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Originally Posted by citybutch
Sorry about that AJ. Because you responded to me and put my post in yours it was a natural conclusion to assume you meant me.
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No worries, City I probably should have been more clear that I was offering examples.
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I think the demarcation lines are a lot easier to draw if your mind sits in either one extreme area or the other... and so yes, I do agree with you. I just think as we get down into the scientific subject of matter (for example) the demarcation gets a little fuzzy. And perhaps science will progress to a point where we have absolute answers... In fact, I have little doubt that it will. However, as it stands right now, there has to be a small bit of assumption when you get down to this area... a part of it that is accepted as truth without proof... and THAT was my point. There is, to be a scientist, just a little bit of faith involved (even if you don't want to call it that)...
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Oh, I think there is faith in as much as I trust the natural world to be consistent. Like I said yesterday, I did not wake up on the moon although there is a quantum mechanical description of my body, lying in bed in my house, wherein I wake up and find that I have suddenly found myself on the moon. Perhaps a better example is this. There is a means, using quantum mechanics, to describe the state of all of the atoms making up the Statue of Liberty that has her waving the arm holding the torch. It is *possible* for that to happen, no physical law forbids it. However, in order for it to reach that state, we would have to wait for several hundred times the lifetime of the Universe for just one movement. I have faith, if you will, that the universe is a regular enough place that the statue will not be waving her arms about next time I visit New York. I have somewhat less faith that we glorified chimps are smart enough to figure out most of the questions about the natural world we might have. That said, I think there are questions we will never be smart enough to answer such as "what came before the Big Bang".
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I want to say more but I have to go sit for an exam this morning...
Thanks for your response!
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I'm looking forward to your next response.
Cheers
Aj