OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

In a separate thread (Deception?) I posed the tongue-in-cheek idea that Norfleet and Cainehill are aliases owned by the same person. Then I went to lunch.

While I was out, it occurred to me that there's no way of knowing that identity fraud is not pandemic in any internet forum. For all I know, Norfleet and I are the only contributors here.

Is it possible to prove otherwise? In the movie "X-Men", when Wolverine was under suspicion (was he really Mystique?) Cyclops challenged him to prove his identity. Wolverine said simply "You're a dick" and that was good enough for Cyclops.

But really, that's not good enough even if you are a dick. The sad truth is that no poll result can be trusted, and we must take identity diversity on faith.

That said, even I have to admit that Stormbinder is probably not Norfleet. But less strident critics could be Norfleet, who realizes that I'd see through this immediately if there were no token anti-Norfleeters in the mix.

Finally, it has also occurred to me that the entire forum population could be a creation of the guy in office next door, with a compulsive desire to perplex me. I'd better go now, and beat him up.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

You have undone my clever plot to deceive you.

Thanks a lot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Actually, you're really a brain in a tank being raised as a delicacy for us, your alien overlords. We feed you these sensations because if you are not kept relatively engaged, you develop a bad taste. At the same time, if you are allowed to become too happy, you become fatty and unhealthful. Thus, a certain level of trial and misery is required in your experiences, so that you develop the proper flavor when we pluck you from the tank and cook you. That's what really happens when you die of old age. There's no such thing as old age, really.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

I remember a Smurfs episode where they taught that lesson.

Only aired once... must have touched a nerve with someone up there.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

I'd hate to spoil it for you, but most, if not all forums, have these Moderators that can check your I.P. address. If Norfleet has multiple names, then they'd come out as his IP (I've seen this before, really sad) and they'll give him a healthy dosage of

"You have been Banned from this forum"

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

But what if you drove to a different public library for each alias?

Or you had a dialup account, cable modem, and a web enabled cell phone?

It kinda like those skyline punch cards. After you buy 50 meals they give you a free T-shirt.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IPs can be spoofed, can't they?
Also, who's to say that the moderator isn't Norfleet?

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Okay, okay, you got me, I confess. I really am Maltrease also.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Hey... I was going to admit to being you.

Now what happens? Do we both not exist?


It's like when you eat Anti Pasta as your appetizer and then have Pasta for the main meal.

Later on you wonder why you are still hungry... when the answer is pretty obvious.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

IPs can be spoofed but only for a 1-way traffic thing which excludes most internet activitys including this one.

We have already had a case where one poll was pretty much ignored when the person with a particular viewpoint created over 30 logins in a day. The fact that they all came from the same IP group was a factor.

However multiple sites arent hard to get. I have a dozen different IPs I can come in from.

On the other hand few people can manage multiple personalities well. If they can then they have problems outside of this forum which need addressed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

This is an old and well-chewed subject in the alt.hacker newsgroup. You cannot be totally anonymous on the net. You can only make it harder to tell who you are. Its a factor of how much trouble you cause to make it worth tracking down the answer.

[ May 25, 2004, 03:52: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is that really true? Suppose, for example, I suspected that Norfleet had multiple logins in this forum, and asked you to investigate. You do a good job, and report that he's clean.

The problem is, I suspect you of being Norfleet, and there's no-one else I can turn to (except Zen, who is also Norfleet).

I don't believe there is any way you can prove to me that Gandalf/Norfleet/Zen/Annette/... and myself are not the only two people in the forum.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Since the gig is up I might as well let you in on it Zapmeister.

You are Norfleet.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't believe there is any way you can prove to me that Gandalf/Norfleet/Zen/Annette/... and myself are not the only two people in the forum. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really pushing on the existential thing huh?
Remember: on Internet never believe anyone who says they are XXXXXX
and never believe anyone who says they are not XXXXXX.
(replace xxxxx with your choice of old, young, male, female,
married, unmarried, law, hacker, mortal, god)

Actually it all boils down to "root" (windows people say "administrator"). Anyone with root access can do alot of tracing, and slamming. Its part of what keeps the internet alive and running. now if you think that maybe Norflet is the person who ACTUALLY put up this box so that he can play all the parts and talk to himself... OK this is getting nuts.
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_2_7.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Well yes, it is easy to become anonymous to a user, harder to be anonymous to a forum admin, harder than that to be anonymous to an ISP, still harder to be anonymous to a major name service provider, and even harder to be anonymous to a government security task force. But only if any of them care.

