Subject:
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Chaotic Systems... (was: Re: Problems with Christianity and Darwinism)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:23:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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1302 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Guy Albertelli writes:
> I still think you are seeing patterns you find interesting.
>
> When I buy a lottery ticket I always get "1 2 3 4 5 6"
And I'd argue that that's JUST as likely as any other combination of
numbers, accepting that each lottery number is as equally likely to appear
as the next. Hence, you're fine.
> The U.S. coast line appearing _exactly_ the same somewhere else is "as"
> unlikely as the 200 mile one you posit.
The difference is in the inherent behavior of the system. It's not straight
probability any more because it's governed by complex system dynamics. There
are inherent rules in the system which actually DO prevent certain things
from happening, barring the ridiculous-- which, I will add, again isn't
something for which we can apply the straight laws of mathematical probability.
Let's look at population graphs. Let's say the typical behavior of the
system (the population of rabbits) was roughly:
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| ___----"""""----___ ___----"""""----___
|-"" ""-__ __-""
| """----_____----"""
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With some noise filtered in. And basically, the explaination for such is
roughly that (without bringing all the *real* factors into it) that when the
fox population gets high, rabbits go low. And then foxes die off, and the
rabbit population goes high again. And also, when the grass availability
gets high, rabbits go high... and when it goes low, so does the rabbit
population. And obviously there's a time delay between each which throws the
system off a bit. Also, we've got things like hunters, seasonal differences,
unusal weather, other animals, occasional diseases, etc. It all makes for
lots of noise. But is there any conceivable way you'd get this:
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|------------------ -----------------------------
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And just for kicks let's say the rabbit population was 10 at it's low and 1
billion at the jump. Conceivable? Only if roughly a billion rabbits are
introduced into the system all at once and then removed. Basically, there
are laws in place on a system which PREVENT it from acting outside of
certain means. In the case of a truck with a box of 8002's (Even multiple
8002's) colliding with another truck, I think there would be certain laws in
place which would actually PREVENT the set from being built exactly as
shown. Can I prove that they're not there? No. But thanks to experimenting a
few times to examine the fractal patterns that DO result, I think we'd be
able to rule out certain outcomes, if only hypothetically. I.E. by studying
fractals, we can learn how they WILL and WILL NOT behave, even if we still
can't predict them precicely.
DaveE
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