Douglas J. Bender

I wasn't "arguing from authority". I was pointing out that someone's claim that "real scientists" (or whatever term they used for "real scientists") always reject the "fine-tuning argument" was not true, if one accepts the PhDs I alluded to as being "real scientists". An "argument from authority" would be to appeal to someone's educational "authority" (their level of training) and their support of an issue as being proof of the truth of the issue.

I read someone (some "authority" on astronomy or geology, or what-not) who said that the range is narrow. They said that a few million miles more distance, and the Earth would be too cold to support life as we know it; a few million more miles nearer, and the Earth would be too hot. Of course, I don't think they were arguing that all life would cease to exist. But, should I take their word for it, or yours?

So you say. And perhaps you're right. But I doubt I could use you as a proof reference for the possibility of life on Mars.

Clever; or is your spelling really that bad?

Clever; or is that merely a typo?

So many assumptions offered as proof.

Because there is such a narrow range of possibilities for the distances involved for which a "total eclipse" is a possibility. It is not proof, but strong evidence that there is more than coincidence at work.

In Christ,

Douglas

TerryTryon

First, it was arguing from authority. Now, it's arguing from ignorance. If you don't know a thing, then you don't know that thing, and there is nothing the knowledge of your own ignorance can tell you, except that you're in need of more information. There is no way that you can draw reasonable conclusions from what you don't know, even if, as is the case here, nobody else in the world has any way to test what's going on either.

I have learned to deal with the idea of variable constants even though it's an oxymoron, because quantum mechanics is so quirky. But to speculate how these constants can vary in hypothetical universes and to draw conclusions based on these speculations that conveniently pull supernatural explanations into the argument is absurd.

Synaesthesia

Douglas,

You are comparing the relative desirability of a god-who-wants-to-create-life with a random universe generator.

This is the core fallacy of all fine tuning arguments. Without this assumption, the mathematical sophistication becomes so much window dressing.

I agree that it is no accident that the universe is the way it is. The question is not whether the universe was randomly picked out of a bucked or specifically chosen out of the bucket, but what sort of fundamental constraints operate on cosmic evolution.

Simply positing an ad hoc contraint (A superbeing wanted it that way) simply cannot compare with developing a deeper understanding of how the universe is structured. Unlike the theist who is perfectly happy to accept a hobbled idea of nature, the atheist cannot stuff gods into the gaps.

Douglas J. Bender

So, you heeded the sage advice to just "Deal with it", then?

I don't think that's quite how it's done, actually. What is done is that it is assumed (hush, don't let anyone know that much of what is science proceeds by making assumptions) that the universal constants could have taken on any number of values, randomly. Which would appear to be the case, if quantum mechanics proceeds truly "randomly". Then, it is observed that for certain apparently universally necessary conditions for life to occur, certain constants had to be particular values to within an incredibly "fine" degree, indicating a "fine-tuning" precision, and not just a happen-stance occurrence.

Kind of like asking what the likelihood would be if a particular incredibly small target was hit with almost perfect accuracy, followed by another, and another, and another, etcetera. In a deterministic universe, even the "free will" actions of humans are determined, so the answer would be "1", which would be intuitively against common sense and rationality, I think.

In Christ,

Douglas

SRB

Douglas:
What is done is that it is assumed (hush, don't let anyone know that much of what is science proceeds by making assumptions) that the universal constants could have taken on any number of values, randomly.

SRB
I agree that this is what proponents of the Fine Tuning Argument do. But why believe such an assumption is correct? Maybe the constants had to be what they are, or maybe some combinations are much more likely than others. Sometimes the so-called "Principle of Indifference" is appealed to here. This principle states that if we don't know the likelihood of a set of options, then we should consider all of them equally likely. Unfortunately the Principle of Indifference was shown long ago by <a href="http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=551438" target="_blank">Bertrand</a> to lead to contradictions. It is not a valid principle of probabilistic reasoning. Essentially, the problem is this: there are different ways to enumerate the possibilities, which entails that any given possibility can be assigned more than one probability, which is of course contradictory.

Another problem arises from the fact that one can use the Principle of Indifference to show that the a priori probability of God's existence is almost zero, as follows. The universe might have been created by any one of an arbitrarily large number of distinct beings. The Principle of Indifference allows us to conclude that the a priori probability that any one of those beings created the universe is equal, and is hence very close to zero. Since only one of those beings is God, we can conclude that the a priori probability that God is the creator of the universe is close to zero.

