Is impossibility possible?

[Danny Ocean]

No, because impossibility isn't an event, it's an characteristic attributed to an event.

 

[iain62a]

You're applying the logic of the monkeys on the typewriters to everything in the universe.

The monkeys can -and will- write out everything, but that's to do with infinite improbability, and has nothing to do with impossibility.

 

[Jark212]

Only in quantiam physics. Which I know quite a bit about from the science channel...

 

[Agayek]

I was thinking about this the other day and in the end I'm not sure what I think.

Possibility and chance are very tricky subjects. Similar, but very different. Chance is the liklihood of a specific event happening, whereas possibility is if the event could happen, or not - its as simple as that. But chance can be measured as a percentage, decimal, fraction, ratio or proportion. Take for example, an everyday variable such as the weather. More specifically, rain. Rain is possible. We all know that. In fact there is a relatively high chance that it could rain tomorrow, around 20%. It is also possible there could be a hailstorm the size of footballs. This is very unlikely, but nonetheless possible.

Lets take the old tale of the 1000 typewrites and 1000 monkeys. A philosopher once said that if 1000 monkeys were given 1000 typewriters, they would, after a long period of time, come up with Shakespeare's Hamlet. (or thats how I think the story goes). This, you would think, would be impossible.

Its not. Just very, very, extremely unlikely. Lets take into account the figures. First off, lets assume that the monkeys have been trained to hit random keys on the typewriter, 24/7 without a break and that they type at a speed of 1 character per second. The play has approximately 30,000 words. Ignoring spacing, punctuation and capitals, there are 26 different keys the monkey could hit resulting in there being a 1 in 26 chance that the monkey hits the correct key each time. If you want, go and do the maths yourself. In simpler terms, it is unimaginably unlikely, but still possible.

If however, these monkeys were given an infinite timespan, then the event would definitely happen. Its the same with everything. On an infinite timescale, anything and everything is possible and will happen eventually, whereas on a finite timescale, anything can still happen, but it is just very unlikely.

Which brings me to my point. If anything is possible, this leaves us with a paradox. Anything being possible means that nothing is impossible which results in impossibility being impossible. Despite this, everything is possible resulting in impossibility being both possible and impossible. This could be because possibility is only an idea, though up by humans: it doesn't actually exist. I don't know.

If you have read this thread and have managed to understand, what are your thoughts?

You're confusing definitions. Impossibility is not a thing, it's a concept. As such, it is not bound to the rules of existence. As you said, anything and everything is possible, but since impossibility is an abstract idea, it is unaffected by that principle.

 

[TaborMallory]

"Possible" and "impossible" are nothing more than ideas used to help explain reality.

 

[Sporky111]

There will always be impossibility. For example, it is impossible to stab somebody with liquid water. There is no probability, no chance, no percentage. It is physically impossible.

/immature arguement

 

[Agayek]

Also your wrong with everything being possible. For example, what is the probability for something that cannot happen to happen? Well its zero of course. Even if you give it an infinite tries it simply will not happen as. Another example may be what is the possibility of something we know is true(without any doubts) to be false. This to is zero as well.

I hope you have gotten my point.

The problem there is that there is no such thing as 0 probability for something to happen. It may be 1 x 10^-2 quadrillion, but the chance of it occurring is still there. Just because we haven't experienced yet does not make it impossible.

As an example, it is perfectly (and proven) possible to throw a pen against a wall and for the pen to pass straight through said wall. If the atoms align perfectly, one will flow right through the other. For all intents and purposes, it's impossible, due to the probability being so small. That does not make it truly impossible though.

It's possible that radiation from somewhere will rearrange the inner workings of my intestines and a bright pink baboon will crawl out of my ass and start playing the banjo. That does not mean it will, or that it's even likely to ever happen, just that it can.

Edit:

There will always be impossibility. For example, it is impossible to stab somebody with liquid water. There is no probability, no chance, no percentage. It is physically impossible.

/immature arguement

stab verb
1. to pierce or wound with or as if with a pointed weapon: She stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork.
2. to thrust, plunge, or jab (a knife, pointed weapon, or the like) into something: He stabbed the knife into the man's chest.

Actually, if you could alter the viscosity through some means(been a while since I looked into this, but I vaguely remember someone being able to make a liquid "solid" without freezing it through vibrations and frequency ossilation), you could actually stab someone with water.

 

[NeutralDrow]

There is no paradox. Impossibility contradicting itself by being impossible isn't due to a universal cause, it's due to semantics. If there is, in fact, no impossible occurrence, it's doesn't mean impossibility is impossible, it means it's non-existent. It's like the omnipotent being making a rock too big for itself to lift.

