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Original post by smiley4
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It takes 2 points to see a line, 2 lines to see a plane, and 2 planes to see 3 dimentional space.
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I think your equation here is slightly off. Two lines cannot define a finite plane. It requires three. The equation is as follows: to describe an n-dimensional object you must have at minimum n+1 (n-1)-dimensional objects. Thusly the most primitive constructable 3-dimensional object requires 4 2-dimensional objects (we call these triangular pyramids) and the most primitive 4-dimensional object would be described by 5 3-dimensional objects.

I laugh at you who mock religion like I beleive in a god! I'm agnostic, so I try to find out if religion and science can't both be right based on some bit of proof. That's kind of funny how you mention it though, flipping over god. Maybe that's why none of the religions can come up with a set standard for what "God" is, because they veiw it from different angles.

Anyway, my point is that, regardless or not if they are defined, two lines lie on a plane though they may lie on multiple planes, just like two points will lie on a line regardless of which number of lines on a plane they may intersect. Often we use lines to define paths and we need points and lines to define those paths. Just like we need objects and paths to define movement. Movement defines time.

Are you getting my assumptions? Can you explain my general idea in more specific terms?

[edited by - smiley4 on April 22, 2003 5:30:19 PM]

Not sure what you''re trying to say, xaxa... My point was just that god is basically guesswork, while time, in some form or another, as well as the "normal" 3 dimensions, pretty much indisputable...

Just saying that we cant comprehend god doesnt make him any more likely to exist

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Life is like a grapefruit. It''s sort of orangy-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It''s got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast

quote:

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Original post by smiley4
I laugh at you who mock religion like I beleive in a god! I'm agnostic, so I try to find out if religion and science can't both be right based on some bit of proof. That's kind of funny how you mention it though, flipping over god. Maybe that's why none of the religions can come up with a set standard for what "God" is, because they veiw it from different angles.

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Well, where is the "bit of proof" for pasting god/religion into this dimension business then? To me it looks more like he was just inserted into the 4th dimension because "Well, you've got to have a god", or something... I might be missing something though...

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Life is like a grapefruit. It's sort of orangy-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast

[edited by - Spoonster on April 22, 2003 5:22:08 PM]

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Original post by jperalta
I think your equation here is slightly off. Two lines cannot define a finite plane. It requires three. The equation is as follows: to describe an n-dimensional object you must have at minimum n+1 (n-1)-dimensional objects. Thusly the most primitive constructable 3-dimensional object requires 4 2-dimensional objects (we call these triangular pyramids) and the most primitive 4-dimensional object would be described by 5 3-dimensional objects.

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It takes only two points to define a line and only three points (or two lines) to define a plane (planes are never finite...you are describing a triangle).

In the case of a line, the two points cannot coincide (obviously), and in the case of a plane the points cannot be colinear.

[edited by - SpaceRogue on April 22, 2003 5:29:03 PM]

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Original post by Spoonster
Just saying that we cant comprehend god doesnt make him any more likely to exist

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I was just repeating what I heard from some teologists that it''s possible to perceive God in events through time if you know how/when to look at them. Like an electron calculating our postion

I don''t think it is less respectable than any cientific theory that is subject to refutation. I wonder how many cientist had the patience to takin it to practice and see if it is valid...

>Well, where is the "bit of proof" for pasting god/religion
>into this dimension business then? To me it looks more like he
>was just inserted into the 4th dimension because "Well, you''ve
>got to have a god", or something... I might be missing
>something though...

just what i thought :D

btw, you cant believe in god AND physics. supossedly, god is able to influence our world, witch all sorts of funny miracles and such, and talking to people and just influencing events in general. if so, there is a paradox, cos if god, for instance, makes this monitor fly in front of my face. then either he is violating physical laws, meaning they were a bad model of reality and thus dont exist, or the phenomena of my monitor flying can be explained by some law we dont know of, in witch case my monitor flying fits in our physical model, and isnt an intervention of god at all but just bound to happen because of the circumstances.

another example. if god were to speak to me, he would:
a) twist some electrons in my head in another direction in some intricate pattern, so i hear a voice in my head. this would mean he violated impulse laws, by moving electrons in an unnatural way.
or: b) these electrons were already bound by physical laws to go this way and cause certain neural impulses, in witch case its just an event bound to happen by known physical laws, without any intervention from a god. since this is not a biologically natural process, people might say i was mad.

so, or god is just some powerless entity, maybe responsible for creating the universe (who knows, he might have done so, on the other hand there is just as much evidence it was me, ie none), but in no way able to influence our world if there is such a thing as physical laws.

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Original post by Eelco
[...]btw, you cant believe in god AND physics. supossedly, god is able to influence our world, witch all sorts of funny miracles and such, and talking to people and just influencing events in general. if so, there is a paradox, cos if god, for instance, makes this monitor fly in front of my face. then either he is violating physical laws, meaning they were a bad model of reality and thus dont exist, or the phenomena of my monitor flying can be explained by some law we dont know of, in witch case my monitor flying fits in our physical model, and isnt an intervention of god at all but just bound to happen because of the circumstances.
[...]
so, or god is just some powerless entity, maybe responsible for creating the universe (who knows, he might have done so, on the other hand there is just as much evidence it was me, ie none), but in no way able to influence our world if there is such a thing as physical laws.

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Why can''t we believe in physics if the rules we currently use to describe the world aren''t perfectly accurate? I believe that there are rules to define the universe, and I think physics is an attempt to discover those rules. I don''t think the actual rules have been discovered yet, but I still support the persuit of that knowledge.

Also, about the monitor (and the power of God): maybe God invalidated our current guesses at the laws of physics just so he could make the monitor float. I''ve changed rules in my programs before to allow things that previously weren''t possible in them. I see no reason God shouldn''t do the same.

Well what are we doing with chemicals when we create a micro chip? Microchips aren''t natural formations. Who''s to say that an intelligent life form of a higher dimention wouldn''t be able to do things by unconventional 3 dimentional means? Perhaps "god" could be explained through physics and physics explained through "god".

@Extrarius

you say you believe that there are rules that define the universe. yet supposedly god could make an exeption to those. mind, not to the rules we believe to be true based on our observations, witch are not perfect, but the REAL laws that rule our universe. if god could make exeptions to those, then they wouldnt be rules anymore. if normally a particles'' speed and direction is only changed when an impulse is applied to it, and god could make it move either way as he pleased, it wouldnt really be a rule anymore. besides it wouldnt fit in with the energy conservation law, and probably voilates a whole bunch of rules, thus cripples those real laws, meaning there might aswell be no laws at all, cos god can do what he want anyway.

>Well what are we doing with chemicals when we create a micro >chip? Microchips aren''t natural formations.

in a way everything is a natural formation. if you believe in the existence of laws of physics, it automaticly implies everything is natural. if you could/would rewind the whole universe 100 years, and pushed the play button again, matters would look exactly the same, down to the very last molecule/muon in your toenail. if you woud rewind it to the very moment of the big bang, or whatever event there was supposed to be a very long time ago, and replayed the universe from that point, you would still find me type this exact same letters here at this moment. according to laws, there is no such thing as random.
how do you fit god into that? is god no subject to laws, can he change the future? if so he falls besides physical laws, and ridicules those laws.
if he is subject to laws, then he is just another law himself! cos hed influence the universe in a predictable manner like any other law of physics.