Dialup customers to an ISP generally get a different IP address each time they connect.

Then there are anonymizer services - they know who you are, but whoever you connect to, doesn't. That'll work for everyone up to the ISP of the anonymizer service, and the best of those would take measures to prevent themselves from being (ab)used by authorities.

Etc.

On a forum though, as Gandalf mentioned, it's easier to tell via human communication skills, and by estimating the odds. Again, if you care.

So, yes we could all be Norfleet, but it would be a full-time job for us, and we'd have to be supergeniuses who nonetheless decide it is worth our time to deceive you in this way. Which we might, in our supergeniusness, have realized is actually true, since we get to goof off with Dominions so much. If we happen to be what you might call Cthuloid, it might even just be our hobby.

PvK

[ May 25, 2004, 04:18: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't believe there is any way you can prove to me that Gandalf/Norfleet/Zen/Annette/... and myself are not the only two people in the forum. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really pushing on the existential thing huh?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If he was really being existential he would have said that there is no way to prove that *he* isn't the only one here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

While it is true that we could all be Norfleet, it is perhaps more likely that you can win Dominions II against full Impossible AI's on the Aran map while forcing yourself to only fight using Gift of Reason-ed tainted Blood Slave units. It's possible. Just not very likely.

PvK

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Well, everyone here might be Norfleet, but I'm really PvK http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif


JK

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wait... you still need someone to cast GoR and blood hunt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

He said "...only fight using..." - he allows for using other things for other purposes, apparently.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I suppose 'fight' is a bit ambiguous, you might not be able to avoid having them in a battle at some point. And what about spells; is casting seeking arrow fighting?

[ May 25, 2004, 05:55: Message edited by: quantum_mechani ]

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

Jack Simth is correct. I said only fight with them, but not to the exclusion of doing other things besides fighting.

You could, for example, blood hunt and lead slaves into battle for them to get hurt so they can become units so you can GoR them. If you take the challenge hyper-literally (as I expect everyone-is-Norfleet conspirators would want to), then one of the hard parts is actually getting any blood slave units, since I think you need to get them hurt, yet win the battle... not sure about that. You might be able to have them run away and end up as units back in an adjacent province.

Spells and items for the GoR'd ex-blood slaves would be allowed, and even mages casting buff spells on them. Seeking Arrow and such are grey areas. It would still be a massive accomplishment with them, but without them, it would be so much greater.

It does sort of beg the question of a seemingly-easier sub-problem, though, huh? Can you win without any fighting units? Again, legal questions abound, such as Ghost Riders, the Admiral, etc.

That doesn't really have the same panache as GoR'ing blood slaves to SC status and relying on massive amounts of luck and finesse, however.

PvK

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm. Someone with more education in this area may care to correct me, but I believe that the above statement is untrue for a rather esoteric reason.

That reason is that the words "likely" and "possible" imply a probabalistic treatment of an existential question, which is invalid.

It is meaningless, for example, to conclude that there is a 60% chance that there is a god. Either there is a god or there isn't - there's no 60% about it.

The same applies to questions of historical fact. You can't say that its likely that the Great Flood occurred, because it has already either happened or not. What you can describe is your uncertainty in the matter, which is different (being a statement about your knowledge rather than about the alleged event).

Hmm. Time to go home and do my turn.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fortunetly for humanity, it is not physically possible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Unless you are playing with possibility that Norfleet have some god-like powers. In this case you would have one seriously sick in the head god, assuming 1/4 what he have been telling us about himself on this forum is true. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm. Someone with more education in this area may care to correct me, but I believe that the above statement is untrue for a rather esoteric reason.

