xeren

As I said before, you can't use an analogy in place of a logical argument. For an analogy to truly work, the situation would have to be COMPLETELY analogous, and, if that were the case, then you would have the exact same situation you were trying to create an analogy for, and you would be back where you started.

The firing squad analogy is no exception. There are many factors that the firing squad doesn't share with our universe, the most important being intent. The firing squad intended to hit the person, so yes, one of the many conclusions(as Baloo pointed out) is that there was some type of intervention. For the firing squad to be similar to the universe and its constants, the universe, would have to somehow intend to make the constants within it to not allow life.

If we could somehow know that the universe intended to prevent us from existing, and yet we did exist, then one of the many conclusions we could come to is some sort of higher being forcing the constants to be just what they are to allow life to exist.

But we know of no such intent, we just know that if there are different possible values for the constants in the universe, then our existence is simply vastly improbable. But the fact that we do exist shows that the values of the constants happened to turn out correctly. As I have said many times before, if they didn't, we wouldn't be here to wonder about it.

Dr. Retard

Baloo and Xeren, I fear you've completely misunderstood me. Read what I wrote earlier in the thread (I've made some things bold):

BEGIN
But the following is not, I think, a separate problem with the fine-tuning argument:

(5) We know that physical life did result, so its probability is 1. So we shouldn't be surprised, and we shouldn't seek an explanation.

This is wrong-headed. There's nothing wrong with making probability estimates about something that did -- we know -- happen. A detective can find out about some past event, and then speculate about the likelihood of this event, on various competing hypotheses (e.g., "If the killer was Jim, then the window probably wouldn't have been open; but it was!"). The 'firing squad' example, though inapplicable as a direct analogy to the fine-tuning argument, is an apt illustration of the principle -- just because we know something happened doesn't make it any less surprising.

I suspect that (5)-style critics are presupposing that none of the possible sets of constants are more special than the others. In particular, that there's nothing special about physical life. That's why they say, "If it had gone differently, you'd find that outcome surprising as well." I think this is right, but only because I think that none of the sets of constants is any more special than the others. In which case, this criticism becomes a part of (1).

END

Now, I would never say and have never said that the firing squad analogy supports the fine-tuning argument. The thing is shot through with disanalogies. We all agree here. But that was never the original intent of the analogy anyway. Before Craig and his ilk hijacked the analogy for fallacious ends, John Leslie used it as an illustration of the above principle, "just because we know something happened doesn't make it any less surprising" and the related "just because our existence depends on something happening doesn't make it any less surprising". And this is how I was employing it.

As I've argued above, the fine-tuning argument is bad. Xeren rehearses one of the same reasons I already gave ("we don't know at all if the constants of the universe could have turned out any other way"). But, of the many problems with the argument, there is nothing problematic about (1) the fact that our existence (and subsequent wondering) depends on the constants, nor (2) the fact that we know how things turned out.

Maybe there is a genuine disagreement here. But it looks to me (not to be bitchy) like you rushed to your keyboards without thinking about what I said and did not say.

xeren

I promise you, I took what you said into account, and it's the exact same things I've heard from other people pushing for "life is special".

But there's no way to convince people like you, and there's no way to convince people like me when it comes to this issue, it all comes down to just how special you think we are: If you think there was a purpose behind our creation, then how can you not believe that we are special? But if you see the human race as just another link on the evolutionary chain, not the end and purpose of evolution, then how can you possibly think we are special creations?

-xeren

Dr. Retard

Xeren:

You are forcing me to quote the cat from the Fresh Step commercial:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT?!!??!!?!?!?!?

I said life is special? Where? Point it out to me! After all, I believe that life isn't special, and I said so in my first post:

So, I think life is special? Come on now!

Now tell me again, tell me one more time that you've been reading what I write. I must be a very bad typist if I write p, and you read -p.

Clutch

I don't seem to have any problem following Dr Retard's point. Just because something actually happens, doesn't mean we should fail to be surprised by it's having happened.

Now, I doubt that Leslie's intentions were ever very far removed from those of Craig, Dembski and that ilk. But the basic point is straightforward, and can be altogether divorced from any claim about the specialness of life -- which is what DR has sort of gone wayyyy out of his way to do.

(Heck, I suspect it can even be read as a reductio of taking surprise to be part of the "context of justification", rather than the "context of discovery". Ie, that being surprised is more like being curious than it is to be in possession of a phenomenon requiring explanation. It can lead us to recognize the latter, but need not -- since we can be surprised by perfectly likely events.)

xeren

Sorry, I got you confused with the other person I was discussing this with, but to be fair, I never said that you said that. That's just the impression that I get when someone argues for how special our circumstances are(i seem to remember that you tried to use the firing squad analogy?).

