One-eyed Jack

SOMMS: if you read my last post, the one above yours, you will see that in fact the situation is just as I have stated it: the fine-tuning argument and the anthropic principle are intimately linked. If one postulates multiple universe--again, there are plenty of references in my last few posts--then the fine-tuning argument becomes trivial, and the anthropic principle a tautology.

Don't argue semantics, argue ideas. Can you refute the obvious: that given the probability of multiple universes with a nearly infinite variation in physical laws there is no reason to conjecture that the properties of the one we inhabit were fine-tuned to allow our existence?

That's what you really need to address. As Von Clausewitz (I think it was) said, the rest is cabbage.
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Addendum:

It strikes me that maybe you really don't see the intimate connection between the fine tuning argument and the anthropic principle.

Your statement of the AP will do for a starting point: "Given we exist...we should not be suprised that when we look at the universe and find it supports life."

What, exactly, does "supports life [as we know it]" mean? Simply that the physical laws and constants are consistent with the conditions to allow life as we know it to arise.

What does the fine tuning argument say about the universe? Simply that the physical laws and constants are consistent with the conditions to allow life as we know it to arise and therefore they had to be so ordered by a Deity.

Obviously, the two arguments are perfectly congruent as regards physical evidence; it is only the conclusion of the fine tuning argument that differs: therefore the constants had to be fine tuned by a Deity.

The AP could easily be restated thus: Given carbon-based life exists, we should not be surprised if the physical laws and constants of the universe appear fine-tuned to allow such life, no matter how statistically unlikely such fine-tuning seems. The only changes in this from your statement are to make the terms somewhat more specific. There is no change in meaning.

Do you see why the two arguments are intimately related, SOMMS?

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On Newton: I was being rottenly imprecise. I meant that Newton was not an orthodox Christian even though he did not formally disavow the Anglican faith until he was on his deathbed. In that sense he is a good example of an early scientist who was definitely outside the mainstream Christian faith. Sorry for the confusion...my bad evilness.

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: One-eyed Jack ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

One-eye,
First: The thing about the billions of universes...
A-It is complete speculation.
B-It is complete speculation that is necessary for people who don't want to believe in God.
C-We cannot nor could ever know if there ever was a single 'additional' universe.
D-What we do know indicates that there is definetely ONE universe AND this universe is not cyclical. It had a very definite beginning and it is expanding at the critical rate.
E-From a scientific theory point of view...one need not create billions upon billions of extra universes that might as well be abstract entities since there is no possible way we could ever know that they exist or existed...when there is a perfectly reasonable explanation that is far more simple and concise...namely design.
F-The primary reason the idea of a 'multiverse' was created was to try to come up with some secular explanation for how life could actually happen despite the horribly unfathomable odds. This does not seem unbiased to me.

Stop right there. There IS no 'probability of of multiple universes'. This is complete speculation. There is absolutely ZERO evidence that such universes exist AND moreover THERE CAN NEVER BE EVIDENCE THAT SUCH UNIVERSE EVER EXISTED! This is far worse than any 'magic elf' hypothesis which could at least be verified one way or the other. However, empirically we have no reason to think there were billions of universes...we have absolutely no evidence that these billions of universes ever existed.

Perhaps IF the universe were collapsing THEN one might have sufficient reason to postulate a cyclical universe...however that is not the case.
We are not collapsing. There is not evidence for a cyclical universe.


No...this actually ISN'T the FTA. The FTA simply says that we should have little confidence in the hypothesis that this universe happened at random.


Absolutely. The AP makes no claim about how we got here. It just says 'Since we are here...we should expect to see things these ways'. It DOES NOT say anything about the statistics of us randomly happening. And it shouldn't. It is an obvious, trivial tautalogy.

I hope you see that your version of the AP as stated above says *nothing* about the how we got here which is exactly what the FTA speaks to.

This might illustrate: It is perfectly acceptable for a theist to accept both the FTA and the AP. I am one of them. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive in the slightest.

SOMMS

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas ]</p>

Tercel

One-eyed Jack,
People are always annoyed at losing power... even the power to threaten people with a thunderbolt from God, so I'm hardly suprised by those clerics behaviour. Franklin might not have been a run-of-the-mill Christian, but he was not exactly a run-of-the unbeliever either.

That's an amusing way of looking at it, and factually incorrect as well. I see others here have provided correction already.

