Re: Can Events of Zero Probability Happen?

David Bernier wrote:
Shubee wrote:
On Jan 14, 6:12 am, David C. Ullrich <ullr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:37:23 -0800 (PST), Shubee <e.Shu...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Sure, on the face of it, it seems possible to reason with a physicist
that believes that conceptualizing events that occur with zero
probability is unfathomable. The problem is, he explicitly said that
even an event of incredibly small probability can't happen.

[...]

Oh No's answer "Yes, but," when you mod out all the weasel words in
the whole paragraph, clearly affirms my claim that Oh No "explicitly
said that even an event of incredibly small probability can't happen."

Yes it is. Suppose I tell you that I was watching a glass
of water the other day, and with no outside energy applied
it just happened that half of it froze solid while the other
half boiled away. Would you believe me?

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/3d5630f2762edce6


David, thank you for bringing up this very familiar illustration in
quantum physics. You have proven my point. The accepted and widely
acknowledged answer by the experts in quantum physics is that the
event that you described can happen, although with fantastically
small, non-zero probability.

Now, please consider the meaning of this amusing curiosity. When
mainstream physicists interpret quantum physics and assert that
miraculous events can happen in a glass of water, the meaning of
fantastically small probability is not disputed. When I ask about the
quantum mechanical chances for the Red Sea to part (Exodus 14:21) and
for a man to be fully formed out of the inanimate material of the
earth in a single day (Genesis 2:7), then suddenly those events call
into question the meaning of fantastically small probabilities.

Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/creationism


It's not clear how much of Genesis is part of the miracle of creation,
but Chapter 1 v. 16:

(16) "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."

(The earth was created before). In any case, what are the chances
in QM of a standard miraculous event?

What I'm not sure about is what happens to the wave function of the
world when there is an event...

[...]

Earlier I wrote that the water glass anomaly and the parting of
the Red Sea might have QM-probability > 0. The two probabilities
could be separated by trillions of trillions of orders of magnitude,
bu that's a detail.

There's a common saying:
"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof".
I subscribe to that while acknowledging that people will disagree
on the balancing of the evidence for and the evidence against some
claim.

For example, this web page about ESP doesn't reflect my
assessment of the odds that ESP exists:

< http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/extraproof.html > .

In part, I give a high weight to the negative results in
James Randi's test-takers.

This website of an organization in Philadelphia seems interesting:
< http://www.phact.org/ >

David Bernier

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

.

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