Tercel

Jdawg2,
Time for a copy + paste. From Robert Koon's lecture notes on <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/menus/lecture.html" target="_blank">Western Theism</a>:

"There is an interdepency between the cosmological argument (the argument to a first cause) and the design argument (the argument to a cosmic designer/creator). The two arguments are much stronger in tandem than they are when taken individually. We will look at this in more detail when we consider the design argument, but I want to foreshadow that discussion before launching into the cosmological argument.

If the cosmological argument is successful, it provides the means for answering certain important objections to the design argument. For example, a common and serious objection to the design argument is the threat of an infinite regress. The world is highly organized, so we infer a designer. But, every intelligent designer we know (i.e., human beings) are themselves highly organized systems. So, it seems that we need to infer a designer of the designer, and so on to infinity. Apparently, we haven't gained anything, so we should stop at the first step, and assume that the cosmos has no designer.

The cosmological argument, if successful, provides a powerful reply to this objection. The cosmological argument tells us that there is an uncaused first cause of the world. If the world bears the signs of intelligence, it is reasonable to attribute intelligence to the first cause. There is no threat of infinite regress, because we know that the first cause is uncaused. It provides the natural stopping point.

Secondly, the results of the cosmological and design arguments are complementary. As we shall see, the cosmological argument gives us good reason to infer that the first cause has such characteristics as eternity, infinity, unity and necessity. It gives us much weaker reasons, if any, for thinking that the first cause is personal, intelligent or purposeful. In contrast, the design argument gives us good reason to attribute intelligence and purpose to the creator, but it gives us little reason for assuming that the creator is eternal or infinite. Each argument tends to make up the deficiencies of the other."

Tercel

Tercel

In that case why are you trying to criticise my probability assessments?

Your previous arguments seemed to show that you thought that life was not objectively significant, not that you had any problem with the idea of FT itself. My post was demonstrating that I did not make any assumptions about objective significance.

From <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/docs/lec11.html" target="_blank">here</a>:
The existence of "anthropic coincidences" was first discovered in the early 1970's by cosmologist Branden Carter. Since that time, the list of coincidences has grown dramatically. An anthropic coincidence consists of some feature of the laws of nature, the fundamental constituents of matter, or the initial condition of the universe that had to take a value within some interval in order for life (and hence, for human observers) to exist at all. These coincidences can be grouped into several categories: (i) features of the fundamental laws of nature, including the relative strengths of fundamental forces and other physical constants, (ii) characteristics of the fundamental particles of matter, (iii) the size, degree of flatness and smoothness, and rate of expansion of matter emerging from the big bang. and (iv) features of the solar system and of the earth. (The fourth category could be considered a separate sort of coincidence, since it refers to unlikelihood of even one planet as suited for life as is the earth to come into being. Unlike the other coincidences, it does not refer to universal features of the cosmos.)

If any of these features of the universe had lied outside a narrow interval of values, then the existence of any sort of complex chemistry would have been impossible. Complex, self-replicating life seems to depend on the co-existence of a combination of lighter and heavier elements, including such elements as hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. Furthermore, life seems to depend on the formation of stars and planetary systems, since no life could exist in the frigidity of starless deep space or within the superheated interiors of stars. These conditions are interconnected, since only if stars can form and later become supernovas can any of the heavier elements be formed..These processes of star formation and destruction turn out to be very sensitive to the slightest variations in the fundamental constants of the universe. Consequently, the universe is in some sense "fine-tuned" for the possibility of complex chemistry and thus of life.

I make the assumption that for intelligent life to exist in a material universe approximately similar to our own, both stars and complex molecules are necessary. I may be lacking imagination - but I find it hard to believe that any life whatsoever could exit in a universe consisting only of hydrogen and helium at temperatures not far above absolute zero. I ignore the catagory (iv) as described above and concentrate only on those features of the universe itself.

There are plenty of books and websites that list examples of FT (aka Anthropic Coincidences) - where basic properties of our universe, had they been but a tiny bit different would have prevented life.
I use the list here from the <a href="http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html" target="_blank">God and Science</a> website.

These numbers represent the maximum deviation from the accepted values, that would either prevent the universe from existing now, not having matter, or be unsuitable for any form of life.

Ratio of Electrons to protons 1:10^37
Ratio of Electromagnetic Force to Gravity 1:10^40
Expansion Rate of Universe 1:10^55
Mass of Universe 1:10^59
Cosmological Constant 1:10^120

Just to give people some idea of the smallness of these numbers:
The <a href="http://www.hawaii.edu/suremath/jsand.html" target="_blank">estimated number</a> of grains of sand on all the beaches in the world is 7.5x10^18. ie the chance of two people independently picking the same grain of sand given all the beaches in the world to choose from is 1:7.5x10^18 - hugely greater than any of the numbers above.
Or, from Dr Hugh Ross' The Creator and the Cosmos:
One part in 10^37 is such an incredibly sensitive balance that it is hard to visualize. The following analogy might help: Cover the entire North American continent in dimes all the way up to the moon, a height of about 239,000 miles (In comparison, the money to pay for the U.S. federal government debt would cover one square mile less than two feet deep with dimes.). Next, pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the same size as North America. Paint one dime red and mix it into the billion of piles of dimes. Blindfold a friend and ask him to pick out one dime. The odds that he will pick the red dime are one in 10^37. (p. 115)

No, I'm saying "Physical life of any type that we are aware of, and could imagine by extrapolating from that which we are aware of, could not have existed in this universe if the basic physical properties of the universe had been the most infintisimally tiny bit different." ie FT exists.

