveries is that they were in large part researched because of a coincidence in his and his family members' birth dates and how they relate to a certain set of historical dates that in itself is unlikely enough to require serious consideration for having some extraordinary cause [In reality, it's more true to simply say that this coincidence was more properly merely a major factor in my being able to recognize coincidences when they came along on their own. To gather the state of play of my mind and the history of the discoveries in a first approximation--and also assess the verisimilitude of the claim that a massive data-mining operation from some consortium is far from the reality--a look through the wikipedia talk space of the person who assisted me in getting started with serious number-theoretical research using PARI/GP at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Talk: ... Discovered is essential (along with other places I can point the curious to). There you'll find the beginnings of a sense that more than just coincidences involving 365.25 (which I don't even talk about there, but were already old hat at the time) were at play. In particular, you'll see that I start the discussion entirely with something that doesn't even fit particularly well as a coincidence of any significance, or didn't at the time. It's the first member of the sequence that Weisstein apparently discovered the second member of in April, and which I discussed relatively recently here (Incidentally, I've extended the 'natural' ways to get the smallest primes to include all of them under 100 except for 83 and 89)], and d) more things besides. To just respond as though absolutely none of it has a deeper significance is to say that one lacks the imagination to come up with even a hint of what that significance might be. That dogmatic--and unscientific--conclusions based on science and a position of skepticism toward extraordinary claims and conceptualization are your fallback is indicative of being neither scientific nor skeptical in the largest sense.

The probability that a certain atom was created in some supernova or is the decay product of one that was is almost 1, assuming our science is correct and the atom lies beyond iron in the periodic table.

Which we totally agree on, but that's not was I was asking. I was asking, given the supernova and all the atoms fused together in it, if we pick, lets say 200 trillion of those atoms at random, what is the propability that those 200 trillion atoms would go on to constitute that grain of sand 8 billion years later? In addition, what is the propability, at the moment of the supernova, that that grain of sand would happen to lie on that particular beach, on this particular planet, in addition to the propability that it would lie on that specific location on that specific beach, in addition to the propability not only that those 200 trillion atoms would constitute that grain of sand, but would result in a grain of sand that has that specific spatial arrangement?(have that particular shape).

I believe I've already addressed the fact that your science is faulty here. Your spelling still is also.

All I'm trying so say is that some things are vastly impropable, yet are. It doesn't mean there is intent behind it.

If that's what you were trying to say, all your handwaving about an essentially impossible statement was not a good approach. You might better have simply registered your opinion.

You know, you could be right about the numbers, they could mean something. The problem is, they are just numbers to me. I don't see how you connect the dots. Number X is the product of the calculation of bla bla bla with number Y(etc. etc. etc.), therefore intelligent design of the human species and planet Earth?(I apologize if this seems derogatory of your work or position, if so it was unintentional) I'm sorry but it just doesn't follow.

There's what appears to me to be a very refreshing concession here. The fact that you don't quite know how to connect the dots to draw some conclusion is only a minor issue in comparison, considering that it's taken this long for me to get one person to even say so much as 'maybe' here.

Given that no meaning seems immediately apparent, we could also have to settle for the fact that they simply are coincidences.

Perhaps, but I really don't think that's the position of parsimony.

Durro: What you see as an apparent contradiction is addressed earlier in this post. I needn't directly respond to you in light of that

Someone wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

Someone wrote:Not much exposure to the word 'probability' in your lifetime?

I know what the word means, thanks.

I was remarking on your thrice misspelling.

Fair enough, I also often misspell "simple" as "simply" for some reason. Must be some mental slip when I type the word I want to use y instead of e. I hope we can dicusss the subject without falling back on this.

Anyway, if probabilities of things have no meaning at all, why do scientists use them in their arguments?

They do have meaning, just not in the sense you are trying to argue. The "meaning" could relate to the likelyhood that we should expect a given event to happen.
Sometimes we even do have to settle for highly unlikely scenarios. It doesn't mean we think it was engineered into place by an intelligence of some sort.

