Okay. Another quick question before normal kanicbird baiting resumes. 
Has a ‘white hole’ ever been discovered? If not, does this suggest that black holes do not pour their contents into another universe or somewhere? Is it possible or likely that black holes are the same on ‘both sides’?
Not that we know of. It was once thought that quasars might be white holes, but these are now assumed to be active galaxies, in which a central supermassive black hole is consuming huge quantities of mass and radiating energy as the ingoing mass is compressed and superheated enough to emit everything from radio to gamma rays. As far as anyone knows, black holes are the Roach Motels of the universe: matter checks in, but it doesn’t check out.
Well, that’s sort of my point: you cannot establish if it exists or not, hence, fundamentally, you have to answer “I don’t know.” Now, pragmatically, you can act as though it doesn’t because its existence serves no use. (It’s not needed to explain anything that has any bearing on us.) Some may not see this as an important distinction, but you’re still left with a question that cannot be categorically answered.
Well, sure. I have no problem with such questions; science is rife with them. We don’t know what an electron is, we don’t know what happened prior to the Big Bang, we don’t know if there are really tiny curled-up dimensions beyond the three we know or if it only works out that way in our mathematical models. And we probably never will.
If an adult asked you if Santa Claus or Batman existed, would you automatically answer “I don’t know?”
Only if you’re looking for a baaaad boy.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist
It depends on how you define “Santa Claus” or “Batman,” of course. If “Santa Claus” is “the guy who puts the presents under every Christmas tree on Earth,” then I can say with a very high level of confidence that there is no such person. On the other hand, if you define him as a fictitious character, then I have no choice but to say that he exists as such. If you define him as a metaphysical entity, then, yes, I’d have to say “I don’t know.” If you define Santa Claus as some guy who lived several centuries ago, but whose life isn’t attested by any contemporary source, then I also have to say “I don’t know.”
However, to my knowledge, Santa Claus is never defined as a metaphysical entity, and while Saint Nicholas is claimed to be a historical character, he’s only said to be the inspiration for Santa Claus. Hence, in every day conversation, I’d say that Santa Claus is a fiction, and in a scientific context, I’d say that the probability for his physical existence approaches zero.
God is a fiction, and in a scientific context I’d say that the probability for his physical existence approaches zero.
For this reason, I will spend as much time contemplating God’s existence as I do the existence of batman and Santa Claus.
Fair enough?
Sure.
I was only pointing out that there are indeed questions that cannot be categorically answered, not now, not ever.
Hence Jesus.
No, not really.
Maybe what you’ve pointed out is that there are some questions not worth asking?
If you mean the latter, does he look like Christian Bale? 
That’s a completely different problem, though, isn’t it?
Some questions would be worth asking, if they could be answered, but they can’t… If A is any arbitrary computer program, it might be very, very useful to answer the question: Will A run forever, or will it eventually terminate? Unfortunately, you can only answer “I don’t know.”
In practice, ALL computer programs WILL terminate eventually.
While this statement may be true, it’s not necessarily useful. What may be useful is a computer program that tells me with absolute certainty if another computer program, about which we know nothing, will enter an endless loop. That would be both useful and impossible. That the machine that actually runs the endless loop will eventually cease to function is of little practical use, and of no bearing on the nature of the question.
No shit, Sherlock. Hi, jovan, meet humor. Humor, jovan.
I would expect knowing that a machine will fail has far more practical value than “what ifs” about infinity on a magical system.
:smack:
If I could write a program that could tell you with 100% certainty if any other program will enter an infinite loop, I’d be set for life. I could write a universal virus detector or a universal bug finder. In the real world, software fails much more frequently than hardware, and what the halting problem tells us is that there is no universal way to tell if a program will fail. Or were you kidding also?
I wasn’t kidding, I’m just an idiot. Perhaps.
A question though, if I may: Can’t I write a virus that doesn’t depend on an infinite loop for replication?
Also, since you enjoy word games: If you know nothing about this computer program, how do you know it’s a computer program? Once again, I may be an idiot, but I’m having trouble comprehending this feat as being impossible, unless we truly “know nothing” about the program in which case it’s just a nonsense argument.
The virus doesn’t need to depend on infinite loops. One of the corollaries of the halting problem is that it’s impossible to tell if a program will perform a particular task. So, there’s no way to tell if a program will replicate itself, for example. Here’s a good explanation in layman terms.
Any data can be interpreted as a program because programs are data. This isn’t word games, it’s a fundamental characteristic of computers.
Doesn’t that mean that it would be impossible to design a program that can tell you whether or not a certain data set is a program?