If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?

Victor

Occy, I would be grateful if you could leave this as a continuatiuon of the 0.9999 = 1 discussion

Originally posted by stereo_steve
But seriously there are more important questions like

1. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?

2.If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

3.Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

4. If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of the same stuff? Come to think of it why not a tower?

5.If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

6.If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?

1. On logical grounds, I would say no, as the team follow a pre-determined pattern, they don't 'follow' each other. On sports appreciation grounds, "Hey why not?"
2. This is a subjective question. It should not be attempted to answer subjective questions with exclusive / definitive answers.
3. Again, it is a matter of context. 'Season' it not exclusively related to hunting. Otherwise, I defer to the question about doing it, but not being caught.
4. This assumes that it is the material that make the BB strong and not the design. Quite simply the materials used in the Black box are either too expensive or too heavy to be used in the construction of a commercial (commercially viable) aircraft (which depend on lightweight materials like aluminium). As the box is also quite small it is also a matter of being easier to brace (distance to fulcrum etc.). It's all down to the trade off between the value of life and the value of money. Of course, even if the plane were made of the same materials, this would not necessarily prevent the aircraft crashing, it would merely render it less likely to break-up. This would merely increase the rate of deceleration imposed on the aircraft's contents (no crumple zone), thereby making recovery operations even more gruesome.
5. They are not necessarily the same species of primate that we had as mutual (or parallel) ancestors. Otherwise, monkey sex?
6. This presumes the existence of psychics. Refer to discussion on Santa.

Saruman

no science here, in answer to the swimmers i can only say "I hope so!"

Saruman

answer to 2 is obviously failed!

And answer 3, well depends on where the tourist is.. fair game in some countries!

the plane would be too heavy i would imagine if it was heavily armoured.. besides they dont always survive.


man apparenty evolved from different species of ape which in turn evolved from tiny rodents in the Jurassic age yet there are still rats in both man and rodent species....

the psychics are lying bastards.. if they can tell the future they would have know about this post before you wrote it and had a reply waiting for you....

Gordon

4. Black boxes are actually orange apparently.
6. Psychics can't use their powers for personal gain apparently.

apparently...

Saruman

Psychics can't use their powers for personal gain apparently.

Well thats a shame...

scipio_major

6.If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?

This question actually raises an interesting point about time. As far as I know all psychic prediction carries with it the disclaimer that it only tells what is likely to happen not what will. However the moral of the Schrodiger's cat (pardon my spelling) story is that you can never be really sure what is going to happen until you look. Basically any one of a hundred variables could have changed, one of the lotto balls could been a little less spherical that the others, I'd meantion a butterfly flapping it's wing's in Ireland and a gale in Japan but I won't. The point is that something like the lotto is as close to random as you can make it (assume the National Lottery is not run by a bunch of crooks).

A particully well-read psyschic would claim that in all the hundreds of possible futures they only see the one that is the most probable. But the danger is that by telling a participant of that future you run the risk of that person acting on his "foreknowledge" so much that he actually changes what is going to happen (i.e the guy doesn't check the petrol tank in his car because the psyschic told him he'd get to Dublin ok. but then he runs out of petrol outside Athlone). Up until the point that the psyschic told the man what was likely happen it was likely but afterwards it no-longer was. Gratious reference to MacBeth.

Basically the point is that unless you believe that future is set (and with that the belief in no free will, luck , chance or quantum mechanics), you have to accept that the future is unwritten.

Oh yes, speaking as friend of a guy who is really into astrology I can tell you that a proper astrologist never even considers claiming that astrology can tell the future. What it does is tell you your potentials. For example his chart tells him that he should have musical ability but he was never taught an instrument as a child so now he can't play. Rephrased it means that if he had been started on the piano when he was six he'd have had some talent.


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Scipio_major

Saruman

In other words its a load of crap... sorry if your into it scipio_major but it makes no sense.. the constellations that are used in the zodiac today are not the same ones used in the past as the celestial sphere from our perspective changes.. a few thousand years ago it was very different! It makes no sense the universe is not well ordered enough. Im going off topic so ill stop.. leave it for another thread.

EvilGeorge

New viewers please take note, when you have been here too long you think your some kind of new age philosopher, lets make up the madest **** you can think of and then try to solve it.

You people have had too much to sniff, drink, inject or have way toooooo much time on your hands.

