Typically the person starting a thread (or conversation) has something to talk about! I don't mind the topic you started. I just want you to understand that if your reasoning is fallacious, then your arguments are not valid.

Perhaps see the wikipedia page on logical fallacies as a primer? There's got to be a better resource than that.

Anyway, to answer your question another way...

If you have some kind of claim to make about the nature of the universe, I'd like to know what it is, and why you think it is so. For example, if you believe that everything with a beginning has a cause, then I'd like to know why you think that.

However, if the best evidence you have for that conclusion is that you can't think of anything with a beginning that does not have a cause, I will not be accepting your claim. (Because it is a logical fallacy to accept something only because you can't think of a counter-example, barring certain special circumstances).

Setting aside the question of the FORM of your argument, the CONTENTS of your argument are questionable. As far as I know, the universe does appear to have events without causes. Maybe that would be a useful thread for you to start -- a thread asking for examples of things without causes. I'm sure there are a dozen armchair physicists here who could give you an earful on the current state of quantum mechanics or high energy particle physics as they pertain to this question. As I understand it, there is not a consensus that everything with a beginning has a cause.

Keep in mind that I'm not really up-to-date on imaginary machines, but a genuinely random (non-deterministic) number generator would be different than a deterministic number generator that just appears random due to complexity. Being absolutely unpredictable rather than just practically unpredictable should have at least some use somewhere, I would think.

Where, for example?

Poughkeepsie, NY.

Also slot machines and gambling websites.

Are not interested in the difference between absolutely and practically unpredictable.

Anything impractical being of use is an oxymoron.

I am very busy with Mrmr, in order to learn from him what is the argument from ignorance.

Perhaps you guys would care to help him and tell me what is an argument from ignorance, give an example where there is an argument between one of you and me, on a proposition or an issue, and one of us take the affirmative side and the other the negative side; by this way we will get to know what indeed is an argument from ignorance.

I find Mrmr to be a quibbler. Or he is totally in the dark on what is an argument at all, that is why he is all mixed up with any intelligible words on his communication on what for him is an example of an argument from ignorance.


Thanks for your presence, I am glad that I am not getting the usual atheists like in the other board where I developed an allergy owing to fear that I could incur enough points to warrant my banning.

Okay, you guys are not the usual atheists of that board, so -- but I seem to have met Mrmr there, please help Mrmr, tell me what you know to be an argument from ignorance, starting with it being an exchange between two parties on a proposition or issue with one on the positive side and the other negative.

It's the same as an inductive proof - it's not proof at all. Essentially, you cannot prove things, but rather, you can disprove things. EG:

'I have never found a casino slot machine that is beatable'

It does not follow that there is no casino slot machine that is beatable. When you find a slot machine that is beatable, you have disproven the statement 'There is no such thing as a beatable casino slot machine'. Failing to find any casino slot machines that are beatable does not prove anything either way. In a similar manner, the atheists' inability to provide an example of a thing that does not have a beginning does not prove that everything has a beginning.

The most famous example of this argument is the 'black swan', which would be a good concept for you to look at. The idea being that because no-one had found any swans that were black, that they didn't exist. Then they found one.

This would explain why there is no such thing as a marketing department in our universe.

If you really don't understand what an argument from ignorance is, why don't you start with a dictionary, maybe an encyclopedia, or a text book on logic? It really isn't that difficult.

Also, for examples, see the examples I already gave you -- both general ones, and the one that you keep making over and over, in this and other threads (and on other forums going back years).

As an exercise in thinking on facts and logic, why don't you attempt to describe in your own words what the argument from ignorance fallacy is, and do it in less than 100 words.*

You need to learn how to snark properly.

I humble myself at the feet of the master.

It is the best source of randomness currently known, apparently.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0413161235.htm

From the article linked by Lastcard:

It is the presence of these virtual particles that give rise to random noise. This 'vacuum noise' is omnipresent and may affect and ultimately pose a limit to the performances of fibre optic communication, radio broadcasts and computer operation.

********

"Vacuum noise" is an excellent description of the politics forum as a whole*. It also describes some random posters in SMP. But that is to be expected.


*This needed pointing out and I'm just the person to do so. Pardon the derail in a very interesting thread.

That is pretty cool.

So why are these scientists not millionaires? High-grade randomness must be very cheap and readily available for them to give it away free on their website.

Is it not a clear category error in that it makes no sense to speak of time itself being caused to exist, because causation necessarily has a temporal aspect?

Probably because having unpredicted/unpredictable inputs into a known deterministic algorithm isn't something particularly new.

Also, because scientists aren't particularly good at getting rich.

It is new. They get it from deep space. If it is not truly random then quantum theory is wrong.

The science-y bit is new. Using a Geiger counter would also be a random input.

Also, finding that there is a deterministic process causing the noise wouldn't prove quantum theory wrong.

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscien...ityofwrong.htm

Maybe a benevolent venture capitalist took pity on them. This is the company, anyway, whoever owns it:

http://www.quintessencelabs.com/our-technology/

I don't know how much the company is worth.

It would prove that the noise isn't random.

It's useless.

Let us just concentrate on this idea, everything with a beginning has a cause.

Now, do your own thinking on facts and logic, please stop already with evading the instant issue, everything with a beginning has a cause.

Everytime I reply to one of you guys I notice later that you have succeeded to take away my attention from the idea, everything with a beginning has a cause.

So, and no more links from any source whatever, give your own thinking and writing on this idea, everything with a beginning has a cause.

It is a self-evident idea.


Dear readers here, I will have to go to another board in this forum to see whether I can get posters to dialog with me on the idea, everything with a beginning has a cause -- the usual atheists here are always unremittingly into evasions, nothing else.

And don’t bring in as example whatever not of the realm where we actually exist in, live in, make a living in, die in, and get buried in: nothing like virtual particles, all these fictions are altogether nothing of the reality of our existence and life.

Give an example like the baby has a beginning, it has its cause in its parents.

So, present an example of something that has a beginning but no cause: please, nothing of fictions, your example be in the realm where we exist in, live in, make a living in, die in, and get buried in.

If you insist on such fictions like virtual particles, then just set up your own thread to talk about the fiction of virtual particles.

Of course. However, learning all the ins and outs of how a deck of cards is shuffled doesn't make it wrong to talk about them in probabilistic terms.

What do you mean, "of course"? This is what they claim in the article I linked:

Guaranteed. So if the noise turns out not to be random then quantum theory is wrong.

Their interpretation of quantum theory would be wrong.