Also a rather amusing way of looking at it. Whether or not the scientific views of Kepler and Galileo went down well with the Church Authorities, the men themselves appear to have been believers. In Kepler's case, for example, he appears to have accepted Copernican theory on the basis that the simplicity of that theory was indicative of it being God's plan. Galileo, I understand, wrote a public letter explaining why his scientific theory did not conflict with the Bible.
These guys were prepared to stand up to the Christian Authorities of their day, but it hardly makes them any less Christian any more than it makes Martin Luther less Christian.

Really? I see. And which part of my statement was not strictly true?
Has the existence of quadrillions of entities not really been hypothesised? Is there some actual evidence for them? (as opposed to "may"s and "might"s that that accompany every as-yet-unsupported theory) Is the poster's main reason in suggesting this possibility something other than wanting to avoid God?

Don't worry I am quite up to date with science. I have an interest in physics, especially quantum physics and cosmology. It's also hardly possible for me to discuss these sorts of things on message boards such as this without knowing at least a reasonable amount. There's lots of people like you in the world who want to be helpful, I've had any number of people show-off their knowledge in my direction over the years. So unsuprisingly nothing you quoted says anything I haven't read about 10 times before.

I did give this hypothesis a passing sarcastic mention. You'd have seen it if you'd read my post carefully.

Your abilities at copy+paste are quite impressive.

Tercel

Thomas Metcalf,

Obviously then the corresponding probility of such an elf's actual existence is correspondingly lowered. Whichever way you combine their probabilities together, you're still including the ideas of there existing an elf, the elf being magical, the elf being intelligent enough to influence the outcome, and the elf liking the particular number.
The "God" in the fine tuning argument, by contrast is defined only as being intelligent.

~shrugs~ If you like...
No, my argument is that:
P(L|G) &gt;&gt; P(L|~G), so P(G|L) &gt;&gt; P(G) and P(~G|L) &lt;&lt; P[~G].

&gt;&gt; Whether or not this makes P(G) more likely than P(~G) will of course depend on your thoughts about the a priori probabilities, and just how much I can convince you of the initial inequality.

The Fine Tuning argument is an evidential argument, if that is the point you are making...
"Such a God"? The argument only defines "God" as intelligent, I'm not sure that is particularly improbable. The only atheological argument I can think of against such a "God" is an inductive argument against the existence of a bodiless intelligence based on the general observation that intelligences take material form.

The basic aim of the fine-tuning argument is to establish ~(~G & O), ie it is not the case that both atheism is true and that there exists only one universe.
The aim of this in turn being to eradicate the atheist claim to parsimony and that they are the only side who does not hypothesize any unevidenced, untouchable, invisible, undetectable entities. The conclusion of this in turn being that Occam's razor is not on the side of the atheists and atheism should not be considered the "default" belief. [at least not because of Occam's razor]
Since the idea of the unproveness/invisibleness of God seems to be pretty important in the minds of many would-be atheists, I see the Fine Tuning argument as quite an important refutation of this idea.

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Thomas Metcalf

The God in FTA is intelligent enough to influence the outcome and prefers life and is either not alive or does not exist in the universe. I don't see any real difference in the amount of ideas necessarily present. (It also seems much more likely for a being to exist that can influence random number generators than for one to exist Who can influence universe constants.)

So you conclude that life is evidence for the proposition that an intelligent being who prefers life influenced the outcome. I'm afraid this is rather trivially true. Life is evidence for all sorts of related propositions.

I think it makes more sense to say that the burden of proof cannot be shifted in this way. Yes, life is more likely on the hypothesis of an intelligent influencer, but for us to say that this provides significant evidence for theism requires something more.

You cannot, of course, deny that that numerical sequence in question would provide some evidence for the "elf" proposition.

Also, FTA, if it does provide some evidence for an intelligent influencer, does nothing to confirm the existence of the god of Christian theism. Martin has pointed out that it provides equal evidence for a malevolent creator, something inconsistent with theism.

I must continue to deny that we can estimate the probability of God to be .5 or better. Until we know how likely God is, we cannot say that the evidence provided by FTA is enough to shift the burden of proof to atheists, or even to say that there is "good" evidence for God, any more than we can say that numerical sequence is "good" evidence for the elf. After all, either the elf likes that sequence, or does not -- just the way an intelligent influencer prefers life, or does not.