Of course. In a sense. The fact that one finds an example of something that appears to mean something broader about our reality does not mean that we can't be extrapolating incorrectly in assuming that it really says much of anything at all. If I were to be handed a coin and told to observe what the outcome is upon flipping it but not to look at the other side, you can be sure that around the eighth toss in a row from the start showing heads that I'll be suspicious and by the fifteenth I'll be ready to wager a large sum that it's actually a two-headed coin. Rare coin-flipping strings in this way are actually going to happen only as frequently and no more so than any other string of the same length, but it's scientific to form the kind of hypothesis that leads me to my wager, even though I might well lose my shirt. Throwing one's hands up in the air at an unlikely event that may support a heretofore unrecognized phenomenon is not an approach that scientists normally employ. Sometimes it may well be that the occurrence of what's assessed probabilistically to be highly uncommon is properly met by saying that rare random occurrences do just happen occasionally, without resorting to anything deeper than that bare fact; but it all depends upon what is more parsimonious to assume, that the event is a freak random occurrence or something else lies behind it. Taking the fact that the single sequence just discussed is true doesn't imply anything at all about reality or numbers intrinsically until it is put into a larger context, that context being a) we use base 10, b) there are a lot of coincidences racked up historically and by one person with quite limited time and resources, c) a significant feature behind the discoveries is that they were in large part researched because of a coincidence in his and his family members' birth dates and how they relate to a certain set of historical dates that in itself is unlikely enough to require serious consideration for having some extraordinary cause, and d) more things besides.

I would guess you could approach the question of meaning, and the impropability of it all like this :
How many people are there with your birthday, who also have the same birthdays of their family members? I don't immediately assume your family history going back (in terms of birthdates) to person X(however far back you went in your research) is unique. I'm going to go out on a limp and say there are other people out there who happen to have a similar family history in that sense.
It seems to me the only thing that sets you and your family apart, is the fact that you are the one who found these coincidences. But that in itself also seems entirely coincidental to me (as in, without intent or some deeper meaning).

To just respond as though absolutely none of it has a deeper significance is to say that one lacks the imagination to come up with even a hint of what that significance might be.

I honestly cannot even imagine. The whole thing seems too abstract and the individual coincidences so far removed and unrelated to each other, I get this feeling you are trying to look for meaning where none exists. You could propably waste your entire life involving yourself in the math and still never find anything of substance.

That dogmatic--and unscientific--conclusions based on science and a position of skepticism toward extraordinary claims and conceptualization are your fallback is indicative of being neither scientific nor skeptical in the largest sense.

A confusing sentence if I ever read one. Dogmatic and unscientific conclusions, based on science? A position of scepticism towards extraordinary claims is my unscientific non-skeptical fallback?
You spoke about parsimony before. Am I now to grant the same level of equal and low amount of skepticism as I would have to ordinary claims, to vast and extraordinary claims? That doesn't make sense.

The probability that a certain atom was created in some supernova or is the decay product of one that was is almost 1, assuming our science is correct and the atom lies beyond iron in the periodic table.

Which we totally agree on, but that's not was I was asking. I was asking, given the supernova and all the atoms fused together in it, if we pick, lets say 200 trillion of those atoms at random, what is the propability that those 200 trillion atoms would go on to constitute that grain of sand 8 billion years later? In addition, what is the propability, at the moment of the supernova, that that grain of sand would happen to lie on that particular beach, on this particular planet, in addition to the propability that it would lie on that specific location on that specific beach, in addition to the propability not only that those 200 trillion atoms would constitute that grain of sand, but would result in a grain of sand that has that specific spatial arrangement?(have that particular shape).

I believe I've already addressed the fact that your science is faulty here. Your spelling still is also.

What science is faulty? The number of atoms that make up a grain of sand? The 8 billion year timespan between the supernova and the presence of sandgrains on a planet? Are the specifics really that relevant to the argument here? I honestly can't be bothered trying to find the density and mineral composition of sand and then working out the average number of atoms that make up one. Same goes for the time it took for the resulting protoplanetary disk to form from the local interstellar molecular cloud and supernova remnants. I'm not asking for the actual number. I was speaking conceptually.
And honestly, I don't care about my spelling and mistypings that much.

All I'm trying so say is that some things are vastly impropable, yet are. It doesn't mean there is intent behind it.

If that's what you were trying to say, all your handwaving about an essentially impossible statement was not a good approach. You might better have simply registered your opinion.

But there was an underlying argument I felt the need to spell out.

You know, you could be right about the numbers, they could mean something. The problem is, they are just numbers to me. I don't see how you connect the dots. Number X is the product of the calculation of bla bla bla with number Y(etc. etc. etc.), therefore intelligent design of the human species and planet Earth?(I apologize if this seems derogatory of your work or position, if so it was unintentional) I'm sorry but it just doesn't follow.

There's what appears to me to be a very refreshing concession here. The fact that you don't quite know how to connect the dots to draw some conclusion is only a minor issue in comparison, considering that it's taken this long for me to get one person to even say so much as 'maybe' here.

It seems to me the first case to be made is that there IS a meaning to it all. A case you haven't substantiated. In the light of what I was trying to convey before : That large improbabilities in themselves don't argue some sort of intent, I think you first need to demonstrate that such an intent must exist before we can even begin speculating what it is.

