Can a river change its path?

Discussion in 'Other Off-Topic Chat' started by SovietChild, Mar 5, 2020.

  1. SovietChild

    SovietChild Active Member

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    If a river can't change its path, and a wheel can't stop turning by its self, how can human change its path? Are we living in some kind of predestinated world? Eternal Return?

    What do you think?

     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2020
  2. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If the next world can be 10 feet higher than the last world, anything is possible.

    ;)
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2020
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  3. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not sure those are good examples since rivers change their path all the time and a wheel will stop turning due to friction. :cool:

    I believe everything is probably predestined, given that all of the physical rules which govern the universe appear fixed and so the entire sequence of cause and effect could be theoretically be predicted. That's only theoretically because to make that prediction, you'd have to know more data points than there are atoms in the universe so in practice, it doesn't actually make any difference to us whether it is predestined or not. We'll never know either way.
     
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  4. SovietChild

    SovietChild Active Member

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    Do you have a better example?
     
  5. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Try again. Rivers are constantly changing their paths even when you’re not paying enough attention to notice it.

    People make decisions which alter their path through the world every day, even if you’re too self absorbed to notice it.
     
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  6. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't think there are good metaphors because the reality as I see it is strange and abstract. It's simple enough to explain though, so we don't really need to confuse the issue with metaphor anyway. The difficult bit is getting your head around it, like with an infinite universe or dividing by zero.

    Or we could just not worry about it and focus on what to have for dinner this evening. :cool:
     
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  7. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    The Yellow River changes its path all the time. sometimes flowing into an entirely different sea as a result.

    Often at the cost of tens of thousands of Chinese. and it has been done by man before as well as during the Japanese invasion of China in order to stop a Japanese advance.
     
  8. Crownline

    Crownline Banned at Members Request

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    I haven’t smoked that chit since the 1980’s
     
  9. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Rivers can and do change course. A close look at the Mississippi river on detail maps proves it. Borders between states along the Mississippi river that were established in the center of the channel a hundred years ago are now on dry land in dozens of instances. Families who have their roots and their original land in Louisiana are now residents of the state of Mississippi on the east side of the river and vice versa. It's the same on the upper Mississippi river. It's the same on smaller rivers.

    A little research on how an oxbow lake is formed will prove this point.

    You can't step into the same river twice -- Heracleitus, 500 B.C.
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2020

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