One more quickie. There is a non-zero probability of the sun suddenly turning into a bowl of petunias. Just like there is a non-zero probability that an electron will tunnel through an energy barrier greater than the electron's energy. And that happens countless times whenever you turn on your computer.

Given eternity, a non-zero probability is a certainty. But of course, the sun's natural lifetime is only on the order billions of years, much too short for its petunia trick to come to pass.

Arnold, the probability of the sun's turning into a bowl of petunias is 0. Eternity has nothing to do with this. It's still 0. Just like the probability of the sun turning into Casper the friendly ghost is zero, or turning into Arnold.

Actually, there are various ways that it could theoretically happen. Neutrons can turn into protons, and vice versa. Looking at the QM wave function of the electron shows that there is a non-zero probability that it could pop up somewhere far from the sun. A fortuitous flow of extra energy away from the system is also possible. Sure, a lot of things have to go just right, but the probability is not zero.

You know, there is even a non-zero probability, though much smaller than the sun's petunia trick, that the whole universe just popped up, as is, last Thursday, complete with all our memories, etc. Very unlikely, but not impossible.

QM is a strange beast. If God's creation is truly probabilistic, then we have to be open to possibilities that are almost impossible to imagine. But it seems that, like me, you can't quite swallow everything that a fully probabilistic universe entails.

One more thing. The greatest miracle is the redemption of the soul. It is easier to turn the sun into a petunia than it is to turn a sinner into a saint.

I agree with the essence of what you are saying, but the electrons of the son are not independent of one another, which you example seems not to account for. That was a point I was getting at earlier, that while individual elements (as in "things") may act unpredictably, that doesn't mean the sum of the parts will act in an unpredictable way. However, even here, if you take God's words at face value, groups of humans have acted in ways that God did not expect. For example:

The fact that the electrons interact with each other is what makes the petunia probability incredibly small. Under different circumstances, electrons do "impossible" things much more often (e.g. tunneling). But though the probability is infinitesimally small, it is not zero.

I agree that unpredictability in individual particles does not always translate to unpredictability in the aggregate. In fact, QM is one of the best examples of that; it says nothing about individual particles, but gives extremely accurate predictions about the macro world.



I think we'll have to investigate that more closely, to see if God can indeed be surprised. I suppose that's one of the topics of this thread.

Anyway, what do you think about the distinction between conditional and probabilistic?

I don't know what you're asking here.

There's a verse in Scripture somewhere which God says, "It never crossed my mind ..." The idiom in Hebrew is a bit different, so different translations render it differently. Those who hold the traditional position take the position that these things are anthropomorphic. However, that position has several problems, including being circular in reasoning. (when Scripture says something you disagree with, you disregard what God says as being anthropomorphic; in this case, how could God possibly communicate the thing with which you disagree.)

An example of this is when God is speaking to Moses, and Moses asks how can he know that what he says will be accepted, and God says that he'll do a sign, and Moses what if that's not accepted, and God says, they may believe when the next sign is performed. Why would God say they "may" believe, if He knew for certain they would believe? Those who hold to the traditional position say this is just a figure of speech, for Moses' benefit, because Moses didn't know what would happen. But suppose it really was possible for the people to believe the signs at different points. How would God communicate that?



Here's an interesting Spanish translation of verse 8:



"quizá" means "perhaps"; this is, perhaps the people would believe the second sign. If not, Moses could proceed to the third.

God was laying out the future in a contingent fashion.

Conditional = If you eat the fruit, you will die.

Probabilistic = If you eat the fruit, you might die, but you might not. I'm not sure what will happen in your specific case.

I know what conditional is and what probabilistic is, but I don't know what you're asking. You're asking what I think about the distinction. What sort of answer are you looking for? There must be some context to your question that I'm missing.

I want to know, first of all, if we agree on the distinction between the two. Second, I want to dig a bit deeper to see how each one applies to God's foreknowledge.

I have no problem with conditional. But I'm not so sure about probabilistic. I have thought of the universe as deterministic, though conditional based on our choices. I don't know if that's fundamentalist or Calvinist or whatever. I have to think about it some more.

I think it's a combination. That is, something things are deterministic, and some probabilistic (or conditional, depending upon the context). How this applies to the future is that the future is comprised of a combination events which are known ahead of time and events which are yet to be determined.