 

[I_LIKE_CAKE]

Correct, and yes it is cool. Be careful that you don't mix up "impossible" and simple contradictions. Someone listed being able to breath in space as a counter-example. It is not, seeing as how it is an oxymoron. For example, if I asked you to draw me a square circle, you couldn't do it. This is a demonstration of a contradiction of terms, you can't draw such a shape because the terms I used to describe don't make sense. That you can't breathe in space is a statement about the definitions "vacuum" and the act of respiration, not an example of an impossibility.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

I was thinking about this the other day and in the end I'm not sure what I think.

Possibility and chance are very tricky subjects. Similar, but very different. Chance is the liklihood of a specific event happening, whereas possibility is if the event could happen, or not - its as simple as that. But chance can be measured as a percentage, decimal, fraction, ratio or proportion. Take for example, an everyday variable such as the weather. More specifically, rain. Rain is possible. We all know that. In fact there is a relatively high chance that it could rain tomorrow, around 20%. It is also possible there could be a hailstorm the size of footballs. This is very unlikely, but nonetheless possible.

Lets take the old tale of the 1000 typewrites and 1000 monkeys. A philosopher once said that if 1000 monkeys were given 1000 typewriters, they would, after a long period of time, come up with Shakespeare's Hamlet. (or thats how I think the story goes). This, you would think, would be impossible.

Its not. Just very, very, extremely unlikely. Lets take into account the figures. First off, lets assume that the monkeys have been trained to hit random keys on the typewriter, 24/7 without a break and that they type at a speed of 1 character per second. The play has approximately 30,000 words. Ignoring spacing, punctuation and capitals, there are 26 different keys the monkey could hit resulting in there being a 1 in 26 chance that the monkey hits the correct key each time. If you want, go and do the maths yourself. In simpler terms, it is unimaginably unlikely, but still possible.

If however, these monkeys were given an infinite timespan, then the event would definitely happen. Its the same with everything. On an infinite timescale, anything and everything is possible and will happen eventually, whereas on a finite timescale, anything can still happen, but it is just very unlikely.

Which brings me to my point. If anything is possible, this leaves us with a paradox. Anything being possible means that nothing is impossible which results in impossibility being impossible. Despite this, everything is possible resulting in impossibility being both possible and impossible. This could be because possibility is only an idea, though up by humans: it doesn't actually exist. I don't know.

If you have read this thread and have managed to understand, what are your thoughts?

I came up with the same, paradoxil theory a few weeks ago!

 

[ygetoff]

I was thinking about this the other day and in the end I'm not sure what I think.

Possibility and chance are very tricky subjects. Similar, but very different. Chance is the liklihood of a specific event happening, whereas possibility is if the event could happen, or not - its as simple as that. But chance can be measured as a percentage, decimal, fraction, ratio or proportion. Take for example, an everyday variable such as the weather. More specifically, rain. Rain is possible. We all know that. In fact there is a relatively high chance that it could rain tomorrow, around 20%. It is also possible there could be a hailstorm the size of footballs. This is very unlikely, but nonetheless possible.

Lets take the old tale of the 1000 typewrites and 1000 monkeys. A philosopher once said that if 1000 monkeys were given 1000 typewriters, they would, after a long period of time, come up with Shakespeare's Hamlet. (or thats how I think the story goes). This, you would think, would be impossible.

Its not. Just very, very, extremely unlikely. Lets take into account the figures. First off, lets assume that the monkeys have been trained to hit random keys on the typewriter, 24/7 without a break and that they type at a speed of 1 character per second. The play has approximately 30,000 words. Ignoring spacing, punctuation and capitals, there are 26 different keys the monkey could hit resulting in there being a 1 in 26 chance that the monkey hits the correct key each time. If you want, go and do the maths yourself. In simpler terms, it is unimaginably unlikely, but still possible.

If however, these monkeys were given an infinite timespan, then the event would definitely happen. Its the same with everything. On an infinite timescale, anything and everything is possible and will happen eventually, whereas on a finite timescale, anything can still happen, but it is just very unlikely.

Which brings me to my point. If anything is possible, this leaves us with a paradox. Anything being possible means that nothing is impossible which results in impossibility being impossible. Despite this, everything is possible resulting in impossibility being both possible and impossible. This could be because possibility is only an idea, though up by humans: it doesn't actually exist. I don't know.

If you have read this thread and have managed to understand, what are your thoughts?

There are certain laws of nature that cannot be ignored. For example, gravity will not cease to happen without cause. The chance that something will cause gravity to cease is very low, but gravity will not cease without cause.

