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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 2389055" data-attributes="member: 177">We require two different things in order to predict - knowledge of the mechanics, and knowledge of the initial condition.  I can describe how and why an object falls (that is mechanics), but predicting the speed of a falling object at a given point in time requires that I know the initial conditions in some form.  So, I can know how and why without being able to predict a specific event.In addition, the Uncertainty Principle tells me that I can only know initial conditions to within a certain precision, limiting the accuracy of predictions.Plus, what you say only holds for deterministic universes.  So far, QM tells us that the specifics of our universe are not deterministic.  The "eventually..." is an assumption.  You don't know there'll be stuff.  Mabey there will be and maybe there won't.  Unless you assume it, theres nothing guaranteeing it.  You are free to make the assumption - "In a universe with infinite space, infinite time, and infinite material..." - but don't expect you can go pointing out where I'm making assumptions and expect to avoid beign held to the same standard.Who said there isn't?  The point is, it would be another assumption This whole time, all I've been trying to say is that infinite space and infinite time are not sufficient to support the conclusion that all imaginable things are possible, and give the reasons why.     You want a universe where all things imaginable will happen?  Then you require more assumptions.No, I'm simply starting with what we have seen, for purposes of demonstration.Ah, but nobody, including Hawking himself, ever called those theories "laws".  You were attacking "laws", and brought up Hawking.  But Hawking's work isn't law.  Thus, it does not apply.Logically, no.  I would guess that you are conflating chance (physical probability) with chance (estimation of how complete my information is).  Either what we have seen is local phenomena, or not.  We don't know which, so we assign a probability we are correct - we do so because we are naive, the masurement is meaningless.  Only in that sense is there a chance that it is not local phenomena.However, so long as we assume that reality is objective, then there really is no chance involved.   The universe is what it is.  The answer has already been determined, one way or the other, and chance doesn't enter into it.And I am trying to tell you that the initial assumptions are insufficient.  You really require:Infinite space.Infinite time.Infinite material.And (in effect) that the material be infinitely malleable.With anything less, we can construct an idea of a thing that won't be allowable in the universe.  And, with a little logical tap-dance, we can still imagine things that cannot exist in that infinitely malleable universe.  You said, "You may be content in your room, but the universe goes out a bit farther than that."  That's addressing the mental state of the speaker, rather than the speaker's argument, commonly called an ad hominem attack or argument.  Don't talk about me.  Who I am, and what I am content with is irrelevant.  My position stands ont the grounds of it's own logic, not upon my mental state.On top of that, you simply don't have enough information to be making guesses about what I am or am not content with.</blockquote>

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