That reason is that the words "likely" and "possible" imply a probabalistic treatment of an existential question, which is invalid.

It is meaningless, for example, to conclude that there is a 60% chance that there is a god. Either there is a god or there isn't - there's no 60% about it.

The same applies to questions of historical fact. You can't say that its likely that the Great Flood occurred, because it has already either happened or not. What you can describe is your uncertainty in the matter, which is different (being a statement about your knowledge rather than about the alleged event).

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am not an expert there myself but I believe that what you said about invalidness of probabalistic approach to an existential question such as wether the god exist or no, is correct.

However I think that you can approach in such matter the historical questions, such as wether graet flood or other global event happened there and than, or not. Granted, it would likely to be impossible to calcualte exact probablility, but you can, assuming that you posses enough historical related information, operate with terms such as "very likely",
"possible", "highly unlikely", etc.

Oh well, I hope I am answering the correct question here Zapmeister - midnight is not a good time to get existential. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Time to hit the bed.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mmm, I know people do use those terms when addressing questions of historical fact. My point was that they're misusing the terms to describe their confidence in their belief, rather than to quantify a probability. I think.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If God exists, I'm not placing much faith in his sanity anyway: I mean, what kind of whacko would do something like creating the universe? Even *I* am not that crazy: This is probably one of the worst things that's ever happened, given that it has made a lot of people very angry, and can thus be regarded as a bad move.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mmm, I know people do use those terms when addressing questions of historical fact. My point was that they're misusing the terms to describe their confidence in their belief, rather than to quantify a probability. I think. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Perhaps, to some degree. But there have to be some connection between the "pure probability" that you are searching for Zapmeister, and personal confidence of the professianals who posses all related knowledge and expertise in this specific matter, don't you think? Granted, often it maybe hard to express in exact numbers though.


Besides, let's assume for the sake of argument that you are right about historical facts. But than the same logic could be aplied to almost every other none-historical field as well. For example take jurisprudence. One could argue that the jury, (or professional judjes in some cases/countries) when they are declaring "guilty" or "not guilty" verdicts, based upon "beyond reasonable doubts" clause as requred by law, are also operating outside the field of probabilities. But if this is true, that they might as well deciding wether they like the guy or not, without listening to any evidence. Or even throw the coin and see if it is heads or tails. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif If these all are purely existantial matters and have nothing to do with probabilities than I think one could successefully argue for such aproaches over the ones that is currently employed world-wide. Do you agree?

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think you should acknowledge Douglas Adams as the author of this. It's not verbatim, but it's close enough IMHO.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Douglas Adams is the author of the original quote, and I was not, in fact, quoting him verbatim. The original quote was "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Certainly. In fact, questions of historical fact could be regarded as equivalent to existential questions. "Does the event 'The Great Flood' exist as an element in the history of our world?"

EDIT: Hmmm. I just realized that this does not in any way address the paragraph I quoted.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Indeed they are. They rely on beliefs formed during the examination of evidence. The expression "beyond reasonable doubt" underlines that, by placing a minimum level on the confidence in belief that is required. Probability is not involved.

My recollection of first year probability (irrelevent trivia: the lecturer was John Donaldson, father of Mary Donaldson, recently the Princess of Denmark) is that this field of mathematics was originally designed to help analyse and win gambling games.

It weights the tree of possibilities that extend from the present moment into the future. It does not say anything about isolated premises whose truth or falsehood is already set in stone.

[ May 25, 2004, 08:52: Message edited by: Zapmeister ]

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Douglas Adams is the author of the original quote, and I was not, in fact, quoting him verbatim.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's what I said.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you are going to be like that about it then:

Given a set of starting conditions any given system will develop in accordance with the laws of physics.

If you know the starting conditions you can predict the events arising therefrom, and hence calculate a new set of "starting conditions" for the system at time X, where X is arbitraraly large.

(I can't spell that arbi word, it appears)

Given that, due to CPT symmetry (ok, actually just the T part will do) X can be negative as well as positive, and indeed can be arbitar...damn can be as negative as you want it to be, if you know the starting conditions then talking about probability at all is meaningless. Everything either won't/hasn't happen(ed) or will/has happen(ed).

