Theory of Probability

[veproject1]

Hello to all dear members of this forum. I'm not a mathematician but I'd like to know an answer to my question. Is it possible to calculate the probability of event that is shown in this video? If yes, could anyone to do this?

Thank you, Valeriy

Parameters:

Discrete electronic components:

240 components have 2 terminals

38 components have 3 terminals

1 flyback transformer 10 terminals

1 power socket 2 terminals

TV box volume 125000 cubic cm ----The Tube takes approximately 1/3 of volume -----Rotation per second - 1

Edited June 25, 2013 by veproject1

[Blink4567]

My answer is 3

[aquatus1]

Hello to all dear members of this forum. I'm not a mathematician but I'd like to know an answer to my question. Is it possible to calculate the probability of event that is shown in this video? If yes, could anyone to do this?

Hmm...yes and no.

Generally speaking, probability is used to calculate the chances of a random event occurring. In the case of this video, what they are doing is not so much calculating the chances of a random event, but rather the chances of a very specific event (actually, they aren't calculating anything, but we won't nitpick).

They then imply that the ludicrously low probability that their very specific event would take place somehow reflects the calculation of probability of an entirely separate event, with entirely different starting variables, with no specific target conclusion, and completely different interaction behaviour.

Prima facie, it isn't too dissimilar to asking how to calculate the probability of a meticulously planned, manicured, and cultured garden arising from taking a bunch of seeds and randomly tossing them out in a field without further concern or involvement.

Alternatively, if one chooses the less generous interpretation of intent, it is much like taking the previously created garden, tearing it out of the ground, throwing the lot into a tumbler, then spilling it back out on the ground, pointing to it triumphantly, and claiming that it is evidence that water cannot turn into ice.

So, it basically comes down to a matter of intellectual honesty.

Are you looking to honestly calculate the probability that a working television set can be put together by randomly tumbling the individual components together?

Or are you attempting to create a false dichotomy between two processes that do not have a single thing in common, other than at some point both have the word "random" in one part, of one stage, of one of multiple processes, that go into resulting in the final product, one final product which is intentional, and the other which is not?

[Rlyeh]

Hello to all dear members of this forum. I'm not a mathematician but I'd like to know an answer to my question. Is it possible to calculate the probability of event that is shown in this video? If yes, could anyone to do this?

Thank you, Valeriy

What event? Two idiots dumping trash in a television set?

[badeskov]

Hello to all dear members of this forum. I'm not a mathematician but I'd like to know an answer to my question. Is it possible to calculate the probability of event that is shown in this video? If yes, could anyone to do this?

Thank you, Valeriy

Parameters:

Discrete electronic components:

240 components have 2 terminals

38 components have 3 terminals

1 flyback transformer 10 terminals

1 power socket 2 terminals

TV box volume 125000 cubic cm ----The Tube takes approximately 1/3 of volume -----Rotation per second - 1

Probability of what exactly?

Cheers,

Badeskov

[veproject1]

What event? Two idiots dumping trash in a television set?

I just offered a math problem to solve. I know two people that can do this. If you are unable, it's a question who is a bigger idiot.

[veproject1]

I just offered a math problem to solve. I know two people that can do this. If you are unable, it's a question who is a bigger idiot.

By the way, one of two idiots it's me

[aquatus1]

The other idiot is the one who also believes he is calculating anything of significance.

As has been pointed out, it is disingenuous to the point of deception to claim that you can calculate the probability of something without defining what you are calculating the probability of.

• I pointed out that you are implying you are calculating a random event with a non-predictable outcome when in fact you are calculating a very specific event with a very defined outcome.
  
• RIyeh, in his own more direct form, pointed out how ludicrous the concept was to begin with.
  
• Badeskov asked you straight out just what it was you were calculating.
  

The only person you responded to was RIyeh, and your response consisted solely of "I can do it".

Anyone can throw numbers together and pretend to be proving something. Just waving numbers around at random, however, garners about as much respect as attempting to demonstrate the probability of chemical reactions by randomly tumbling electronic components in a television set.

The real test of intelligent design is whether the person presenting the design has the intelligence to explain what he is presenting.

What do you think you are presenting?

[Rlyeh]

I just offered a math problem to solve. I know two people that can do this. If you are unable, it's a question who is a bigger idiot.

You've listed parts to put in a TV set then asking for some calculation of some arbitrary event, that doesn't sound like a math problem but a problem of understanding and specifics.

Two people did what exactly? By the video they opened up a TV, pulled some parts out, put parts in it, spun it around and turned it on. I can only imagine those doing this "experiment" are comparing it to biological evolution, if that is the case you must be completely unaware of chemistry and microbiology.

If you think this has anything to do with the origin of life as the video suggests, you're sorely mistaken. It's like banging rocks together and expecting a nuclear reaction.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Rlyeh

[Arbenol]

I haven't watched the video. Don't think I will.

Not unless it's a tornado going through an airplane junkyard and assembling a fully functioning Jumbo Jet.

I love that one.

[veproject1]

The other idiot is the one who also believes he is calculating anything of significance.

As has been pointed out, it is disingenuous to the point of deception to claim that you can calculate the probability of something without defining what you are calculating the probability of.

• I pointed out that you are implying you are calculating a random event with a non-predictable outcome when in fact you are calculating a very specific event with a very defined outcome.
  
