A Real Life Miracle.

[Mycroft]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQdLttUh_b0

Okay, so perhaps not a miracle. It's just amusing science. But 2000 years ago if you were to do this, it would be hailed as a miracle, or magic, or witchcraft.

The ideas behind miracles and magic come when a lack of scientific knowledge meet with an extraordinary phenomenon.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Nice, Quatermass.

 

[ruffen]

Exactly! A "miracle" is just a spectacular natural event that is misinterpreted by ignorant people who believe something divine or supernatural just happened.

Very cool (bada-bing!) find, Quatermass!

 

[DawudTalut]

Peace to all.

"...laws have many tiers. Some laws are known to man and some other overriding laws also exist but are unknown to man. So, a miracle appears to be a miracle to the ordinary person when he knows only the superficial laws known to people of his time, but he does not know the other set of overriding laws which exist as laws without breaking the other set of laws. An example of this is the law of magnetism prior to its formal conceptualisation.

The laws of magnetism were unknown to the people of some thousand years ago and even people of a few hundred years ago in some parts of the world. They only understood the law of gravity, that the earth must pull everything down to itself. Now if a magnetic field was created about a person who was also wearing a metal which responded to that magnetic field and he was lifted up, the people who did not understand the phenomenon of magnetism would consider it a miracle in the sense that the law is broken, while in reality no law is broken. Gravity is a law of nature and magnetism is also a law of nature and, one law put against the other, follows the overriding principle that whichever acts with greater force would win. But no law had been broken. Similarly, in earlier times many things about chemistry and physics were unknown and people who knew these things in advance of the age would be able to bring about certain tricks through their knowledge.

......
......

The real miracle is that we sometimes observe weak people winning in their confrontation with a powerful group of people. If you were to feed the facts of the situation into a computer, the expectation is that the computer would show that the weaker group will be obliterated and the powerful one will win.

The miracle is this that there is an unseen hand of power, unseen by the people, which is on the side of the weak and, because that hidden hand of power is the strongest, despite the fact that the law is not broken, the weak appear to win. This always happens, without fail, every time when a prophet of God is sent. The true miracle is therefore the victory of the weak over the powerful. The supreme law that ‘the powerful will always win and the weak will always be obliterated’ seems to be reversed in this case but here again, I remind you that the law is not broken. The fact is that the powerful hand of God remains unseen. But the weak ones win not because they are weak and still they win - they win because the Hand of God is with them......."
Source: https://www.alislam.org/library/links/Miracles-and-the-Law-of-Nature.html

 

[Aupmanyav]

Miracle is how Allah cured Mohammad of black magic from which he suffered for six months when Mohammad did not know if he had sex or not, so I have heard.

 

[Sir Doom]

Why is it called instant ice if it takes 2 and a half hours in the freezer to make it?

 

[Mycroft]

Why is it called instant ice if it takes 2 and a half hours in the freezer to make it?

Because it's still not fully ice when it comes out of the freezer?

 

[Estro Felino]

I've tried the experiment and it doesn't work

 

[Sir Doom]

Because it's still not fully ice when it comes out of the freezer?

Yeah but it never will be ice without putting it in the freezer for 2 and a half hours either. That's not instant. That's 2 and a half hours later.

 

[Mycroft]

Yeah but it never will be ice without putting it in the freezer for 2 and a half hours either. That's not instant. That's 2 and a half hours later.

I..err...NO! SHUT UP! YOU'RE RUINING IT! :slap:

 

[Sir Doom]

I..err...NO! SHUT UP! YOU'RE RUINING IT! :slap:

Criss Angel can't levitate either!

 

[outhouse]

Exactly! A "miracle" is just a spectacular natural event that is misinterpreted by ignorant people who believe something divine or supernatural just happened.

Very cool (bada-bing!) find, Quatermass!

Life was so terrible back then, surviving a deep cut was a miracle.

Not starving to death was a miracle.

Maleria was so bad, living through that was a miracle.

Brutal times when a healer said OOOGGIDY BOOOGIDY BOOGIDY, and if you lived, it was a miracle.

 

[idav]

Criss Angel can't levitate either!

Now your just pulling our leg. Even walking on water is a proven fact.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Criss Angel can't levitate either!