Of course, if you mean "given the limits of human knowledge and understanding there is a 60% chance that this will happen", that makes more sense, but then "given the limits of human knowledge and understanding there is a 60% chance god exists" is also sensible.

The upshot of this, for those who weren't following carefully, is you should place your palm on the screen, take out your credit cards, and send me your money.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif You could be right - I certainly don't want to portray myself as an expert in this matter. However:

The first part of your post assumes that we have a determined, or "clockwork", universe in which all events, past and future, are set in stone. There is no agreement that this is in fact the case.

Even if it is, there are certain events (like the result of a dieroll) which are the net result of many small influences. It is these "statistical" results that are described by the theory of probability. When viewed in this light, it doesn't matter whether the result is determined or not.

Existential questions, as far as I can see, are not statistical in nature, and so cannot be addressed with the theory of probability.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

I'm no expert either, I just enjoy sounding like one :-)

Ok, the thing about the die roll and probability is that we don't know what effect the small influences will have. If we knew exactly how the die was rolled, a decent computer could calculate what it would land on every time. Probability says "When you roll an unbiased D6, you have a 16% chance of getting each result" Actually, if you roll it exactly the same way, you will get exactly the same result, it's just you can't determine the starting conditions perfectly, so it seems probabalistic, rather than determanistic.

As far as existential questions go, I think perhaps you can use probability. Here goes:

"I am the only person other than you on this forum"

> I am impersonating everyone else.
> All other posters have distinct personalities
> To create such a number of posters with distinct personalities accurately, I would have to be very clever. In fact I would need to be X clever.
> The average IQ is 100. IQ is a bell curve with set varience.
> Using this curve, and the worlds total population we can see that there are likely to be 5 people in the world clever enough
> The chance of one of these people spending all their time posting on a dominions 2 forum is 0.001%, given that there are Z other forums, and at least 2 of those people are enlightened Zen Buddists who live solitary lives of contemplation.
>The chance of me being the only other person on this forum other than you is 0.001%, from your point of view.

Of course, from mine it is different, as I have different information http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Tris (who has exactly 0 idea why he bothered writing that...)

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heck, there's no way I'm arguing with this.
You win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

If anyone wants to buy my new Book, "Winning by making stuff up (how long words can make YOU seem intelligent)" please contact me on
0800 SUCKERS

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, taken to the limit this deterministic picture of the rolling dice is not really true either due to the ways of quantum mechanics. Of course, quantum mechanics and existentialistic discussions is a whole other can of worms... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heck, there's no way I'm arguing with this.
You win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

On the more serious note take the existential question related to the existance of atoms of quickly decaying radioactive element inside of the well isolated box where it was placed in any particular moment.

The nuclear physicist, given all appropriate data, can calculate the exact probabilities to this existantial question.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Totally. It undid the big bang, AND all the arguments used to "debunk" just about anything religious or supernatural. FUN fun fun.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Only on a certain level. As someone who has gotten into heated debates about existance and atomical decay in stimulus free enviroments I can tell you there is still quite a bit of debate. It's not pretty with protractors and calculators flying wildly as pocket protectors and Ivy League educations are literally heaved at one another with utter distain and deadly intent http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Totally. It undid the big bang, AND all the arguments used to "debunk" just about anything religious or supernatural. FUN fun fun. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not sure exactly what you mean. But I think the main arguments (to me at least) against religious/supernatural stuff is that there is not really any convincing reason FOR them, in the sense that less far-fetched explanations usually presents them self (to be brief).

(also, there is nothing inherent in the principles of science about determinism...)

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

I feel pretty wierd after writing a three pages long monologue ...

[ May 25, 2004, 17:08: Message edited by: Varadail ]

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well often the scientific invistigation rested with "matter and energy cannot be created, only converted" so it looked for the source or result. Their new "creation of the universe" theory bloew that out. And Quantum now puts as 4 in 11 dimensions. As we are to the 3d creatures, much less the 2d and 1d.. could reflect on our ability to understand 5,6,7,8,9,10 (11 is a special case). The whole thing makes your head hurt but it will be interesting to see where it goes and what things will shift from "bunk" into scientific.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Only on a certain level. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is correct. Quantum phisic is not nearly as neat as phisicists would like it to be. Can drive person crazy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Still it illustrates that the question of existance or not existance of physical objects can be scientifically approached, with certain degree of success, in pure probability field, which was the point of my example.

