From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Wed Feb 14 16:05:53 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jimc@math.ucla.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_3); 15 Feb 2001 00:05:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 28640 invoked from network); 15 Feb 2001 00:05:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 15 Feb 2001 00:05:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO simba.math.ucla.edu) (128.97.4.125) by mta3 with SMTP; 15 Feb 2001 01:06:56 -0000 Received: from localhost (jimc@localhost) by simba.math.ucla.edu (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f1F05nk00602; Wed, 14 Feb 2001 16:05:49 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: simba.math.ucla.edu: jimc owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 16:05:49 -0800 (PST) To: pycyn@aol.com Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: imaginary worlds and the death of God In-Reply-To: <4e.1155a9a1.27b80d99@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: "James F. Carter" On Sun, 11 Feb 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote: > OK, so all true identities are necessary and, since all predications can be > reduced to identities, all truths are necessary truths. Hence, there is only > one possible world. All events therefore are determined (could not have been > otherwise than they are), so there is no free will -- even for God (if there > is one, which there now is not, by definition) -- and so no moral > responsibility nor any just punishment (not that we can do anyting about > inflicting pain on the innocent). And most of our talk is utter nonsense. > Sounds about right to me. > NOT. I've been struggling with a related issue: The equations of motion for a point in phase space are uniquely and locally determined. That is, you can trace out the motion of each point in the universe individually without reference to its neighbors, and the entire history of that point is implicit in its situation at one moment of time. But we have the butterfly effect: it flaps in Spain and stirs up a typhoon in Singapore. Any but a perfect simulation will stay within its error bound for only a short time. And the "reality" can't even be measured because the measuring instrument makes the point's environment different from what it would have been if not measured (so you can only do a simulation of a point that's being observed, not an unobserved point). Thus the world is deterministic, but predictions turn to ashes very fast, and faster the more complex the system is, so that deterministic analysis of human behavior (or even insect behavior) is pointless. I'm not going to get into the theology of this point of view. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)