Now I also seem to remember that you agreed that the firing squad analogy is frought with too many disanalogies to be of much help, so what is it that is left of what you are trying to say? The only thing I could find was this:

Why not!? Please tell me why it's not okay to do so.

I'm getting very frustrated because now I'm not even sure what you're arguing for, so please tell me again what it is that you're trying to say.

Dr. Retard

You did say this:

And the only charitable interpretation of all this is that you thought I believed life was special.

Here's the specific version of what I'm trying to say:

Take the firing squad example. Suppose the surviving criminal finds nothing remarkable about his survival; he reasons, "If they hadn't all missed, I wouldn't be around to wonder about it. So there's nothing remarkable about the fact that they all missed." I say the criminal is committing a dumb fallacy.

Now the general version:

Striking, improbable events usually deserve our attention; we should seek to explain them. But suppose a striking, improbable event is responsible for a well-known fact (like the fact that we exist), and suppose that our existence (and our wondering) is dependent upon this striking, improbable event. I say this does nothing to obviate the need for an explanation. If someone says, "It's not improbable. Its probability is 1. After all, we already know it happened. Nothing remarkable here", then I say (s)he is committing a dumb fallacy (Bayesians have a name for this: the problem of old evidence). If someone says, "It's not remarkable, because if it didn't happen, we wouldn't be around to wonder about it", then I say (s)he is also committing a dumb fallacy.

xeren

Okay, let's read what I said again:

Note that I did not say that I never said that you thought life was special, I said, "I never said that you said that". Which is entirely different. If you can show me a place where I said that you said that, I'd like to see it, but when I said that you thought life was special, that was my diagnosis of the situation, pulled from your stance on the issue. I admit that it was an incorrect diagnosis, but I never said that you said that.

Not a big point in my argument, I just wanted to clear that up.

Wait, didn't you just say that the firing squad anaology was "shot through with disanalogies"?

Hmm. Looks like you did. Now why are you using it again to try to prove your point? If it is "shot through with disanalogies", then how can you you use that as an analogy? I already showed why the firing squad analogy doesn't work, so if that is your only basis for this argument, you need to find a new argument.

I realize the firing squad is used typically to prove fine-tuning, but just because you're using it for a different reason doesn't make it any better of an analogy, and here's why: You're missing the difference between the two situations, and it has to do with my old-time friend and favorite thing to point out: the difference between retrospective and non-retrospective improbability. I believe you said you were a late-comer to this argument, so you might have missed my posts to faustuz, which you should go back and read. Here is some clarification if you didn't quite understand them or are just to lazy to go back(I know I would be).

The firing squad example is an example non-retrospective improbability- Before the shots are fired, we know that the odds that the person will survive are astronomically small.

Now, think about where you are sitting right now, and about the exact arangement of the air molecules in the room. What are the chances that the events starting 10 minutes ago could have led to this exact arrangent of molecules? Astronomically small!

But this situation is only retrospectively improbable, it only seems improbable when you go back and think about it. At that time 10 minutes ago, had you guessed that, in 10 minutes, the exact arrangement of all the molecules in the room would be as they are now, and you had been right, that would have been an amazing, non-retrospectively improbable event. But you didn't, so it's only retrospectively improbable, and that is just how the universe is, the fact that the constants allowed for life is only retrospectively improbable.

Just as there is no reason to be shocked and amazed at how improbable it is that the arrangement of the molecules in your room turned out just the way they did, there is no reason to be shocked and amazed that the arrangement of our universe has allowed for our existence.

-xeren

Jobar

It seems to me that this discussion has moved from the anthropic argument for theism, to discussing the anthropic principle- so it needs to be in another forum. I'm going to move it to Philosophy, with the understanding that the mods there may find it more appropriate in Science & Skepticism.

Clutch

xeren, I'm not getting this retrospective probability thing.

Consider the exact placement of my footsteps on my walk to work today. The prior probability that my feet would fall exactly there was very small --especially if you aggregate it over all my footsteps together. Call this probability P.

It doesn't somehow become more probable in retrospect; it's not that in retrospect we say, "Well, now that the event has happened, its probability must have been 1, or something very much greater than P". All that is shown is that, individuated suitably, improbable events happen all the time. Even in retrospect, the odds that my feet would fall exactly there are the very tiny P. But the odds that my feet would fall in some locations or other, not interestingly distinguished from those in which they actually fell, relative to the goal of getting me to work, are quite high indeed. Maybe that's what you're mistaking for some further notion of probability.

From what you've said, no completed event should ever strike us as improbable. I can't see that you've supported any such conclusion, though.