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm. Someone with more education in this area may care to correct me, but I believe that the above statement is untrue for a rather esoteric reason.

That reason is that the words "likely" and "possible" imply a probabalistic treatment of an existential question, which is invalid.

It is meaningless, for example, to conclude that there is a 60% chance that there is a god. Either there is a god or there isn't - there's no 60% about it.

The same applies to questions of historical fact. You can't say that its likely that the Great Flood occurred, because it has already either happened or not. What you can describe is your uncertainty in the matter, which is different (being a statement about your knowledge rather than about the alleged event).
... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, the first was a statement of uncertainty, and the second a statement of odds. It's still useful to think of hypotheses as having a "chance" of being correct, based on what knowledge you have and how sure you are about each element of a hypothesis.

You can also apply the same logic and language to uncertainty about past events about which you have imperfect evidence.

Conversely, you can take probability and express it as uncertainty that something will happen. So, if you insist I say that we all not being Norfleet is something our victim can be very certain is not true, then I can compare that degree of certainty to the extreme certainty that I will lose the Dom II challenge I described.

PvK

[ May 25, 2004, 19:21: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fortunetly for humanity, it is not physically possible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Unless you are playing with possibility that Norfleet have some god-like powers. In this case you would have one seriously sick in the head god, assuming 1/4 what he have been telling us about himself on this forum is true. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hence my Cthulu reference.

PvK

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am not an expert there myself but I believe that what you said about invalidness of probabalistic approach to an existential question such as wether the god exist or no, is correct.
... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's only valid if you insist on mistakenly taking it literally, as if I were asserting that it is true that there is an actual chance involved in whether something is true or not.

But that's just misunderstanding my expression. I may say "chance", but I mean in terms of a perspective with imperfect knowledge, and I am talking about uncertainty rather than asserting that reality is constantly reinventing itself around the observer's viewpoint like a dream or an annoyingly programmed game like GTA3 (where you can catch it doing it simply by turning around http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ).

PvK

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's just misunderstanding a scenario based on the semantic misunderstanding.

Whether events are philosophically deterministic or not is irrelevant, because knowledge is never perfect, and is frequently a very uncertain approximation. You can't predict a jury unless they are all robots running a computer program which you understand and control. And even then, there's a "chance" (i.e. unknowable uncertainty without super-human knowledge) they'll crash, especially if they're running Windohs.

PvK

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ah, OK, as someone who actually works professionally with these things (I am working with particle physics), I am always pleasantly surprised to find people who are actually informed about these issues. :-)

But allow me to try to briefly clarify a few issues (this thread IS supposed to be OT, right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ). Quantum mechanics does not as such allow for creation of matter/energy, does not say anything about the dimensions of our universe, and does not say anything about big bang.

Quantum mechanics is the almost 100 year old non-relativistic theory which is concerned with particles/wave duality, wave-function developement+collapses (giving non-deterministic results), and things like that. (OK, maybe that was a lousy explanation, but its hard to make it short+precise).

Anyway, I dont know that the big bang theory has necessarily done anything to our matter/energy conservation. But it does certainly bring up many puzzles that need to be answered by the cosmological and particle physics theories of tomorrow.

The need for more than our 3+1=4 dimensions is put forward by string theories. These are a collection of theories that we suspect might in the very long run replace the particle physics theories of today (among other things they might finally give us a particle physics description of gravity).

Anyway, anyone with an hour to spare who wants an extremely pedagogical introduction to all this (with cartoons and stuff), should check out particleadventure.org.

Sorry if this is too OT for the OT thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: An Existential Dilemma
 

I called that number they didn't know any Tris or anything about your book.

I think you made that up.

However I did win a free vacation, all I had to do was send them $400 cash as a deposit. Cool deal!