> I have a question that keeps going back and forth in my mind, and I'd like to get your opinions on it. This is all hypothetical, but lets just say we had a computer with an infinite capacity for data. Also assume that all the physical laws governing the universe were put in to this computer. Also assume that the computer has inside of it ALL of the data for one moment in time, and only one moment in time. (Where everything in the universe is, it's velocity, mass, everything) Would this computer be able to, using the physical laws it has in it, know all the information for the past and future as well?
>
> An easy example of how this could work would be if I were to give you a set of laws for something, and then a certain set of information corrosponding to one sliver of it. Say you have a plane, and on it there's a circle, which we will say that there is also a coordinate plane on this plane, not neccesarily at the center of the plane. Anywhere will do. Also, the plane isn't a whole plane, but a square. The length of a side of the square is JUST under the length of a diameter of the circle, so that on any line passing through the plane, there will be two points. You can't allow there to be only one point, or you'd have to add a new law about things being created out of no where. Here's some data:
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> Laws: All points in the universe line up to create a circle. Points can not appear out of no where. If there are x number of points on one line, there will be x number of points on any lines.
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> Data: For a line going through the plane, there is a point at (-2,-6) and a point at (-2,4). The tangent line at point (-2,-6) has an undefined slope, and so does the tangent line going through point (-2,4).
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> Using this data you should be able to tell me where the points will be found on any line going through the plane. In the universal sense, time would be like the line, and the points would be everything in the universe.
>
> Anyways, I guess what this is all getting down to is whether you think anything is truly random.
>
> Wes - "I need to stop 'thinking'"

This makes me think about a thought I have every now and then. Do we ever do anything not preordained? Does our genetics and the laws of the universe predict what our lives will be like?

I think no, but it's hard to prove. They have had experiments with identical twins which prove that when they are seperated they have similar lives, but they still don't have the SAME lives. Of course, this can be explained with environment.

I've always wanted to do an experiment to prove whether or not someone would live the exact same life as someone else given the exact same circumstances and genetics. The problem with this sort of experiment is that you would need a time machine and some sort of reality disturbance. I don't know if it is even possible to make circumstances exactly the same both times.

Although, thinking down this path, I must admit that I don't think a computer programmed only with the data of a second could predict every nuance of the future, for the same reason the above experiment would not work. For example, all it would take is for one particle to do something which doesn't follow the rules and the entire future would be altered.

So, I suppose the real question is if anything ever disobeys the rules you would put in the computer. And an even better question is are there really any rules to the universe? I mean, as humans we believe there is a natural order to the world, but what if there really isn't? Some things may occasionally form a pattern, but is that always so? Can we really prove at this point that anything is set?

Back to my original though about genetics. If the rules of the universe ordain everything we do, than it must even have forced us to wonder whether or not it was pre-ordained. This whole thought about the computer would have been predicted by said computer. And everything in the future would be effected by that thought. So Wes's thoughts would be integral to the entire future. A scary thought :0

Okay, my brain is overheating and I'm not sure what my point is. I guess you can't prove that there is such a thing as randomness. But really, you can't prove that there is not. Obviously the idea of randomness exists, and if we can imagine randomness than certainly it is possible it exists. Why is it easier to imagine that there are rules than that there is chaos? Probably there is both. That's the way the world seems to work.

I must stop now before my brain turns to goo. I dunno if I just repeated what anyone else said because I have not had time to read the rest of the thread yet. Maybe something I said will make sense to someone though...

Mel"Philosophy is so much fun, but it makes my brain achy"anie