Given that no meaning seems immediately apparent, we could also have to settle for the fact that they simply are coincidences.

Perhaps, but I really don't think that's the position of parsimony.

By that standard one could demand an explanation for any impropable event imaginable, like the one about the atoms and the grain of sand. Why like that? What is the point?

Rumraket wrote:

Someone wrote:

Rumraket wrote:
I know what the word means, thanks.

I was remarking on your thrice misspelling.

Fair enough, I also often misspell "simple" as "simply" for some reason. Must be some mental slip when I type the word I want to use y instead of e. I hope we can dicusss the subject without falling back on this.

I have no need to fall back on it, but it does leave me with an increasingly poor impression that you are rather sloppy. You'll forgive me for not ignoring it altogether.

I would guess you could approach the question of meaning, and the impropability of it all like this :
How many people are there with your birthday, who also have the same birthdays of their family members? I don't immediately assume your family history going back (in terms of birthdates) to person X(however far back you went in your research) is unique. I'm going to go out on a limp and say there are other people out there who happen to have a similar family history in that sense.
It seems to me the only thing that sets you and your family apart, is the fact that you are the one who found these coincidences. But that in itself also seems entirely coincidental to me (as in, without intent or some deeper meaning).

To me this is casually non-responsive and a continuation of a plague of verbal rhetoric. I can only assume you didn't read the coincidence or don't have the wherewithal to assess it.

I honestly cannot even imagine. The whole thing seems too abstract and the individual coincidences so far removed and unrelated to each other, I get this feeling you are trying to look for meaning where none exists. You could propably waste your entire life involving yourself in the math and still never find anything of substance.

You're giving me little reason to place any weight in favor of your opinion, that opinion apparently being that if you can't think of a good explanation for something wildly coincidental happening that doesn't fit a narrative you're already comfortable with then, without trying to actually put a number on it or some close equivalent, it has to be a pure chance coincidence.

That dogmatic--and unscientific--conclusions based on science and a position of skepticism toward extraordinary claims and conceptualization are your fallback is indicative of being neither scientific nor skeptical in the largest sense.

A confusing sentence if I ever read one. Dogmatic and unscientific conclusions, based on science? A position of scepticism towards extraordinary claims is my unscientific non-skeptical fallback?
You spoke about parsimony before. Am I now to grant the same level of equal and low amount of skepticism as I would have to ordinary claims, to vast and extraordinary claims? That doesn't make sense.

Fine, then remain confused, but it's not really that confusing. We have a wider pallet of possibilities for the nature of our reality than your understanding of science seems to allow for. That's all I'm saying about your apparent approach to the underlying features of the real content of this thread. The fact that Occam's Razor pretty nicely rules out certain things as necessary to explain a vast array of empirical observations as though not every element of this pallet has any real place in the scientific endeavor should not be construed as evidence against the possibility that some additional element of the pallet may be required to explain some other observations.
------------------------------------------

Which we totally agree on, but that's not was I was asking. I was asking, given the supernova and all the atoms fused together in it, if we pick, lets say 200 trillion of those atoms at random, what is the propability that those 200 trillion atoms would go on to constitute that grain of sand 8 billion years later? In addition, what is the propability, at the moment of the supernova, that that grain of sand would happen to lie on that particular beach, on this particular planet, in addition to the propability that it would lie on that specific location on that specific beach, in addition to the propability not only that those 200 trillion atoms would constitute that grain of sand, but would result in a grain of sand that has that specific spatial arrangement?(have that particular shape).

Perhaps I wasn't clear. Oxygen and Silicon are well below Iron in atomic number. Supernovae aren't particularly relevant to the histories of the vast majority of the atoms of these elements. For your larger attempt at some kind of point, I'll grant that highly improbable events are happening all the time, but what I won't and shouldn't concede is that if an astronomically low probability attaches to a coherent complex of coincidences then we should assume that a narrative that's been established and would require modification in order to explain this complex of coincidences as more than mere accidents shouldn't be so modified.[Sorry, but I am inserting this in the middle rather than at the end of the relevant quote because of technological and time limitations--I'm on a cellphone whose battery is about out.

I believe I've already addressed the fact that your science is faulty here. Your spelling still is also.

What science is faulty? The number of atoms that make up a grain of sand? The 8 billion year timespan between the supernova and the presence of sandgrains on a planet? Are the specifics really that relevant to the argument here? I honestly can't be bothered trying to find the density and mineral composition of sand and then working out the average number of atoms that make up one. Same goes for the time it took for the resulting protoplanetary disk to form from the local interstellar molecular cloud and supernova remnants. I'm not asking for the actual number. I was speaking conceptually.
And honestly, I don't care about my spelling and mistypings that much.

