(April 26, 2014 at 9:53 am)thequestion Wrote: People at the time of the compilation had a lot different concerns than including patterns and it would have been difficult to do without a PC.

Einstein managed without a PC and so did the majority of mathematicians who ever lived.

Mathematics In Medieval Islam

Quote:In his A History of Mathematics, Victor Katz says that:[2]

A complete history of mathematics of medieval Islam cannot yet be written, since so many of these Arabic manuscripts lie unstudied... Still, the general outline... is known. In particular, Islamic mathematicians fully developed the decimal place-value number system to include decimal fractions, systematised the study of algebra and began to consider the relationship between algebra and geometry, studied and made advances on the major Greek geometrical treatises of Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius, and made significant improvements in plane and spherical geometry.

An important role was played by the translation and study of Greek mathematics, which was the principal route of transmission of these texts to Western Europe. Smith notes:[3]

In a general way it may be said that the Golden Age of Arabian mathematics was confined largely to the 9th and 10th centuries; that the world owes a great debt to Arab scholars for preserving and transmitting to posterity the classics of Greek mathematics; and that their work was chiefly that of transmission, although they developed considerable originality in algebra and showed some genius in their work in trigonometry.

Adolph P. Yushkevich states regarding the role of Islamic mathematics:[4]

The Islamic mathematicians exercised a prolific influence on the development of science in Europe, enriched as much by their own discoveries as those they had inherited by the Greeks, the Indians, the Syrians, the Babylonians, etc.

On to the History Of The Golden Ratio

Quote:The golden ratio has fascinated Western intellectuals of diverse interests for at least 2,400 years. According to Mario Livio:

Some of the greatest mathematical minds of all ages, from Pythagoras and Euclid in ancient Greece, through the medieval Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa and the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler, to present-day scientific figures such as Oxford physicist Roger Penrose, have spent endless hours over this simple ratio and its properties. But the fascination with the Golden Ratio is not confined just to mathematicians. Biologists, artists, musicians, historians, architects, psychologists, and even mystics have pondered and debated the basis of its ubiquity and appeal. In fact, it is probably fair to say that the Golden Ratio has inspired thinkers of all disciplines like no other number in the history of mathematics.[11]

Ancient Greek mathematicians first studied what we now call the golden ratio because of its frequent appearance in geometry.

(April 26, 2014 at 8:55 am)thequestion Wrote: And no, it does not matter that there were other versions of the Quran or that it was complied later.

In that case it would have been possible for mathematicians to create patterns which were included in compilations.

I don't really mean to be rude, but I regard this kind of stuff as bullshit. Besides -- if you really are an atheist, what does it matter?

So the options are:

1. It is a coincidence.
2. Humans put the pattern in.
3. Rather than reveal himself, God put some patterns into the Koran to demonstrate his existence to those that don't understand the argument from ignorance.

I'm going with 1 or 2. Normally with this stuff it's almost always 1, but having briefly looked at it it could also be 2.

So some numbers are the same? What is "miraculous" about that? Coincidences happen all the time, even with numbers. I've had days at work where all my figures are palindrome numbers. My sister got a new sim card a few years ago and the number was almost identical to mine, but ended with a 1 instead of an 8. Recently at work I had a shit day where everything went wrong and I was even robbed of £80 by a scammer, then at the end of that awful shift my shift number was 13 and my number of transactions was 666.

Number coincidences are very very common, and to call them "miracles" is the most ridiculous bullshit I have ever heard. Could a "miracle" be any more underwhelming? "Hey, deity of choice, can you perform me a miracle? Grow this guy's leg back or something?" "I can't do that, dear, but look what I did to these little numbers!"

Fuck off.

(April 28, 2014 at 5:50 am)FreeTony Wrote: So the options are:

1. It is a coincidence.
2. Humans put the pattern in.
3. Rather than reveal himself, God put some patterns into the Koran to demonstrate his existence to those that don't understand the argument from ignorance.

I'm going with 1 or 2. Normally with this stuff it's almost always 1, but having briefly looked at it it could also be 2.