SRB

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: SRB ]</p>

TerryTryon

It seems a natural part of the human psyche to anthropomorphize anything that is beyond our power or comprehension. What is that bright light that defines the day from dawn to dusk. It is a human-shaped god riding a brilliant chariot! My roommate is convinced that the computer cheats by changing the bombs so that he can't win minesweeper. And who hasn't cursed a wrench that slipped off a nut causing one to skin the knuckles?

But all of this animism does not in fact explain anything: saying that something was done by an intelligent entity has no explicatory value, unless one can examine that entity directly. And as humankind's ability to explain things in terms of natural, indifferent forces has grown, the gods have become more and more remote until now we have some some being so immaterial that it doesn't seem to have even form enough to call a spirit since its only attribute is intelligence and whose chief action it seems was to twirl the dials during the big bang.

But the only evidence for it that we have is "We don't know what did the wonderful thing it did or how it did it, therefore it has to have superior, yet humanlike, intelligence, and it must be worthy of worship." Animism trumps empiricism. And the motive is not to explain, but to declare the issue intrinsically inexplicable.

Fine tuning advocates are, in essence, doing no more than making bloody sacrifices to the rain gods to ensure the water for this year's crops.

Douglas J. Bender

SRB,

Again, I think I mentioned that one makes a reasonable assumption based on all known information. Thus, apparently in the minds of the "fine-tuning" proponents who are "experts" in their fields (physicists, what-not), it is more reasonable to assume that the constants could assume any value with equal probability, or however they determined it. Basically, this means that in their minds it was unreasonable to assume that any given possibility could be assigned more than one probability, though technically it would be logically possible to do so, since not enough information exists to determine the probabilities precisely.

It's a case of "If-Then". And in such a case, the conclusions remain valid.


In Christ,

Douglas

Jack the Bodiless

In this particular field, there ARE no experts as yet, due to the lack of a "Theory of Everything" that would explain the relationships between universal forces and constants.

They are laymen, like us.

SRB

Douglas
Again, I think I mentioned that one makes a reasonable assumption based on all known information. Thus, apparently in the minds of the "fine-tuning" proponents who are "experts" in their fields (physicists, what-not), it is more reasonable to assume that the constants could assume any value with equal probability, or however they determined it.

SRB
Can you provide a quote from a notable physicist (rather than an apologist), who says that we should assume all conceivable possibilities for the values of the fundamental constants are equally likely? I know of none. The suggestion is not "reasonable" at all. It is in fact nonsensical.

Consider, for example, the mass of the electron. Presumably your idea is that we should assume the electron could have taken any mass from zero upwards, without limit, with equal likelihood. However, there is no such thing as a uniform probability distribution over all the positive real numbers. In other words, it can be proved that there is no possible way to select a positive real number from all the positive real numbers such that every option is equally likely.

As I noted last time, even if we accept it, the principle of indifference backfires on the theist. The theistic deity has a certain set of attributes, but I can conceive of arbitrarily many beings that might have existed instead of the theistic deity. I therefore conclude, using the principle of indifference (all options equally likely), that the a priori likelihood that the theistic deity exists is almost zero. Do you agree?

This is all moot because the principle of indifference must be rejected because it can be used to derive ridiculous results, including contradictions. For example, we have no idea how likely it was that the electron should turn out to be less massive than the value we measure (rather than more), so let's assign that a probability of 50%, using the principle of indifference. Also, we have no idea how likely it was that the electron should turn out to be more than twice as massive as the value we measure (rather than less), so let's assign that a probability of 50%, using the principle of indifference. We have now proved, using nothing more than the principle of indifference, that it was absolutely impossible for the electron to be between one and two times as massive as the value we currently measure. Does that not strike you as quite ridiculous?

SRB

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: SRB ]</p>

Bumble Bee Tuna

Why are eclipses being discussed at all?

So the moon seems "cool" from our perspective because it can eclipse the sun well. So human opinion on the relative interestingness of a certain occurence matters? What are the chances that ANY natural occurence will happen? The same as the moon's chances. Yet only to Moon is seen as something that proves Douglas' argument. The sole criteria that sets the moon apart from any other natural occurence is that it seems interesting to humans. Why does our opinion on how cool the moon is have any affect on this argument?

-B