Dr. Retard

Xeren:

I'll just be quick here. Are you trying to defend the reasoning of the criminal survivor ("Nothing remarkable here; after all, if I they hadn't all missed, I wouldn't be here to wonder")?

xeren

No, Clutch, that's exactly what I'm trying to get across. My point is that, you taking the exact steps is extremely improbable, but your steps where going to fall somewhere, and it's only in retrospect that your exact footfalls were of any significance.

We are agreeing again. Now take your example and apply it to the universe.

I can feel it. You're very close to understanding what I'm trying to say. I guees I'm just not making my argument very clear.

xeren

No, Dr. Retard, I thought I just made it very clear that the firing squad and the universe were markedly different. So, yes, the prisoner should be amazed that he had survived.

Dr. Retard

Then, in all likelihood, we agree on the essentials.

I sincerely doubt that your retrospective / non-retrospective distinction cuts any ice, though. You seem to be, at bottom, appealing to a different distinction -- between special improbable events and mundane improbable events. No location of footprints is more special than any other. No arrangement of molecules is more special than any other. Whereas the prisoner-survives improbability is much more special and salient than the other possible bullet-location-results. What about the universe? Is physical life special? This seems to be the issue.

xeren

Okay, now we're making progress!

Consider this. Is the configuration of the universe very special in and of itself? I would say (and I would hope you would say), "no, it's only special because we happen to like existing."

Now think about the arrangement of footprints. Are any outcomes of the arrangement of footprints very special in and of themselves? I hope you would say no again. Now, what If, every time someone created a certain arrangement of footprints, say arrangement A, which occurs 1 in a billion times, they were given a huge bag of cash? Now arrangement A becomes pretty special, doesn't it?

This is different from the firing squad, where there are not a lot of small probability outcomes- there is only the large probability that the man will get shot and a very small probability that he will not. It is already known that it will be special if he is not shot.

With the footsteps and the universe examples, there ARE a lot of small probability outcomes, let's say each with equal probability. Only when WE assign value to one of those many outcomes(arrangement A or the configuration that allows life) are we able to lump all the other low-probability outcomes together and call them "the probability that arragement A or our existing won't happen". Then you can say, "Wow, that special thing happened, despite the incredible odds that it wouldn't! Really makes you think about how special arrangement A is!"


-xeren

Clutch

I think I understand it quite well. My point is just... well, the same as your last comment. Talking about retro and non-retro probabilities is an unclear and strictly inaccurate way of making a complaint about the individuation of an event for the purposes of assessing its probability. Because that problem applies in consideration of the past and the future both; it's just a more tempting error in retrospect. But the consideration of probabilities is the same in both cases.

The important point is this:Well, I think I know what you're trying to say, but it sounds wrong. It is not that the precise footsteps are significant in retrospect; ie, that now some difference applies that calls for the use of a different notion of probability. What you ought to say is, If you judge the particular placement of your footsteps as significant in retrospect, then you cannot equivocate between their imputed particular significance, and their significance pertaining simply to my getting to work.

Given that I was going to get to work, it was certain that one of these precise footstep outcomes or another would be realized. With respect to my getting to work, none of them is surprising -- though the probability of each is very low. But the same is true in advance of the fact, too: Given that I will get to work, some footstep-chain or other will occur...

There is no difference between the retrospective and non-retrospective cases, with respect to probabilities.

Elf

Ah the "Infinite Improbability Drive" Beeblebrox, fasten your seat belt; the Elf is at the Helm again. (Homage to Douglas Adams)

It has been a while, my fellow worriers over seemingly insolvable conundrums, I, the Elf of long ago, have returned, to trouble your sleepy consciousness, and hopefully have you trouble my paradigm as well. Greetings to all, I have read each post in this thread and wish to partake.

Please define parameters to select the reality you wish to travel to.

Previous inputs include:
“I think, therefore I am” Des Cartes

“I feel, therefore I am, because I can talk about how I feel forever” Ophrah & most Women, poets, songwriters ect..

“I hear music, therefore I am. I hear in my minds ear and I can share what I hear with others, therefore I really am.” Bach

"Beauty is Truth, Truth is beautiful." Elf/ Einstein(paraphrased)

“I reason objectively, therefore I am.” Most Freethinkers

“I argue incessantly to define my reality, therefore I am.” Elf & most posters here.

So that I may have a good argument, with those who wish to define the terms of a reality, which we may argue about. Can we begin with a
definition of,
1? What is existence? 2. What is real? 3.What is unreal?
4. Is there an objective reality? If so please describe this objective reality.

Once you have defined Parameters and selected a destination, please stay seated, with your seatbelt fastened. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

“The anthropic cosmological principle asserts that the laws, constants and basic structure of the universe are not completely arbitrary. Instead they are constrained by the requirement that they must allow for the existence of intelligent observers, ourselves.”

