you can never predict the future

T

taichitarot

Registered Senior Member
Some 10 years ago, I remember waking up in the morning and thinking, and again, all I can afford is a small pie to eat. Then in the afternoon, I noticed the womans centre open. I toddled in for a biscuit. And looky, looky here, lots of people with dishes of food on the table. Praise the good lord. Chocolate covered strawberries, and every tempting little treat. I clearly still remember that day, after 10years, and saying, there is a God after all. But whatever is going on, we just dont know what tomorrow will bring.
 
I think we could come up with a better response. How about sticking to the topic of this subforum?

The extraordinary assertion has been presented that a god exists. The following evidence has been offered to support this assertion:
  • Normally the only food available in the women's center in the afternoon is a biscuit. The British spelling (and the unlikelihood of eating an entire fruit-custard pie for breakfast) implies that a biscuit is what we Americans call a "cookie." It also means "cracker," although one would not expect a saltine to be served without adornment.
  • On one particular day, the women's center was serving a larger variety and quantity of more appealing sweets.
Is this evidence sufficiently extraordinary to satisfy the Rule of Laplace, and treat this assertion with respect?

Or, on the contrary, is this typical of the "evidence" that is offered for the existence of the supernatural? "Look, there are rainbows and butterflies! That's proof that gods exist!"

Rainbows and butterflies were rather difficult to explain before the emergence of modern science, so perhaps one can excuse the ancients for jumping to the conclusion that they could not have come into existence naturally.

But the presence of unexpected food in a place that serves food every day is not quite so astounding. Occam's Razor instructs us always to test the simplest explanation for a phenomenon first, just to get it out of the way if it's wrong. In this case the simplest explanation is that an entirely mortal benefactor stopped by the women's center in the late morning, and dropped off a bounty of food. This explanation could have been easily tested by asking one of the workers where the chocolate-covered strawberries came from.

Apparently Ms. Tarot did not think to ask the question. So we'll never know whether the worker would have answered, "Oh, Mrs. Darcy drops them off once or twice a month, in gratitude for the help we gave her a few years ago when she was sick and penniless; I guess you've never seen them before," or, instead, "Well I declare, there was a flash of orange light, the smell of incense, the sound of harps playing, and this food simply materialized out of thin air."

I'm consumed by curiosity, aren't you? ;)
 
So he was hungry and looked for food, and found some. That story applies to just about all animals since they evolved. I would suggest this is a form of the anthropogenic argument. If Earth wasn't a place where food could be found, he would not be here to find some. It also refers to the evolution of altruism and cooperation. People that share will be more likely to get some food when they run out, and so people (and other mammals) have evolved the trait of sharing food with the less fortunate.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
The extraordinary assertion has been presented that a god exists.
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Fraggle, I much enjoyed your entertaining post but I question the emphasis here. "There is a God after all" could just be her way of saying "Thanks for that". A lot of people say it. If we're going to get ponderoso maybe the last sentence is the platitude we should be looking at, "We just don't know what tomorrow will bring". Clue's in the title.
 
Maybe belief in God started as a joke or a figure of speech. Then stupid people took it literally.
 
stratos said:
Fraggle, I much enjoyed your entertaining post but I question the emphasis here. "There is a God after all" could just be her way of saying "Thanks for that". A lot of people say it. If we're going to get ponderoso maybe the last sentence is the platitude we should be looking at, "We just don't know what tomorrow will bring". Clue's in the title.
Click to expand...
I know. But sometimes it's worth taking a statement at face value to show how the scientific method works. This is a place of science and scholarship after all, and most of our members are very young. It doesn't hurt to drill them on the basics once in a while.
spidergoat said:
Maybe belief in God started as a joke or a figure of speech. Then stupid people took it literally.
Click to expand...
My take on Jung's model of archetypes is that God, and the entire phenomenon of belief in the supernatural, is an archetype: an instinctive belief hard-wired into our synapses by our DNA. We presume that every instinct is a survival advantage, but there's no reason that junk instincts can't be passed down through genetic drift.

Considering the astounding violence that religions have inspired, from our vantage in an age of nuclear weapons it seems that supernaturalism may now be a survival handicap. Perhaps those who have that instinct will become extinct. Let's hope they don't take the rest of us with them.

But even if it's not an instinct, I can understand primitive people coming up with the idea since they didn't have the science to develop a better alternative. But the fact that it survives so easily, and even today people readily promote it even when there is a better alternative, makes me still think it's an instinct. People defend it too desperately.
 
no one knows the future

you cant really predict whats going to be the future.. theres only one person i know who can.. and that is the person whom i entrust myself :)
 
Wanna bet, I Predict I will be lighting a cig in 2 seconds..

Viola, it came true..

Never Predict the future my ass :D
 
Scientifically speaking, you can not predict the future. You can however calculate the probability of that scenario happening, but it is not certain. Plus, we don't know exactly how the universe works yet, so yeah......

This is not Newtonian physics anymore, you can't just predict the future but knowing where all the particles in the universe is and calculating the future. Precognition is against the laws of physics. I can post more in detail if you like.
 
You can never predict the future? Try telling that to job interviewers who ask the question that rivals "To be or not to be" - "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
 
stratos said:
You can never predict the future? Try telling that to job interviewers who ask the question that rivals "To be or not to be" - "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
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But that's just a matter of semantics. What they are really asking is, "Where would you like to see yourself in five years?"
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
But that's just a matter of semantics. What they are really asking is, "Where would you like to see yourself in five years?"
Click to expand...

I see what you're saying but in my experience, when they phrase it the way I said, it's a shade more insistent. They're looking for signs of ambition and strategy, not just a wish-list. It tends to follow that other poser, "What would you say are your weak points?". Answering, "Well, sometimes I'm just too hard-working and a perfectionist" is just creepy.
 
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