--------------------------------------------------

If that's what you were trying to say, all your handwaving about an essentially impossible statement was not a good approach. You might better have simply registered your opinion.

But there was an underlying argument I felt the need to spell out.

There's what appears to me to be a very refreshing concession here. The fact that you don't quite know how to connect the dots to draw some conclusion is only a minor issue in comparison, considering that it's taken this long for me to get one person to even say so much as 'maybe' here.

It seems to me the first case to be made is that there IS a meaning to it all. A case you haven't substantiated. In the light of what I was trying to convey before : That large improbabilities in themselves don't argue some sort of intent, I think you first need to demonstrate that such an intent must exist before we can even begin speculating what it is.

Must? What about if the probability is only exceedingly large?

Perhaps, but I really don't think that's the position of parsimony.

By that standard one could demand an explanation for any impropable event imaginable, like the one about the atoms and the grain of sand. Why like that? What is the point?

This looks like more empty rhetoric and your grain-of-sand analogy has no place for more than one reason. Besides, I need to recharge.

You don't seem terribly concerned with engaging in this "empty rhetoric" you accuse me of. So far you have addressed the quality of my spelling(in addition to making it known that you will keep whining about it), claimed my science was faulty(without substantiating how), and now this accusation of "empty rhetoric".

My sand analogy was also casually handwaved away by a claim that it was out of place "for more than one reason"(none specified however). Do you even care to have this discussion or are you just going to wave your hands?

Rumraket wrote:You don't seem terribly concerned with engaging in this "empty rhetoric" you accuse me of. So far you have addressed the quality of my spelling(in addition to making it known that you will keep whining about it), claimed my science was faulty(without substantiating how), and now this accusation of "empty rhetoric".

My sand analogy was also casually handwaved away by a claim that it was out of place "for more than one reason"(none specified however). Do you even care to have this discussion or are you just going to wave your hands?

EXCUSE ME! These are both accusations that are manifestly contradicted by what I actually said. Don't distort the record of how I handled what I now consider to be deliberate screw-ups because they afford you some excuse to be off-topic.

1) SAYING I WOULDN'T IGNORE YOUR SPELLING DIFFERS SUBSTANTIALLY FROM SAYING IT WAS SOMETHING I WOULD BRING UP AGAIN.
2) I POINTED OUT THAT OXYGEN AND SILICON ARE NOT AFTER BUT BEFORE IRON. I could also add some things, but I didn't have time or see the point. I'll tell you, though, that probabilistically defined events all come from some sort of sample space. Talking about an impossible event to compare probabilities is fatuous. There also are an awful lot more grains of sand than people and other things to consider in any attempt to rectify your analogy and try to compare it to my situation. Good luck with that if you choose to continue because it will require you to actually be mathematically precise in dealing not just with my coincidences but with your supposed counter-example to how I look at probability as opposed to your conception of how it should be and is looked at by scientists.

A couple of things about recent posts need to be clarified (For both Rumkaret and anyone else interested):
1) The birth-date coincidence is spelled out not in this thread but in a thread that hasn't gotten much attention and none at all in a long time. I had forgotten that I only referred the reader here to that thread rather than actually spelling it out here also. It's described not all that clearly-- but clearly enough for some extra effort--as the first of three coincidences attached to me in the first post of 'List 3 Coincidences You Know Of (For Debunking)' in the 'Paranormal and Supernatural' subsection of this 'General Debunking' section. The other two coincidences are also noteworthy, and the continuation of the discussion involving others did have at least one highlight in my opinion.
2) The quote of my 6:00AM post in Rumkaret's 8:43AM is actually to an earlier edit for some reason. I assume he started the post considerably before concluding and placing it. The parenthetical to the remark concerning my birth-date coincidence in the newer edit is of some relevance.

Someone,

It is clear from what you have written that the meaning of your coincidences is subjective, private, incorrigible, and you are working hard to keep it that way it seems. You seem to think that to claim that one knows that p then nothing can act to defeat the justification to claim knowledge that p. But this is not quite the case. You feel you are entitled and justified to know that p but only on the assumption that you have valid grounds to do so, and as such you have been ignoring and/or dismissing whatever threatens to contradict your justification to claim knowledge that p. In short, your grounds for maintaining your position are, at best, unverified, and perhaps unverifiable, and what the other contributors to this discussion have been attempting to do is identify and challenge those grounds. Pleas that we are not qualified to do so are merely excuses to not engage with the contradictions others have pointed out.

