Written on September 1, 2002 — and later...
What is the probability for a river to flow in straight line, all the way, without deviation?
Beauty is the only thing Almighty Number allows to be worshipped. For that reason, Almighty Number created PHI or the Divine Proportion:
The perfect line river is a beauty of a mind game! There is absolutely no evidence of a river flowing in perfectly straight line. (We know what straight line means for all intents and purposes. The Universe is curved, of course. The classical geometry is a particular sub-system of a larger geometry, where all lines are curved. Then a straight line represents a segment of a circle with the radius equal to infinite. But all that is nothing more than approximation. The Sun looks like a perfect circle — "exactly" an approximation!
How about the probability of a mountain in the shape of a perfect pyramid? How about the probability of a tree in the shape of a perfect cylinder, in a perfectly vertical position? There is absolutely no evidence of such shapes on our planet. We can think of other perfect shapes or geometric shapes: Circles and spheres. How about the probability of a lake or sea in the shape of a perfect circle? How about the probability of a rock in the shape of a perfect sphere?
But I don't think the probability of one of such shapes is zero. For sure, such probability is equal to the probability of any other shape. The Universe is infinite; the matter takes an infinite number of shapes. Therefore, the probability of an individual shape is close to zero, but never equal to zero. Who knows, maybe somewhere in this Universe, there is a mountain in the shape of a perfect pyramid! If not in the present, maybe in the infinite future. The Universe is the result of absolutely free interaction of forces. Randomness is the supreme form of free interaction. We may call Almighty Number Randomness the Almighty. Randomness creates all those shapes of matter. Randomness also creates all those lottery combinations where 1,2,3,4,5,6 is noticeably missing! The same individual probability, but apparently, Randomness Almighty prefers certain shapes or combination thereof.
There is a connection to the material I presented in this message:
WRITER.EXE: Computer program that writes words, sentences, textbooks, and passwords.
One can run WRITER.EXE millions of times and not get an output consisting of 20 sentences that mean something in any natural language. One strong attribute of Almighty Randomness. Only humans (or any creature belonging to the intelligent life in the Universe) override randomness. Humans oppose Randomness using the rational tool named Rule. The rule expects a strict result, not a random result. The rule, for example, is: Plot all the points equally distant from a fixed point (the center). The strict result is the geometrical figure known as 'circle'. Things are relative, however. There is no strict or absolutely certain result. A multitude of factors (all of them random!) can prevent the human subject from carrying out a rule. Besides, the opposition to Randomness is ephemeral in the complexity of universal time.
The lotto combination 1,2,3,4,5,6 seems to be heavily ordered (compliant with a strong rule). The words of natural languages are also heavily ordered by the rules of grammar, and syntax, and pronunciation, etc. We are out of luck, as it were. WRITER.EXE will not generate any meaningful sentence in any language any time soon. Nor will it generate the meaningless first letter permutations or arrangements abcbde fghijklm nop rstuv... Almighty Randomness loves those random patterns (forms or shapes) from inside the FFG median bell.
Only the humans create perfect shapes in very short lengths of time. Wherever self-aware intelligence exists, perfect shapes exist as well. I wonder why the gods of this Universe create such irregular, rugged shapes? The Earth is a curved, but irregularly shaped football, with peaks and valleys. The entire Universe is curved, but it must be irregularly shaped and rugged as well. Looks like the gods don't possess intelligence! A figure of speech—the gods are supposed to be infinitely more intelligent than the mere mortals. The Universe itself and everything inside the Universe would be perfectly shaped—an infinity of geometric forms, like Plato's Forms (or Ideas). It is Time to put the gods to rest. We know better now.
That's the material proof of the inexistence of the gods, of any gods or an Almighty God. It's a visual proof of the impossibility of the existence of the deity. The Deity — Ra, Zeus, Deus, Jehovah, Brahma, etc. many times — is perfect; ss conceived as Perfection itself. The deities are perfectly intelligent. They are infinitely more intelligent than the mortal humans. Well, then, the Universe should have been perfectly shaped. Alas, O immortal ones, only these mere mortals, Homo sapiens, create an environment of geometric shapes. They, the humans, called the geometric shapes perfect shapes. Perfect, because they abide by very strict rules. Perfect line = absolutely straight. Perfect circle — absolutely round shape, all points being equally distant from a fixed point named center. The orbits of the celestial bodies only seem geometrical or perfect. They are far from being elliptical. Only, we, the humans, approximate them as being elliptic. It's so because we fear that nihil, as in Nihil sine dio (“Nothing without god”). The shape is perfect, we cheat ourselves. Therefore, (a) God created it, but not before beating badly that bad guy, Nihil…
And, then, O fearful one, there is the mathematical proof of the absurdity of the Deity concept. It is reflected in the Fundamental Formula of the Everything (FFG). Mathematics demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that absolute certainty is absolute absurdity. Only irrationality hides that rational demonstration. Not to be denied, irrationality has proven to be one of the most trusted shields for the rational creature, Homo sapiens. Can be Deity (or God) perceived outside Absolute Certainty? Not! Non! Who would believe in a god that's even slightly uncertain? No Body! Just an infinitely small amount of uncertainty would render god just another force in the Universe. God would be just another powerful man, like a king, nevertheless a man, therefore limited in time and space.
Mathematics always provides the most compelling proof of everything — or invalidation of everything. They could have put it in Latin to sound like Nihil sine matematica — or something like that. My grandfather Patru commissioned his son and my father Marin to write in wonderful calligraphy something in Latin. It was on the fountain at the family vineyard. The fountains were revered in that region, in that era (up to 1980's, when communism was stronger than ever in Eastern Europe). Nihil sine dio. I know for sure that nihil made me and my childhood's buddies fearful — fearful of nothingness and Latin. While there is a way to bypass Latin, there is no way to bypass Nothingness. To be or not to be can't be separated. Neither by Deus or Nihil.
"Standard, standard deviation
Why's so random the Creation?"
"Well… It's All random overall,
Be it straight, crooked, or small;
For there is no Perfect shape,
Be it rock, river, or grape!"
Only Randomness is Almighty. Randomness is Great! Randominus vobiscum!
Read Ion Saliu's first book in print: Probability Theory, Live!
~ Discover profound philosophical implications of the Formula of TheEverything, including including perfect shapes versus random shapes in the Universe.