I'm hoping that Criss Angel will pull off the ultimate trick and make himself disappear.

 

[ruffen]

Life was so terrible back then, surviving a deep cut was a miracle.

Not starving to death was a miracle.

Maleria was so bad, living through that was a miracle.

Brutal times when a healer said OOOGGIDY BOOOGIDY BOOGIDY, and if you lived, it was a miracle.

Indeed, I guess it depends on the definition of the word "miracle". Is a miracle an extremely improbable event that happens, or is it an impossible event that happens (ie. magic)?

 

[Mycroft]

Indeed, I guess it depends on the definition of the word "miracle". Is a miracle an extremely improbable event that happens, or is it an impossible event that happens (ie. magic)?

That state of impossibility is, however, determined by how much you understand the world. If I could travel back two thousand or so years with a can of liquid Nitrogen, I could surely create 'miracles'. I could pour normal water into a room-temperature surface and watch the crowds look of bemusement. Then I could say 'Behold, I am the Son of God!' and pour the liquid nitrogen and watch the crowds gasp as what appears to them to be water begins to boil without any heat. I could put my hand in the liquid nitrogen, briefly, and make it boil around my hand and claim that was the Power of God.

But the people of that yesteryear do not have any concept of liquid nitrogen or the leidenfrost effect (the effect that causes my hand to not instantly freeze in liquid nitrogen).

I could then use the liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze a man and claim that was the 'wrath of god'. People would talk for centuries about the 'Wrathful Freezing Water from God'.

 

[Sir Doom]

That state of impossibility is, however, determined by how much you understand the world. If I could travel back two thousand or so years with a can of liquid Nitrogen, I could surely create 'miracles'. I could pour normal water into a room-temperature surface and watch the crowds look of bemusement. Then I could say 'Behold, I am the Son of God!' and pour the liquid nitrogen and watch the crowds gasp as what appears to them to be water begins to boil without any heat. I could put my hand in the liquid nitrogen, briefly, and make it boil around my hand and claim that was the Power of God.

But the people of that yesteryear do not have any concept of liquid nitrogen or the leidenfrost effect (the effect that causes my hand to not instantly freeze in liquid nitrogen).

I could then use the liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze a man and claim that was the 'wrath of god'. People would talk for centuries about the 'Wrathful Freezing Water from God'.

If you could travel through time, you could be God right now.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

I've tried the experiment and it doesn't work

There are commenters in the section of the video who say the same thing. The principle seems sound, though. It seems the trick is to get the water below freezing without crystallizing until you are ready for it to crystallize.

 

[ruffen]

That state of impossibility is, however, determined by how much you understand the world. If I could travel back two thousand or so years with a can of liquid Nitrogen, I could surely create 'miracles'. I could pour normal water into a room-temperature surface and watch the crowds look of bemusement. Then I could say 'Behold, I am the Son of God!' and pour the liquid nitrogen and watch the crowds gasp as what appears to them to be water begins to boil without any heat. I could put my hand in the liquid nitrogen, briefly, and make it boil around my hand and claim that was the Power of God.

But the people of that yesteryear do not have any concept of liquid nitrogen or the leidenfrost effect (the effect that causes my hand to not instantly freeze in liquid nitrogen).

I could then use the liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze a man and claim that was the 'wrath of god'. People would talk for centuries about the 'Wrathful Freezing Water from God'.

Yes, but there is a difference between what is impossible and what seems impossible at any given time.

In my view, a true miracle is not what seems impossible (like lightning before one understood electricity), but somthing that is inherently impossible in the Universe. Otherwise it's an interesting natural phenomenon.

Of course my definition of a miracle means that it is something impossible, but if a miracle happens, that is proof that it is indeed possible, therefore not a miracle.

Therefore true miracles don't happen. What seems to be miracles due to the ignorance of observers, however, happens every day.

 

[Mycroft]

In my view, a true miracle is not what seems impossible (like lightning before one understood electricity), but somthing that is inherently impossible in the Universe. Otherwise it's an interesting natural phenomenon.

But, as I said before, that is determined by your current standards of knowledge and understanding. Which is far greater today than of 2000 years ago. So what a 'true miracle' is now is very different to what a 'true miracle' might have been back then.