Evo jedan zanimljiv tekst [na Engleskom], vezan je za temu o slucajnosti, ne bas o Titaniku i predsjednicima...
Trebace vam malo duze da procitate, ali nema veze.
"You have no control over your destiny".
Consider a perfectly smooth snooker table.
To pot a perfectly smooth ball, you strike the perfectly smooth white ball with a perfectly smooth cue, and the white goes on to hit another ball, knocking it at the correct angle to direct it towards a pocket. A simple task, you would think, for which the outcome can be calculated accurately.
Now imagine you've got to plant two balls. A more complex task, but after a couple of seconds of thinking you can figure out where you need to hit the first ball in order for the second one to end up going towards a pocket.
Add another two balls to this plant, not arranged linearly. Getting harder to predict? Yes. Impossible? Well, no, not really.
With a good deal of thinking, and good knowledge of some basic laws of physics, you can figure out a really hard plant. Not to the accuracy that a computer would if it had all the information about the table, mind.
If you just told a computer relevant information such as the friction of the materials, the bounce from the cushions, where all the balls are and exactly how you are hitting the white, the computer could work out exactly what would happen (providing no external forces came into play), and where each ball would end up.
Now imagine the snooker balls were smoke molecules in a controlled environment, like the Brownian experiment. Much like the snooker situation, just on a much smaller scale, with an added dimension and a lot more collisions.
There is no reason why it would be impossible to calculate where all the molecules would be half a second later, if you knew exactly where all the molecules were at one time, and their velocities. Apart from computer specification limits and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which we'll ignore for the moment for the sake of argument, there is nothing that would stop a computer working out where all the molecules in this controlled environment would be in a seconds time, a months time or a years time, providing all the physical laws were obeyed and are understood by the computer.
The reason why the computer can work it all out is because there is nothing purely random that causes a movement, even though the apparent resultant movement is in random directions. It looks random, and if you just track a smoke particle it moves randomly, but these "random" movements are just the consequence of collisions with other smoke and air particles.
By this reasoning, if there isn't a purely random element in any situation (an effect without a cause), the outcome can be predicted. This is what my whole theory is based on.
Think of a sandstorm. The wind, in the form of air particles, hits the grains of sand in mid air, but if you know the exact properties of every sand particle, and the exact velocity of the wind, then you can predict where all the sand will end up, down to the atom. There is no random force that causes one grain of sand to move anywhere other than where the component forces are pushing it. There is no mysterious, unexplainable force acting upon any of them.
What is the human brain? Matter.
Now, this is down to opinion, but I believe there is nothing inside the human brain that does not obey the laws of physics. Thought processes are just incredibly complex chemical reactions and electrical signals. Chemicals are essentially made up from atoms, and atoms obey laws. Two chemicals react in a way a computer could simulate and predict, and with more information, that computer could continue to predict the cause and effect tree until, in theory, it can predict how a human mind will think.
Outside influences affect how people think, of course, but there's nothing to stop (in theory) a computer from predicting what they will be, as long as it knows everything about every atom of every entity that interferes in any way.
And if this computer knew where every atom in the universe was, and its velocity, what is there to stop it from being able to predict where every atom will be in an hours time? (ignore computer specifications for now, this is all theoretical)
You may, for example, decide to prove my theory is nonsense by trying to perform a random, spontaneous action yourself right now, but you can't. Any action you perform would just be the consequence of the influences you've had while reading this, while doing things today... the combination of all the influences in your whole life combined with the physical structure of your brain and genetic information, or whatever.
If a computer understood your brain to an atomic level, and had a complete record of every influence you've had on your life up to this moment, it could know exactly what you would do when attempting to perform a random action.
If it had all that information, it would be able to predict the next chemical reactions in your brain and what the outcomes would be (like the snooker table, just with a million-long plant), hence what your next thoughts would be. If it also had information about everything around you, it could calculate how the things around you would affect your thinking, and so build up a completely accurate prediction of what you what you were going to do in the next second, ten seconds, minute... There's nothing stopping it (bar processing power, natch) calculating what the rest of your life would be like, because it can take into account everything that would affect you in the slightest, as none of it is generated randomly... Other people can be predicted as you can, so any conversations could be forseen and calculated right down to how much saliva you would accidently spit out, due to what you've eaten today, which was depending on what you had bought that weekend, which depends on what you ate as a youngster, or what foods people have introduced you to... You can keep tracing back and back to the beginning of time.
If true randomness does exist, i.e. an action which obeys no laws and cannot possibly be predicted, no matter how much data was taken, then the accuracy of predictions would decrease as you look further into the future. I don't believe that anything truly random exists, however. For me, the concept of a reaction without an action, an effect without a cause, doesn't make sense.
Is the next atom to decay in an unstable nucleus chosen at random? I'm far more willing to believe it has some force acting differently on it than all the others, like it has slightly more energy or something. Perhaps a law is being obeyed that we don't fully understand yet, but I'm sure there are no laws which are impossible to understand, by man or machine..
Your uncle commits suicide, because (among other things, as always) he lost his job.
He lost his job because he loses his temper too easily with people in the workplace.
He lost his temper today because Bill was late handing him a document he promised to hand in earlier.
Bill couldn't finish the document on time because his child was ill at home, and had to be cared for.
Bill had to devote that time because he is a single parent.
He is a single parent because his wife left him for John.
Bill's wife was attracted to John because his physical appearance sparks off instinctual needs in her.
He does weight training, and has done since he was 17.
At 17, he got persuaded to start weight training by his dad.
His dad was beaten as a child, and so feels young people are very vulnerable.
However, John's dad was a thug before he met Sarah, a caring woman who changed him.