I've noticed that. You're beginning to sound like Koy, and that is not a compliment.
I'm evading your arguments? How do you think I feel - you're evading my arguments and harping on about the non-significance of life itself which I can't see is relevant as it doesn't magically remove any of the scientific data outlined above like you seem to think it does.

The constants in the universe are <strong>NOT</strong> objectively significant! I'm not arguing they are! I don't assume it, I don't conclude it, I don't in any way whatsoever discuss objective significance!
The only thing that even comes close in my argument is that if a Intelligence did exist then it may well be interested in creating a universe with other intelligences: at least its interest in creating a universe finetuned for intelligent life would outweigh its interest in creating a universe void of all possible life. In fact, this premise is more than my argument needs to succeed. All my argument needs minimally is that If an Intelligence did exist capable of creating a universe, then -in all likelihood- its interest in creating a universe that <strong>could</strong> have intelligent life would either outweigh, be equal, or not be <strong>too</strong> significantly less than (ie more than 20 orders of magnitude or so), its interest in creating a universe that <strong>could not</strong> have intelligent life.

The constants of our Universe are NOT objectively significant, they ARE just special to the beings that benefit from them. YES, constants of the universe which allow the universe to contain intelligent life are ONLY especially interesting to intelligent life. Hence an Intelligence who is considering creating the universe would find constants allowing its universe to contain intelligent life would find such constants disproportionately interesting - which is my point.

~sigh~
Each combination has a probability of one in 1307674368000. Hence the probability of getting the "ascending order possibility" is one in 1307674368000. (ie extremely unlikely) And hence the probability of getting "some other order" is 1307674367999 in 1307674368000. (ie extremely likely). Hence:
<strong>With chance, the ascending order possibility is extremely unlikely and some other order is far more likely.</strong>

Indeed, it is no more likely than any single given other. However a given combination is hugely more unlikely than getting "any other" one.

Unfortunately even the best analogies usually don't quite match up at some point. The fact that we humans find the combination of cards interesting in the analogy, and find our own existence interesting in real life - <strong>though true</strong>, is entirely and completely irrelevant to my argument!

PS, I'm going on holiday for 2 weeks as of this weekend so my responses to any further posts may be delayed accordingly.

Tercel

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Tercel

HRGruemm,
If you want me to give a sensible response to that, it will need to be written in simple language I can understand.
Now, I'm a maths major and can have a good guess at some of what you might be talking about, but there's still way too much jargon and unintelligible references in that post.
If you want me to respond intelligently, please rewrite the post explaining clearly what you mean by everything.

jdawg2

I hope I get this reply with quote formatting correct...

and "bearing signs of intelligence" means what? Is it "intelligent" that the sun is where it is? How about we go look at that other universe with the sun in a different place and see how stupid it is *shrug* I always thought intelligence was something humans came up with to describe certain things (and the rest of the universe doesn't give a damn whether we think it's "intelligent" or not) Sure we may think it's intelligent, but that once again assumes (like others have said) that what we think is intelligent actually matters to the universe.

The guy says "we know the first cause is uncaused."

We do?

This still doesn't seem to answer anything, besides saying "universe is designed because we say it's designed". Which once again is a case of humans projecting "design" onto everything we see. If we establish that there's actually "design" then maybe those 2 arguments can go somewhere. But until one gets a clear definition on what a "designed" universe is supposed to look like, it all seems to be wishful thinking.

Tercel

He is refering to the Fine-Tuning (FT) Argument that Rimstalker and I are discussing in this thread.

See my most recent post to Rimstalker for a discussion of what FT is. I suggest you then read my previous (ie the one before the last one) post to Rimstalker where I lay out in detail what I consider to be the best argument for theism based on the existence of this observed FT.

If the first cause had a cause then it wouldn't be the first cause, would it?
A sketchy version of one possible Cosmological argument (The name "Cosmological" is quite generic and covers a lot of similar arguments) would be thus:
In general things seem to have sufficient causes. -We find it difficult to conceive of something not having a cause, and this innate sense in backed up by observing the world and finding cause-effect constantly works.
Now consider tracing the chain of cause-effect further and further backwards towards the most basic causes of everything.
Does the chain go back *infinitely* or does it stop?
*Insert some argument as to why an infinite chain is not allowed*
Therefore the chain is finite and must end at some point. This point must be something which exists uncaused but yet can cause other things. A bit of unpacking about what this actually implies yields that this initial cause must be outside space-time (and thus eternal), a logical or ontological necessity (and thus non-arbitrary and thus infinite) etc. Hence this first cause has traditionally been associated with God since they seem to share many of the same properties.
That is the cosmological argument in a nutshell. (Don't expect to be convinced by the above - it's merely an outline of how some versions of the argument might proceed) If you want to learn more I suggest you read through <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/menus/lecture.html" target="_blank">these lecture notes</a> on the Cosmological argument.
Or for a different version of the Cosmological argument, you can read Craig's version of the Kalaam Cosmological argument <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html" target="_blank">here</a>.
I'm also currently reading a fascinating book (if a bit technical) titled Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology by William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith. The authors look at the implications of the Big Bang for the Cosmological argument. Craig argues his version of the Kalaam Cosmological argument while Smith argues his own "Cosmological argument for Atheism" and they counter and counter-counter each other's points.
Tons of Craig's other writings (and transcripts of debates) can be found <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/" target="_blank">here</a>.

Tercel

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>