Most of these proclaimed "miracles" are actually quite likely to happen but the ones i presented arent at all. I think this is also why you consider "2. Humans put the pattern in.". There two intersting patterns which are quite complex and straight forward. I am sure that noone intentionally put these patterns in there but also i cannot belief that this could be a mere coincidence, although I might be wrong. And I would like sb. to explain or to show why even two such "cool" looking patterns can happen by chance.

(April 28, 2014 at 10:58 am)thequestion Wrote: Most of these proclaimed "miracles" are actually quite likely to happen but the ones i presented arent at all.

That particular pattern is very unlikely. However finding some sort of pattern is not. If you look for patterns in random numbers you will also find them. There must be thousands of different patterns that one could look for. However normally with this stuff it is done the wrong way round. People add the numbers together in certain ways until they get a pattern. You will also find that almost every old document that exists has had the numerology treatment.

There was an even simpler more powerful pattern that you missed. The chapter numbers are each one greater than that of the last chapter. Perhaps the work of an all powerfull God...

(April 28, 2014 at 10:58 am)thequestion Wrote:

(April 28, 2014 at 5:50 am)FreeTony Wrote: So the options are:

1. It is a coincidence.
2. Humans put the pattern in.
3. Rather than reveal himself, God put some patterns into the Koran to demonstrate his existence to those that don't understand the argument from ignorance.

I'm going with 1 or 2. Normally with this stuff it's almost always 1, but having briefly looked at it it could also be 2.

Most of these proclaimed "miracles" are actually quite likely to happen but the ones i presented arent at all. I think this is also why you consider "2. Humans put the pattern in.". There two intersting patterns which are quite complex and straight forward. I am sure that noone intentionally put these patterns in there but also i cannot belief that this could be a mere coincidence, although I might be wrong. And I would like sb. to explain or to show why even two such "cool" looking patterns can happen by chance.

Patterns are everywhere if you look for them.

Quote:Hidden Names in KJV Genesis and Edwards v. Aguillard

I have very recently carried out a study on finding hidden names in both the KJV Genesis and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1987 ruling on Edwards v. Aguillard (a well-known ruling on creationism, hereafter referred to as simply Edwards). I used the same set of rules for both the KJV Genesis (about 150,000 characters) and Edwards (about 100,000 characters). I loaded a list of preselected names and let the computer search for each one in turn, for equidistant letter sequences with step distances from 2 to 1,000, and for every possible starting letter. I searched forward only.

• One would expect that special biblical messages hidden in the Hebrew Bible would simply not make it into the King James Version, much less into Edwards. And since the Hebrew alphabet doesn't include vowels, it should be much harder to find matches in the English texts, because an additional character match is required for each vowel.
  
  Drosnin’s control was the Hebrew text of War and Peace. Drosnin claims that when they searched for words (such as “comet,” “Jupiter,” etc.) in the Bible, they often found them there, but not in War and Peace.
  
  I picked a set of names carefully. The list contained five names of four letters, five of five letters, five of six letters, five of seven letters, and five of either eight or nine letters. I was more whimsical in my choice of subjects and chose talk show hosts, scientists, and just plain folks as well as political or historical figures. I found thousands of hidden occurrences of these names in both Genesis and Edwards....

— CSICOP: Hidden Messages and The Bible Code

Somebody did the same thing with Moby Dick.

http://www.awitness.org/essays/bibcode.html

Did you check the calculations yourself?
No credit awarded if you don't show all steps and partial results.

In a standard scientific report, there is a section on materials and methods which allows anyone with suitable background and resources to confirm or deny the conclusions of the experimenters.

In this case, I'm highly suspicious that there are errors in the unchecked results. It is a repeatedly observed phenomenon that the devout will slant/fabricate data in order to confirm their preferred conclusions. My default position is that this is what has occurred.

My time is too valuable to look for where the fudging took place. Even if this investigation was done honestly, the argument that coincidences happen is valid. A true positive result is only circumstantial evidence of supernatural intervention of any kind. After that you still have to show which god, devil or impersonal ectoplasmic instantiation did it.