As I said sometime ago, your argument is teleological in nature, and therefore relies on necessary assumptions. The coincidences have no meaning you say, they just are, and yet you also claim that because they are 'just so' as it were then this necessarily invokes the notion that there is some element of agency and intent at play (in as much as you feel you have been led to discover these coincidences as the result of undisclosed kind of revelatory cause).

You have found order in these coincidences, that is clear, but I fear that you are also assuming that an element of their significance lies in the fact that it is you who have found and discovered them.

I must tell you that you are no more significant a party to the existence of these coincidences than the person whom, having discovered a new sub-species of moss in an unlikely habitat, is significant to the existence of moss. Claims in these circumstances that a particular sub-species of moss was somehow meant to be discovered by the particular individual, or that the existence of the new strain was revealed to that individual by some (unspecified) necessary agent, would be plainly extra-ordinary, and to maintain that an individual was subject to revelatory intent or guided in this way is to seriously misapprehend causation.

If you continue to maintain that the membership here are unqualified to adequately critique your thesis then I suggest you formalise your work and present it as a paper to some relevant and reputable body, institution or publication.

THWOTH

THWOTH wrote:Someone,

It is clear from what you have written that the meaning of your coincidences is subjective, private, incorrigible, and you are working hard to keep it that way it seems. You seem to think that to claim that one knows that p then nothing can act to defeat the justification to claim knowledge that p. But this is not quite the case. You feel you are entitled and justified to know that p but only on the assumption that you have valid grounds to do so, and as such you have been ignoring and/or dismissing whatever threatens to contradict your justification to claim knowledge that p. In short, your grounds for maintaining your position are, at best, unverified, and perhaps unverifiable, and what the other contributors to this discussion have been attempting to do is identify and challenge those grounds. Pleas that we are not qualified to do so are merely excuses to not engage with the contradictions others have pointed out.

As I said sometime ago, your argument is teleological in nature, and therefore relies on necessary assumptions. The coincidences have no meaning you say, they just are, and yet you also claim that because they are 'just so' as it were then this necessarily invokes the notion that there is some element of agency and intent at play (in as much as you feel you have been led to discover these coincidences as the result of undisclosed kind of revelatory cause).

You have found order in these coincidences, that is clear, but I fear that you are also assuming that an element of their significance lies in the fact that it is you who have found and discovered them.

I must tell you that you are no more significant a party to the existence of these coincidences than the person whom, having discovered a new sub-species of moss in an unlikely habitat, is significant to the existence of moss. Claims in these circumstances that a particular sub-species of moss was somehow meant to be discovered by the particular individual, or that the existence of the new strain was revealed to that individual by some (unspecified) necessary agent, would be plainly extra-ordinary, and to maintain that an individual was subject to revelatory intent or guided in this way is to seriously misapprehend causation.

If you continue to maintain that the membership here are unqualified to adequately critique your thesis then I suggest you formalise your work and present it as a paper to some relevant and reputable body, institution or publication.

THWOTH

It matters not a whit how well you exercise your non-quantitative rhetoric in service of your claim that q is a true and valid contradiction of p, which p stands on reliable quantitative grounds; because it is still only, merely, and completely non-quantitative rhetoric on a quantitative subject area. You need to provide more substantive evidence that I'm being subjective or dismissive or any of a number of other things that you believe or claim to believe I am being or you will continue to have such claims reflected back upon you and your arguments. You do not have the right to ignore the presentation of my evidence and arguments that they are evidence of something and then insist that I respond in a certain way to your rhetoric, that rhetoric being evidence of nothing. Other than your own cleverness at skirting my specifics while still finding a way to respond in a way that forces me to give verbal rejoinder.
Also, please note that while the complete complex of coincidences contains historical elements of the process of their discovery, and yes this includes the fact that I discovered a large but not complete portion of them, this does not diminish the fact that this complex of coincidences manifestly is so in a way that can be assessed objectively to have likely broader meaning. This neither elevates nor abases my qualitative place within humanity; it simply reflects a uniqueness of a non-qualitative kind, a weirdness if you will. And the teleology may be implicit, but it's not the starting point for recognizing the coincidence complex to say there is something purposeful at play. It's merely an observation of fact that either the coincidences are nothing more than that or that there is a prior cause. When I attempted in this thread to deal with the possibility of a prior cause employing only vague what-ifs and not relying upon the coincidences, I was accused of naivetee with respect to the Fermi Paradox in a wholly unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable way. I can get into that subject further again if I so choose, quoting numerous scientific publications, but my intention here was turned more toward getting opinion behind the 'evidence for something' point of view with respect to the coincidences rather than behind the argument that the coincidences are useful in helping to resolve an inadequately resolved mystery in the sciences.