a quick poll

Interesting, in a world of infinite posibilities, is imposiblity possbile?

 

But the if you had absolute and infinate knowledge you would also know how to bend natrual law.

 

I think his point is that it may be impossible to bend the law, then all the knowledge would gain you would be the knowledge to not bother trying.

 

Well said, Kandelon. And to the point. Where is the "applause" smiley?

 

Tell me one thing that is impossibole?

 

Returning from a black hole? Exceeding the speed of light? Standing on the surface of a star as it goes nova and living through it?
You might say there's no proof that these things are impossible. But there's no proof that they ARE possible. There may be no combination of materials and engineering expertise available in any time or place that will ever allow these things to happen.

 

So eventualy we would have to wait until we have infinate knowledge before we could answer that question hmmm i em sure that you could do any such thing if you only had the knowledge.

 

You're an optimist! :smile:
Nothing wrong with that. I'm a pessimist. I wish I was an optimist. I think I'd be happier.

Of course, we could never gain infinite knowledge. It's infinite!
But we're not just waiting to gain knowledge to make things happen. We're always trying to make our dreams real.
But, some dreams will not become real. Some dreams will never become real, no matter how hard we try.
Or, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe every problem has a solution.
I'd still rather have power than knowledge.

Unless...
If someone ELSE had ultimate power, then I would want the knowledge. Maybe I could control the person with the power, and then I'd have it all!!!!

Muaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaahaaaaaa!

 

Who would not wan't the power?

 

I wouldn't. Half the fun in life is accomplishment. Having knowledge allows one the know-how on how to get something done, but not necessarily the ability to do so. Therefore you still have to work to accomplish it. Just having the power to make it happen takes all the fun out of it and then your life would eventually get boring. I mean geez, how many times would you have to rip someones pants off before it became old hat.

It is impossible to destroy energy.

 

Then again you do not know that do you?

 

Law of Conservation of Energy: Energy can neither be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another in a normal chemical and physical system.

That is a solid fact Qilkatal. No getting around it. Also, according to the old adage, knowledge is power, so therefore Absolute Knowledge is Absolute Power.

Now, to the current topic at hand. Logically, nothing is impossible until you prove it so. However, for most things claimed impossible, we don't have the knowledge or equipment to prove it either way. However, you can't have one without the other - because we lack the knowledge and expertise to prove that is impossible to become invisible, we can only assume it is so. However, we can't prove it is possible either. We can never prove something like this is impossible until we actually turn someone invisible, thereby proving it possible. So, logically, nothing is impossible. It's called a paradox, and is a moot point either way.

Ain't life a bitch :smile:?

 

Q,that's a flawed argument... where x="anything you want,"
"x is possible, because you can't prove that x is impossible. You can't prove that x is impossible, because you don't have infinite knowledge. You don't have infinite knowledge, because that's impossible."
it's flawed logic... i forget what kind of argument it is, not circular, something else... man, i wish i had paid attention in philosophy class... in any case, you contradict your own argument... it probably makes the most sense if you substitute "infinte knowledge" for x...

_________________
"just think of my lips as the fruit roll-ups of love. *beat* that was kind of gross, wasn't it?" -xander

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rosenshyne on 2002-03-22 16:40 ]</font>

 

It is fun though since it kills any argument that says it is imposibole.

 

This is a theoretical discussion about ABSOLUTE power and knowledge. With absolute power it might be possible to counteract natural forces, like the Laws of Thermodynamics.
But absolute knowledge might not allow the laws of nature to be twisted in the absence of absolute power. It might be impossible for man to do some things, no matter how much knowledge is gained.
Absolute power suggests that anything can be accomplished if the urge to do it comes to mind.
The adage about "knowledge=power" isn't relevant to this theoretical discussion. In fact, it breaks down in real life in many situations. For instance, Chinese students and scholars, many of them smarter than government officals, who are still in prison. They may have a lot of knowledge, but they are powerless in many ways.

 

by the way, if my thinking is totally wrong on that last post, please don't flay me alive... :grin:

 

I believe that I already made the argument :smile:. Also, I'm not sure, but it may be called inductive logic? I'd write it in logic, but I don't know what the damn ASCII codes are...

 

Yay - for once I don't have to be the pedant. I think the question might boil down to "Would you rather have power or knowledge?" (kind of anyway)

Regarding naming something impossible, a thought occured to me. If I couldn't name something impossible, then naming something impossible would be impossible, but then THAT would mean I had named something impossible, so naming something impossible wouldn't be impossible, leaving me unable to name something impossible, and therefore enabling me to say that naming something impossible was impossible, BUT *sucks in huge gasp of air* - ah, buggrit.

 

The thing is, SF, that the question was ABSOLUTE power versus ABSOLUTE knowledge. The question moves into the theoretical realm, and many of our asumptions are no longer valid.

 

Hmm ... I see your point. The trouble is, I'm kind of a pessimist and don't wanna be. Kind of like you said earlier (except, I have the feeling that being an optimist would have its own downsides :grin: )

I don't see why everything has to be possible. I don't think that the universe is full of boundless possibilities, just waiting for us to discover how. I think there are probably limitations.

That's partly why I'd want absolute power instead of knowledge. How depressing would it be to know all the things that are not possible?

Jar, I'm not disagreeing with you on this, because I know very little about it, but I seem to recall hearing that entropy is some kind of disappearance of energy. Is that right? Hang on. Maybe it was just the dispersal of energy. Care to put me straight?