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Unstoppable Force meets Unmovable Object

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Robbery Since: Jul, 2012
#101: Mar 23rd 2013 at 4:56:36 PM

I think that "...as it is currently understood" caveat should just be understood. Or, I dunno, it might be dangerous to assume it's understood. A lot of people, scientists not accepted, have problems with their deeply held beliefs being demonstrated to be invalid. There were scientists who went to their graves insisting that the folks who split the atom were liars and frauds because obviously atoms can't be split.

Desertopa Not Actually Indie Since: Jan, 2001
Not Actually Indie
#102: Mar 23rd 2013 at 6:19:50 PM

Neither an unstoppable force or an immovable object can exist under physical law as it is currently understood

Yes, but scientific progress is overwhelmingly evolutionary rather than revolutionary. That is, each new step in scientific understanding must explain all the same observations that the previous one did, plus some observations that the previous model failed to explain. So new models tend to be more general versions of which older models turn out to be more specific cases (Newton's laws being a very close approximation of general relativity within a certain range of masses and velocities, for instance.)

So while we can't know exactly what future models will look like (otherwise we'd just adopt them now,) we can say quite a lot about what future models almost certainly won't look like, because it wouldn't fit with the observations they already have to explain.

This is one of those things we can predict with high confidence that future models won't contain.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.
Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#103: Mar 23rd 2013 at 7:03:03 PM

I feel that this is missing the point. It's not so much about current physical laws or their understanding, but about whether you can logically construct a system.

Carciofus Is that cake frosting? from Alpha Tucanae I Since: May, 2010
Is that cake frosting?
#104: Mar 24th 2013 at 12:25:54 AM

Carc's premise appears to be that the semantics of language maps exactly onto a logical structure.
Natural language is imprecise and vague, yes. This is exactly why, if you want to talk about philosophical issues (or anything else that requires mental precision), you have to be extremely formal. This is what logics are about: they are extremely regimented, abstract variants of the natural language, and they allow you to be more precise about what you are saying — and, therefore, about its consequences — at the cost of being more cumbersome.

Appealing to the informal intuitions of a "normal person with a fully operative brain" is exactly what you should not do if you want to investigate these issues. Not because normal people are stupid or any misanthropic nonsense like that, but because intuitive, informal thinking can be very easily led astray; and because if you are not clear about what you are talking about (for example, what "all-powerful" means) you'll end up talking about nothing at all.

Okay. Fine. To use a classic paradox, if I add grains of sand to an original grain of sand one at a time, at what point does my statement A 'these are grains of sand' become the statement B 'this is a heap of sand'.
The Sorites paradox can be solved (and has been solved) using a suitable logic. Just to mention one of the better known approaches, fuzzy logic deals with it handily enough; and that's just one of the many existent approaches to logics of vagueness.

I am deeply suspicious of the validity of a model which not only admittedly doesn't map onto reality:
I said that it does not map directly into reality. Statements are specifications of possible states of the world; truth and falsity depend on whether reality matches or does not match these specifications. But necessity and contradiction depend on whether these specifications are the always valid or always invalid one, and this does not depend on reality.

For example, all purple otters are otters: and this is true independently on whether there exist purple otters, or on whether there exist otters, or on what otters are, or on whether there is an universe at all. It is not a property of reality, it is a property of language.

edited 24th Mar '13 12:36:21 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
TheBatPencil from Glasgow, Scotland Since: May, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#105: Mar 24th 2013 at 3:10:31 PM

An unstoppable force and an immovable object may not be able to logically coexist, but what happens if a) an unstoppable force is a thing and b) two such forces collide?

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)
Wulf Gotta trope, dood! from Louisiana Since: Jan, 2001
Gotta trope, dood!
#106: Mar 24th 2013 at 4:12:56 PM

Same problem, I think. Because the two unstoppable forces would have equal forces, they can't coexist either, since a (head on) collision would cause them to cancel one another out, wouldn't it? They're not truly unstoppable, because each can be stopped by the other.

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?
Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#107: Mar 25th 2013 at 8:17:14 PM

As I've said before, another option is that those forces cannot collide by nature.

Wulf Gotta trope, dood! from Louisiana Since: Jan, 2001
Gotta trope, dood!
#108: Mar 25th 2013 at 9:08:15 PM

[up]Wouldn't think that matters, though. The existence of an equivalent force, even one that it can't collide with still means that there's something out there that could stop it. Also, often it's phrased with the caveat "And also can't be forced to change direction", which, they would have to do if they even came close to colliding.

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?
Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#109: Mar 25th 2013 at 9:12:36 PM

Depends on the context. A force does not preclude the possibility that it doesn't come into contact with something to begin with, and therefore the question becomes moot since it can't happen at all. It's not stopping it because they never interact.

Wulf Gotta trope, dood! from Louisiana Since: Jan, 2001
Gotta trope, dood!
#110: Mar 25th 2013 at 9:24:37 PM

Well the question I was answering was about what happens if two unstoppable forces collide, so they'd have to be able to collide for it to come up.

The problem with an unmovable object and an unstoppable force is that their definitions preclude each other. If there's something that, under no circumstances, can be moved or destroyed, everything else has to be able to be forced to stop. If a force exists that cannot be forced to stop or change direction, it has to be capable of moving or destroying everything else. I wouldn't call it truly unstoppable if there's something that would stop it, but they can't collide because they're "out of phase" with each other, but that's just me.

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?
Robbery Since: Jul, 2012
#111: Mar 25th 2013 at 9:26:16 PM

Hey, I know! 200% energy conversion!

Byakuko Imperial Court Minstrel from Great Prosperity Sphere Since: Dec, 2012
Imperial Court Minstrel
#112: Mar 26th 2013 at 8:04:19 AM

Encyclopedia Dramatica claims Satan is the immovable object God created (he basically liberated man from god's little petting zoo)

"I will strike down all that threaten my clan!"
Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#113: Mar 26th 2013 at 9:46:27 AM

If there are two unstoppable forces, it makes sense to say that they cannot stop each other because they do not come into conflict.

Just because something is infinite doesn't mean it can't have a specific structure. For example, a line stretches forever, but only in two directions. In any other direction, a line's distance is zero.

edited 26th Mar '13 9:46:51 AM by Trivialis

Elfive (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#114: Mar 26th 2013 at 10:19:18 AM

A force isn't actually a thing, anyway. It's always exerted by other stuff, usually as a manner of transferring energy.

Something exerting an infinite force must possess infinite energy/mass, which would result in an infinitely large black hole, which much like the infinitely large black hole that would be required to have an immovable object, can be empirically observed to not exist, unless we are inside it.

We may, admittedly, be inside it.

TomoeMichieru Samurai Troper from Newnan, GA (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Mu
Samurai Troper
#115: Mar 27th 2013 at 5:03:56 PM

If this trope ever comes up in a story of mine, I'm going with the 'they're the same object' explanation.

Swordplay and writing blog. Purveyor of weeaboo fightin' magic.
JimmyTMalice from Ironforge Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#116: Apr 5th 2013 at 4:39:33 PM

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

edited 5th Apr '13 4:39:47 PM by JimmyTMalice

"Steel wins battles. Gold wins wars."
Erock Proud Canadian from Toronto Since: Jul, 2009
Proud Canadian
#117: Apr 9th 2013 at 3:24:17 PM

I think that something needs to be made of when you define an unmovable object. If you define it before the idea of an Unstoppable Force is introduced, then the force would win.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.
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