• RIyeh, in his own more direct form, pointed out how ludicrous the concept was to begin with.
  
• Badeskov asked you straight out just what it was you were calculating.
  

The only person you responded to was RIyeh, and your response consisted solely of "I can do it".

Anyone can throw numbers together and pretend to be proving something. Just waving numbers around at random, however, garners about as much respect as attempting to demonstrate the probability of chemical reactions by randomly tumbling electronic components in a television set.

The real test of intelligent design is whether the person presenting the design has the intelligence to explain what he is presenting.

What do you think you are presenting?

It's so simple. How many days, years, centuries are necessary to let discrete components to be assembled into TV schematic if machine does one revolution per second? Other conditions are posted.

[sepulchrave]

It's so simple. How many days, years, centuries are necessary to let discrete components to be assembled into TV schematic if machine does one revolution per second? Other conditions are posted.

Essentially infinite.

The average kinetic energy of the objects, and the relatively large elasticity of the collisions ensures that even if two components somehow touch in the correct manner, they won't stay connected.

The slow revolution speed doesn't really add any randomness to the system; the discrete components will settle into relatively stable tumbling trajectories after only a few revolutions. These tumblings will be random, but the possible outcomes of each discrete collision are insufficiently broad to allow any coherency to arise.

The only possibility is that the system will somehow enter a coherent quantum state and then somehow decohere into a working television state, and that probability is essentially zero. (Or the expected time for this to occur is vastly longer than the eventual heat death of the Universe.)

[aquatus1]

It's so simple.

Hmm...is it?

Is it so simple, simply because you decided that it is a very simple thing?

Are you so powerful a thinker that you have been able to successfully determine anything more complex would be irrelevant to the final answer?

Are you so knowledgeable in the fields of chemistry, biology, physics, and electronics, that you can confidently state that you have designed an experiment which eliminates any variables that might influence the final conclusion?

You want to think it is simple because you have come up with an answer. Big deal. I came up with an answer quite some time ago. The same answer that tends to pop into my head every time this particular song and dance is advanced (you do acknowledge, at the very least, that this is far from an original argument, don't you? Have you answered any of the counters that have been presented prior to you picking up the banner?).

My answer is "42".

Is it correct?

Is it incorrect?

How the devil should I know? I was just tasked with the rather simple mission to obtain an answer, which I did.

That the person requesting an answer didn't know what question he wanted answered is a different matter entirely.

How many days, years, centuries are necessary to let discrete components to be assembled into TV schematic if machine does one revolution per second? Other conditions are posted.

Just as an indicator of how ill-designed this question is, even forgetting all the philosophy of science it utterly ignores:

• The RPM doesn't really matter all that much to the final equation. You shouldn't assume that it does without knowing that it does.
  
• The experiment uses the rotation to simulate "randomness". It doesn't even pretend to assign the property of randomness to any particular aspect of TV construction. It simply assumes that TV sets, much like evolution, are composed entirely and solely of "randomness". This is a bit like assuming that military SpecWar training is composed of exercise, or that earning a PhD is composed or reading and writing.
  
• The question asks how long a process with no selective factors will take to come to a predetermined conclusion, and compares it to a process entirely defined by the selective pressures that lead to unpredictable solutions.
  
• The question being asked does not reflect the experiment being conducted.
  
• The comparison being made does not reflect the question being asked.
  
• The aim of discrediting evolutionary theory is rendered a bit moot when the one theory (of many) which is being referenced isn't actually an evolutionary theory.
  
• It is rendered not simply moot, but downright incorrect when the definition of the alleged evolutionary theory has been merged together (randomly, ironically) with several other theories, giving it as much explanatory power as the sage advice of "Loose lips sink ships by the horn of a sow's ear, but you can't make a silk purse out of the hair of the dog that bit you".
  

In another thread, I am using a mathematical model to demonstrate the amount of energy generated in a progressive building collapse. I have, however, gone out of my way to continuously remind everyone that a mathematical model does not simulate a real-life phenomena, no matter how well explained or matched.

If your argument requires ignorance on the part of the receiver in order to be accepted as valid, you are doing yourself no favors by pretending that you have a valid argument.

[sepulchrave]

Good points, aquatus1, as usual.

The experiment uses the rotation to simulate "randomness". It doesn't even pretend to assign the property of randomness to any particular aspect of TV construction. It simply assumes that TV sets, much like evolution, are composed entirely and solely of "randomness". This is a bit like assuming that military SpecWar training is composed of exercise, or that earning a PhD is composed or reading and writing.

I just want to add that in this situation rotating the TV set doesn't really introduce much randomness. It introduces chaotic motion to the various components (along with the self-interaction of those components), but chaotic motion is quite different from random motion.

A chaotic rotation of the discrete components around the perimeter of the TV enclosure will never result in a working TV.

[keithisco]

I believe the OP is just another variant on the "put 100 chimps in a room with a typewriter and eventually they will write a Shakespeare Play".. In other words, both scenarios and postulates require a very specific sequence of events that could not happen naturally (10E-273), indeed entropy will have reduced the Universe to a cold wasteland before any meaningful conclusion could be reached. Indeed, at every reset (i.e. incorrect connection) then the probabilistic outcome also resets because there is no mechanism for removing an incorrect outcome (thereby it is not possible to remove an error).

Bring on "Deep Thought 2"

Edited July 1, 2013 by keithisco