John's dad and Sarah got married and had children, and John, the first child, was much loved by his dad who wanted him to grow up strong enough to defend himself, so he didn't have to go through what John's dad did.
You could say because Sarah was a caring woman, your uncle committed suicide. If Sarah had not been caring, would your uncle be dead? If any of the events in that chain were changed, would the outcome be completely different? Your uncle could have lost his job a couple of days later due to a different incident, and killed himself anyway.
The point is, however, that everything that you do is a consequence of the social influences you've had during your life, the genealogy of your parents, the environment around you... But, and this is crucial, nothing purely random.
A sharp gust of wind may delay you one hundredth of a second while walking through town, but it might be that time that saves your life later on in the journey when a car almost hits you. The wind was caused by the pressure changes in the atmosphere, which are due to clouds or something that could be estimated roughly by a good weatherman. If the weatherman was an ultra computer, he would be able to tell you exactly when and where that gust would be. More accurately if he knew all the human, environmental and animal influences on it, and more accurately still if it knew where every atom in the world was at any time, and it's velocity.
The more we know about the influences on a body, the more accurate the prediction is. If we knew every atom's position and velocity, then perfect accuracy can be achieved, and an infinite distance into the future can be predicted.
If you roll a die onto a perfectly flat, frictionless table, it's fate is determined from the instant it leaves your hand. A computer, given the speed, rotation, and direction of the die along with all it's physical properties, would be able to tell you what number would come up, seconds before it does.
If the table had friction and perhaps a dent or two, the computer would just need to process more data. The big step now is being able to realise that the computer would be able to predict how you are going to throw the die, as long as it had enough information (on the atomic scale) about you.
If you're angry or enthusiastic, you throw it harder. Your emotions are affected by what has happened to you in the last few minutes, the day so far, the week, or your whole life. The power in your muscles is determined by the genes inherited from your parents, how much you eat, how much you work out.... all these things are dependant on other things, and although the tree gets incomprehensibly complex incredibly quickly, there is nothing in it which cannot be determined, calculated and predicted. Hence, the number the die will show can be calculated before you throw it. You just need enough information.
When you stroke your own cat, nine times out of ten you won't get hurt because you know what annoys it and what doesn't. If a stranger strokes your cat then the stranger is far more likely to get hurt, because he doesn't know what your cat likes and doesn't like. If he'd had all the past interactions with your cat that you have had then he wouldn't get hurt, as he would be able to predict what your cat would do.
Put your cat in a situation and you have a chance of predicting its behaviour because you know, roughly, how its brain works. If someone was as intelligent compared to you as you are compared to your cat, and knew you well, would they be able to predict your actions to the same extent that you can predict your cat's? They might be able to estimate how you'd react to something, or even what you're going to say next in a conversation, but they would have to know the exact chemical reactions in your brain, and all influences on you in your life to be able to predict your behaviour with ultimate accuracy.
Everything you are about to do can be predicted perfectly by an incredibly powerful computer.
Lets say the computer wasn't there. If it was, it would know what you were going to do in the next minute, the next hour or the next year, but it isn't.
Just because the future isn't known, do we necessarily have the ability to change it?
Is there any such thing as 'free will' or random thought?
Are you in control of your destiny?
The future could still be worked out and plotted, but because no plot exists, does that mean you can still guide your life wherever you want?
Doesn't it just mean you haven't acted out your part in the play yet? You've not yet filled in the gaps waiting for you?
You will fill in those gaps, and there's no way you can change what gaps you fill in. Even if you try to make a decision which goes against your normal behaviour (for example, in an attempt to escape your destiny), the computer would have been able to predict you would do that, because it's just millions of chemical reactions in your brain triggering each other.
If the plot was made ten years ago, it would say that in exactly ten years you would be sitting by a computer, reading this piece, and thinking whatever you are thinking.
This theory only really works if pure randomness doesn't exist. Are the escaping particles in nuclear decay triggered by anything? Perhaps one of their properties is minutely different from all the others, or more atoms hit the decaying beta particle in the split second before than hit any others? The chances are that there are tiny forces which we haven't discovered yet, but the behaviour is still governed by laws, hence can be calculated.
Everything you do, you were always going to do, and whatever ends up happening to you in the future, was always going to happen.
But, then again, what does it matter?
We have full control over our limbs, and we're convinced we have free thought... Just because you're bound to do everything to plan doesn't mean you can't try and have as much fun as possible while doing it.
The amount of harm I can do to my life seems to have been dramatically reduced.
***
Ako ovako zakljucujemo znaci da ja onda ovdje sjedim i citam i pisem na ovu temu jer... (hronoloski)
...dosao sam sa drugoga compa, trazeci nesto o nekim televizorima, pa usput, kad sam vec na kompjuteru, usao sam u forum kao i svake veceri, da provjerim sta se novo pisalo, i usao sam u ovaj podforum, jer cesto u njega ulazim, procitao temu, poceo se zanimati za nju, potrazio ponesto o njoj, odlucio postati ovdje, odlucio dati komentar...
Sad kako bi dogadjaji mogli sijediti...
...neko odgovara na temu spominjuci nesto drugo, npr. Titanik, misli mi na to padaju, ukucavam u Google 'Titanik', nadjem nesto zanimljivo pri trazenju, postujem to na neku temu ovdje, ljudi odgovaraju i povremeno skrenu sa teme, pocnu svadje oko toga sto nije vezano za temu, svadje prerastu u svadjanje po citavom forumu, korisnici dobiju opomene, i dalje se svadjaju, korisnici dobiju ban...
Prema ovoj teoriji, znacilo bi da je moje 'trazenje o nekim televizorima' prouzrocilo tim korisnicima ban...
Sta mislite o ovome svemu?!