 

[Agayek]

I have another paradoxical theory to pose to the people of this thread:

Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, where 2 people, A and B, being the exact same age were separated, one traveling at near-light speed while the other remained stationary for a number of years. At the end of this period, the one staying stationary is old, while the traveler is relatively young, due to the relation between time and movement or somesuch.

My idea comes into play near the beginning. If, as all the physicists I've asked say, the only relation we take into account is the relative speeds of A and B, why do they age differently?

Relative to A, B is moving at near-light speed, while relative to B, A is moving at near-light speed. Thus, they should age at the same rate, as relative to the other, they are stationary and the other is the one moving. When I ask my physics professors about this, I ask if it's in relation to a fixed point in the universe, but every one has said that is not the case and then given me a very confused look.

I've always been confused by this, and have never received an adequate explanation.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

Everything is possible, even coming back from the dead, it's happened before. One of my friends had a still-birth a few years ago, 2 hours after it was born, it started crying. There are a few things that get so improbable that we say is impossible. If 0 was definite and 1 was a simple 'no' then anything that's 'impossible' falls at 0.999... it's quite simple.

Now not liking The Muppet Movie or Waffles, I'd say those fall dead on 1.

 

[RoboPenguin]

There will always be impossibility. For example, it is impossible to stab somebody with liquid water. There is no probability, no chance, no percentage. It is physically impossible.

/immature arguement

stab verb
1. to pierce or wound with or as if with a pointed weapon: She stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork.
2. to thrust, plunge, or jab (a knife, pointed weapon, or the like) into something: He stabbed the knife into the man's chest.

Actually, if you could alter the viscosity through some means(been a while since I looked into this, but I vaguely remember someone being able to make a liquid "solid" without freezing it through vibrations and frequency ossilation), you could actually stab someone with water.

Or you could just use the water saw/jet at my dad's work.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I've already gone over this, except with an infinite parallel realities. Which is basically the same thing.

 

[Maze1125]

On an infinite timescale, anything and everything is possible and will happen eventually,

That's not true.
Provided the probability of the event decreases over time, you can have an event that is possible for all time but nevertheless isn't certain to happen.

could you cite an example of such an event?

Anything with exponential decay.
For example, if you got a sample of radioactive material and put up a target for the particles of radiation to hit. That may never happen, because less particles are put out over time, but at any given time a particle may still be released and it may be in the right direction.

I have another paradoxical theory to pose to the people of this thread:

Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, where 2 people, A and B, being the exact same age were separated, one traveling at near-light speed while the other remained stationary for a number of years. At the end of this period, the one staying stationary is old, while the traveler is relatively young, due to the relation between time and movement or somesuch.

My idea comes into play near the beginning. If, as all the physicists I've asked say, the only relation we take into account is the relative speeds of A and B, why do they age differently?

Relative to A, B is moving at near-light speed, while relative to B, A is moving at near-light speed. Thus, they should age at the same rate, as relative to the other, they are stationary and the other is the one moving. When I ask my physics professors about this, I ask if it's in relation to a fixed point in the universe, but every one has said that is not the case and then given me a very confused look.

I've always been confused by this, and have never received an adequate explanation.

If one is moving very fast relative to the other, and they stay that way, symmetry is maintained.
A will see B stay young and B will see A stay young.
The asymmetry only occurs when one changes their reference frame.
So, if B slows down and returns to A at the same speed in the other direction, A will have aged and B will have stayed young. But this only happens because B changed reference frame.

 

[klokateer9047]

"Possible" and "impossible" are nothing more than ideas used to help explain reality.

Just like Time isn't neccasarily(I'm sure I mispelled)real but used as a
man-made way to keep track of everything.

 

[Maze1125]

If 0 was definite and 1 was a simple 'no' then anything that's 'impossible' falls at 0.999... it's quite simple.

0.999... = 1 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.85789]

 

[Agayek]

If one is moving very fast relative to the other, and they stay that way, symmetry is maintained.
A will see B stay young and B will see A stay young.
The asymmetry only occurs when one changes their reference frame.
So, if B slows down and returns to A at the same speed in the other direction, A will have aged and B will have stayed young. But this only happens because B changed reference frame.

What do you mean by reference frame?

Is it the direction of travel, such that if B continues on in a straight line forever, they age equally? Also, why is it B that ages? Since they're moving relative to each other, why can't it be A that ages instead?

 

[Nmil-ek]

"Possible" and "impossible" are nothing more than ideas used to help explain reality.

Just like Time isn't neccasarily(I'm sure I mispelled)real but used as a
man-made way to keep track of everything.

No time is a practical force in our universe, possibility or impossibility are concepts we attach to things in our universe.