Saruman

in my case its time, dont have anything to do with the rest..

scipio_major

Amazing the impression that people get of you isn't it?

I don't believe a word of it, when a latter day soothesayer stops me from boarding a plane that crashs.THEN and only then I'll believe. I slag my friend off about it constanly btw.

Moving along swifty. I was actually trying to make a point about the nature of time. The future is always uncertain, anything can happen. Learning what is 'going' to happen doesn't help because the situation has now changed by your knowing. That's what Einstein found so infuriating about that Damn Cat. He believed that if you knew the starting position and understood the phsical proccesses at work, Schrodiger said that there was no way to predict what was going to happen except by observing it. But by observing you change the system. Einstein couldn't accept that uncertainity, science is susposed to be about facts. Having the Uncertainty Principle just takes the piss of the whole thing, he claimed.

With that in mind, prediction of the furture is almost impossible because although might know what is going to happen you will have to everything exaclty as you idi it in that future for it come to pass. I will know point to the Chaos Theory and how by the time you had walked to the newsagent you'd have already have introduced a whole load of "butterflies", which ruins all your prediction.

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Scipio_major

Saruman

scipio_major: Amazing the impression that people get of you isn't it?

Ah i see, must have missed the friend part earlier...

Oh yes, speaking as friend of a guy who is really into astrology....

Anyway yes everything you said makes sense. Or to put it blubtly every singe action no matter how small or seemingly incosequential can have a massive effect on the future! Lets take time travel.. while i dont believe its possible i certainly dont believe it should be attempted..

Some loose travels back in time... he is in a street on a slight hill.. some kids are playing with a ball. He should not be there and one of the kids kicks the ball to the goal but as he crosses the street it bounces off him where as had he stayed in his own time a goal would have been scored.. how many possibilities have been altered from that seemingly non consequential action? This should be fun actually think about it... this is where your imagination can take off!

The ball rolls down the street, hits the bottom of a ladder and unbalances the ladder. The shopkeeper cleaning his sign falls and hurts his head and must go to the hospital to check he is ok, missing the appointment he had been looking forward to. As a result he does not meet his future business partner.. who in turn dont go on to create a huge supermarket chain where the Time travel looser got his start in life... Obviously his own future is altered and would not have gone back in time in the first place.. a paradox but not the point.. that tiny little action caused a huge ripple effect...

scipio_major

Exactly. I have a feeling that people have recognized that time travel is so dangerous that there are international treaties to prevent it. I know for certain that the US and USSR signed a pact that that neither would ever play around with the weather should they develop the technology. The risks of doing huge irrepairible damage is enormous.

What would be cool is if you could somehow observe the past. Imagine watching the Battle of Zuma as it happens. I don't think anyone really know what Scipio Africanus Major actually looked like. Christ a load of people don't even know who he was. Funny considering he defeated the guy who many people consider the greatesr general of all time (Hanibal). Getting back to the point being able to observe the past would be brilliant, it would litterally be living history.

The one possible danger I can think of (though I have taken it from a Asimov Story) is that you could use a past-view device to obsrve the present which would lead to a complete loss of privacy, remember the past is everything that happened an instant ago as well. Watching the present would be like watching the Olimpics, it's live but there is a small time deley.

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Scipio_major

Saruman

Yeah i was thinking that too.. time observation would be cool... Doubt it would be possible though. Interesting concept though.

Typedef

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
No.

Logic rules

scipio_major

Will someone please explain the logic of that please. Why is it logical that the whole team don't drown? I think that according to "logic" they would all have to drown.

Statement 1:
In synchronized swimming all the swimmers do the same thing.

Statement 2:
One member drowns.

Statement 3:
Since all members do the same thing, they all drown.

Clearly the above is at odds with commonsense. However I think it is logically sound.

"Logic is excellent if you don't what to think"- Ponder Stibbons

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Scipio_major

P.S. For the last Olypmics the German team (I think) did a sequence commerating the holocaust. In it they all pretended to drown, yes you heard me, all of them. And no I don't watch synchronized swimming, I only know because Isreal tried to get the team banned. Twas on da news, I swear.

Saruman

Exactly.. if they dont die they cant be classed as synchronized
and logic aside it would be fun to see!

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

If one silly thread that goes way off-topic gets locked...will the rest be too?