I read both of your arguments and it took me a while to pick a winner. I believe I’m going to have to side with Pav by just a hair. I can definitely agree with what Pav was saying, but to really get his point across I think he just needed a slightly different perspective. Tab’s argument was really good, and if he looks at the World with those eyes he will deffinitely get far, because as he says, pav’s point isn’t worth considering because it would be an unpredictible event. But I don’t think you got Pav’s point. It’s not that it hasn’t changed the outcome to two completely different ends, it’s about whether it ever could. To help Tab figure out why I picked Pav over him i’ll give my own example.
Our actions can be changed by information. there is an infinite number of potential information. (e.g. 0,1,2,3…infinity) and information can be used to create more information. Your theory holds true in the beginning, When your dealing with just evolution and a small amount of information and early human civilization. As information icnreases and becomes more available, so does the way it effects our actions. It’s possible that a peice of information be created much later than another peice of information. (e.g. you gave an example of two books written far apart from each other that were pretty much exactly the same.)
When a small action leads to some giant event it’s not that the trigger must eventually happen, what if another action existed which had the opposite effect. Or that the same trigger not triggering had the opposite effect? Lets hypothetically pause our universe. We’re going to make an exact duplicate of this universe and set it right next to this other one. I think that if you hit play, if there where really probability differences between the two I believe you would eventually see a big difference between the two worlds.
So basically what i’m saying is that the timing of the trigger is also extremely important. In one of these universes, this famous scientist who is studying the power of lasers is left hanging off of a cliff. In one universe the scientist’s friend saves him while in another one he doesn’t and the scientist ends up falling to his death. In the universe where he survives he goes to create extremely powerful lasers while in the other World the technology has yet to exist. Now both of these universes are in trouble because there is a giant asteroid heading for Earth. In the universe with the powerful lasers they are not worried because they have the technology to destroy the asteroid. In the other universe they are struggling to figure out a way to stop the asteroid. they end up not figuring out anything and end up being destroyed by the asteroid. This of course assumes that the only solution was a powerful laser. That’s not to bad of an assumption even if their where other methods maybe they weren’t thought of yet, or maybe they couldn’t be executed. That’s all irrelevant because here are two different ends to the same equation. Life on Earth didn’t create Nature as we know it. The World used to be ruled by dinosaurs. If the dinosaurs never went extinct they would still be here and we wouldn’t. it wasn’t until the asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs that allowed the chance for human life. That was an occurence that changed the outcome of the this World, whether the change was determined or not is irrelevant. As long as you accept the possibility.
to avoid from veering to far off from pav’s point I won’t say much more. But Tab, I agree when you say we are limited by our biological functions. But to say that these limits cause an inevitable future is a little much. I can easily see how a certain action can diverge to different path which will lead to a diferent outcome. these differences in outcomes will eventually cause a dramatic change between the Worlds. The stage that you are trying to get a feel for is caused by these smaller actions adding themselves together. I hope that makes you understand why I chose Pav over you. I think Pav was pretty much making this point but your argument was attacking something different other than this point.
One last thing, I don’t quite have 100 posts so I won’t mind if you don’t count this vote, thought I might as well give it a try since I was interested…