I wish to extend the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, but must have some form of agreement on the 4 questions above.

I look forward to a lively and enlightening discussion with the minds I have encountered here. Regards ~Elf~

Elf

To start things off I offer a few quotes from some of you:

Clutch poses:
A: We conscious embodied agents exist.

B: The universe has the properties that make it nomologically possible for us conscious embodied agents to exist.

Elf agrees, a starting point! At least we seem by all that we hold real in our individual and shared consciousnesses to exist.

But how do we define existence? That which is physical in that it has some form of objectively observable persistence, or replacability that can be experienced by self and others? A measurable force or mass?
Were X-Rays real before 1895? How can we prove that?

Is an idea real? It can be shared, thus replicated by others. Is the light within our dreams real? I am able to speak of it because I have relative certainty that each of you also experience the phenomenon of light within one's dreams. We can even measure the electrical impulses of dreams traveling across our brains. Does that make the light within our dreams real? Real what?

Is Love real? or is it the scientifically demonstrated phenomenon of Phenyl Ethyl Amine intoxication? Does measuring P.E.A. make Love a reality? Because then it is objective and not subjective?

Is intention real? Certainly it is easy to see that each of our posts & this very forum, resulted directly from our collective and individual intention to communicate.

How do we define that which is real from that which is unreal?
Regards, ~Elf~

Elf

Dr.Retard states:
Here are the biggest problems I see with the fine-tuning argument:

(1) What's so special about physical life? Really improbable results should pique our interest, only if there's something really striking and special about them. We don't care about mundane improbable results (lottery winners, random number generators) and we shouldn't care; we (should) just say 'so what?' I don't care how improbable physical life is, not until someone shows me why it's special.

Elf answers: What do You mean by special? That which has causal effect over what we call reality? I ask you what is valuable to humans? What should we know about that is of lasting beneficial importance? What is real?

(2) Why would God care about physical life? Sure, it makes sense that God might make other minds to interact with. But why embodied minds, (temporarily) trapped in decaying organisms? Why would God go that route? Why not just make angels and the like? Why expect God to have a thing for physical life?

Elf replies: It is my belief that G-d is separate from physical reality and Spacetime itself, yet causes it to be because we, who are G-d's children need this 4-5 dimensional school existence that we may begin to understand and exist in 5-6 dimensions. Eventually we will participate in much higher dimensional reality, unless we become trapped in believing 3-4 dimensional experience only. This is a possibility created along with free choice.

DrR:
(3) Why would God go through such a zany procedure? Suppose he wants physical life. So he sets up the universe to randomize over different sets of cosmological constants, only a few of which lead to physical life? That seems counterproductive. And why can only a few of them lead to physical life? Because of natural laws, which are presumably under God's control. What is his problem? If you want physical life so bad, just make it. Don't play Rube Goldberg with reality.

Elf answers: One argument supposes G-d is the ultimate artist and entertainer. It is mystery that amazes and entertains the consciousness. Entertaining experience is the best form of education. It is the elaborate extravagance of the physical reality that we find ourselves in, that suggests infinity, and an infinite series of universes.

My belief is in finite space-time, infinite potential in the consciousness of G-d. Yet G-d does not waste energy, it only seems that way to us. I'm with you on this DrR. I believe G-d caused the universe simply from primal intention, which presented itself in what we call the Big Bang into Space-time. I also believe that His One-Song (Uni-verse) is proceeding just as he intentioned. Our language uses gender, G-d has all gender & none. We use the term he, yet she also gives birth to her intention and incarnates the child of all experience within the Universe.

beausoleil

Things are special only when observed by intelligent life - being special is a property of the observation, not of the things in themselves. No universe can have special features in which there is no intelligent life (unless observed by an outside intelligence).

Without committing to an answer, we can ask why there is a universe in which something can ask "why is this universe special to us?".

This is not the same as explaining why the inquirers are fine tuned to their universe, which is a consequence of natural selection.

It doesn't seem to be obviously true that whatever the 'rules' of a universe natural selection could produce something capable of framing the question. As we presently understand things some combinations of physical constants would give no opportunity for complexity. This might be the explanation, but we aren't warranted in asserting that it is.

Some agency might have constructed the universe for the inquirers.

There might be many universes (in some sense) with a spectrum of properties. In which case that one allows something capable of framing the question would not be surprising.
----------------------------------
It's also true that the combination of 'rules' of this universe might be an inevitable property of any universe. But this seems to me to just move the problem back a step - why is whatever forces them to be that way the way it is?

In short, the 'anthropic' argument does not force us to deduce the existence of God - there are other possible explanations. But it isn't trivial.