One-eyed Jack

Tercel: ""Always look to an atheist to hypothesize the existence of quadrillions of unevidenced entities to avoid belief in one supposedly unevidence entity. I am always amazed at the imagination some of you atheists have!"

Tercel's challenge: "...And which part of my statement was not strictly true?"

This part: "I am always amazed at the &lt;B&gt;imagination&lt;/B&gt; some of you atheists have!"

You trivialize mathematical physics as "imagination"--as if physicists sit around and come up with "ad-hoc" (your words, from further down in the same post) theories with no more thought to physics than a fairytale writer. Like so many scientifically unsophisticated, religiously arrogant Christians, you attack what you do not or cannot take the trouble to understand. (Yes, I read your bit about being scientifically literate. I have yet to see convincing evidence of it in your writing.)

Tercel: "It's also hardly possible for me to discuss these sorts of things on message boards such as this without knowing at least a reasonable amount."

Well, you don't say. Sometime you'll have to try discussing these things, then. In your previous post you weren't discussing them, you were mocking them as equivalent to "pink unicorns" and ad-hoc inventions. That tells me more about your scientific sophistication than all your protestations of knowledge.

I quote sources in my posts because I fully expect people not to take my personal opinion for Gospel truth. You sneer: "Your abilities at copy+paste are quite impressive." I respond in kind: Tercel, your abilities at presenting arrogant, unsupported opinion in place of intelligent debate are quite impressive. Well, not really. It's a pretty common vice.

Do you seriously expect to post belittling, sarcastic comments and not receive responses in like kind?

Tercel: "I did give this hypothesis [black hole universe-budding] a passing sarcastic mention. You'd have seen it if you'd read my post carefully."

I did not miss it. I intended to present an overview of some of the main multiverse hypotheses, and that is one of them--therefore I included it. Your accusation--that I had not read your post carefully--is, once again, an arrogant presumption. Based on that nasty little jab, it appears that you assume that everything I wrote in those posts was for your benefit. You are wrong. Most of my longer posts are intended to provide content to forum users at large--grist for the mill, material some may not be familiar with--as well as answer previous posts. You are not my focus.

Now, I could, if I wished, ridicule the idea of a supernatural Dingwallus which lives somewhere unknown and works Its will through magical processes, but why bother? Science wins on points anyway--just ask the priest who had a coronary bypass why he didn't rely on prayer instead of surgery.

Theli

Tercel...

Including eating soap.
Or is that just me?
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Theli

The problem here is that if you engage in comparing P(L|G) and P(L|C) you must first assume that P(G) (probability of the specific creator existing) = 100%.
The problem here is that the design argument cannot stand on it's own. It doesn't add any probability to god's existence.
It simply says that if god existed then he would probably have been the creator of the universe.

Tercel

No Theli,
If P(L|G) &gt;&gt; P(L|~G) then P(G|L) &gt;&gt; P(G). (I can give you the formal mathematical proof if you like)
ie it does make the existence of God more probable - that's exactly what P(G|L) &gt;&gt; P(G) means.

Tercel

Really? You deny that I express a feeling of amazement upon seeing atheist's demonstrate what I perceive to be "imagination"?
Are you really silly enough to assert that you know how I feel better than I do?

Actually, if you believe their writings, significantly proportions of them seem to be investigating hypotheses for the primary reason that they provide an alternative to design.

I have yet to see any evidence of quite a large number of things in your writing. Nevertheless, I do not naively expect you to demonstrate all your abilities in a few words in one conversation...

I did not start with the belittling, nasty comments. Acronos did. I gave his post what it deserved, and I hope he's learned his lesson. You butted in so you're simply getting hit with the same for not keeping your nose out of it.

It is the general rule that posters make it clear who they are replying to. Generally this involves naming the poster being replied to and quoting parts of their post. If the poster being replied to changes half-way through a post it is customary to make that clear or else have separate posts for each poster.
Perhaps you are above simply clarity though?
Your first post was directly addressed to me and you quoted significant parts of my post. Your second post was on the same subject, though clearly addressed to the world at large it did hypothesize on the nature of my reply to your post. Clearly you did expect me to respond to the material you posted.

I am not your focus and yet you specifically address posts to me, quote my posts, and clearly expect me to reply to the material you post? How very strange...

I hope I don't have to take you to task too for trying to create a Religion vs Science argument...