The Teleological Argument (p4)

[Joshua260]

An odd claim given that we know of exactly one planet with life on it and we know that 99.9% of the universe is exceedingly hostile to that life.

That may seem so until you delve into the subject. I invite you to study the info in the following link:
https://beliefmap.org/god-exists/universe-fine-tuned/

 

[Joshua260]

I know that. It's one of the many unspoken and unsupported assumptions hidden in the argument. Here is your chance to clarify the matter.

Why do I need to clarify clearly written English?
The conclusion to my argument is:
"Therefore, it [the fine-tuning of the universe for life] is due to design."

 

[Joshua260]

Considered relative to other arguments (e.g., the KCA), further problems arise. Given the designer's supposed timelessness, he could not have "fine-tuned" the universe any other way because the act of contemplating and selecting from different design concepts requires the passage of time. Unlike any other person we would recognise as a "designer," this being lacks creative freedom; he cannot do otherwise because, being timeless, he cannot change. He is forced to create the universe, and even then, he is forced to create it in a particular way. This is a significant departure from what we usually mean when we call someone a "designer."

How about staying on topic?

 

[Joshua260]

That's the problem with many of these sorts of arguments: even if they were effective, they would only warrant a form of deism at best. Yet the people who regularly use these arguments are not deists, but Christians, Muslims, and Jews; people whose theologies include claims about the nature, identity, and will of God; claims about sin, salvation, miracles, heaven, hell, and even the origins and ultimate fate of the cosmos. Building a compelling case for belief in God in only the first step. Apologists still have a long road ahead if they are to establish the credibility of all their other religious claims, of which there are many.

Stay on topic please.

 

[Joshua260]

That doesn't mean the constants were tuned for life. For one, to show that you'd have to demonstrate that they could have been any other values (or at least significantly different values) than what they are currently. To do that, you'd need a working, tested model of how those constants came about in the first place. I think you've got quite a long way to go before you're ready to demonstrate that level of knowledge about the formation of the universe.

Until you can do that, there's no reason to claim that there's any tuning of those constants at all, much less fine tuning. If you drop a book off a table, it isn't fine tuning that makes it fall - it is just inevitable cause and effect at work. Perhaps that's the same reason the constants are what they are. They simply couldn't be anything else. I'm not saying that's what must be true, but unless you can prove it is absolutely false we can reject P1 as unfounded.

Why do I need to prove what scientists already agree to?

 

[Davian]

Why do I need to prove what scientists already agree to?

What exactly do you think they agree to? Opinion, or science? Citation, please.

 

[The Cadet]

Necessity and chance seem to exhaust all of the alternatives to design. If you're going to make a counter-claim that there are other alternatives, then you carry the burden of proof for that counter-claim. That's nature of debate.

But I'm not making a counterclaim. I'm asking you to back up your claim. Stop trying to shift the burden of proof. Please demonstrate that necessity, chance, and design are the only three options for the fine-tuning of the universe.

 

[Davian]

"Finetuning" to me suggests that physical constants can be "tuned" (changed by a deliberate act).

Even if a few scientists have used the term before, it's a horrible term. I have zero reason to think that this is even possible. Physical necessity and chance at least correspond to something I can relate to in nature.


eudaimonia,

Mark

To be fair to them, they do usually use the term with the appropriate qualifier, as in it "seems" fine tuned, or the "appearance" of design. Trust the religionists to pull these terms out of context.

 

[bhsmte]

What exactly do you think they agree to? Opinion, or science? Citation, please.

Sounds an awful lot like a poster in a another thread.

 

[Joshua260]

What exactly do you think they agree to? Opinion, or science? Citation, please.

Scientists agree that slight variations in various constants would make this a life-prohibiting universe. I've already provided you citations for this.

 

[Joshua260]

"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."


"The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

"It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe"

"The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design"

"This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning"

"It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious..."

"the values of the various forces of nature appear to be fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life."

Lots of opinion there. I do not see any support for a scientific consensus that the universe is actually fine-tuned.

Got anything else?

P1 is more plausibly true than not, and the scientists agree with that fact. Go argue with Hawking.

 

[Davian]

Scientists agree that slight variations in various constants would make this a life-prohibiting universe. I've already provided you citations for this.

That the constants are constant is a different set of goalposts.

It would also make it a star-prohibiting universe, etc.

And, your citations only provided opinion, and opinions that did not directly support your premise.

You are not writing a book on this, are you?

 

[Joshua260]

But I'm not making a counterclaim. I'm asking you to back up your claim. Stop trying to shift the burden of proof. Please demonstrate that necessity, chance, and design are the only three options for the fine-tuning of the universe.

Hawking himself restricted the alternatives to the same three I listed in p2:
"Does string theory, or M theory, predict the distinctive features of our universe, like a spatially flat four dimensional expanding universe with small fluctuations, and the standard model of particle physics? [He's postulating about the first alternative here, specifically whether string theory makes our universe physically necessary]. Most physicists would rather believe string theory uniquely predicts the universe, than the alternatives. These are that the initial state of the universe, is prescribed by an outside agency, code named God [now he's listing the third alternative of design] Or that there are many universes, and our universe is picked out by the anthropic principle [here, he lists the second alternative of chance]".

S.W. Hawking "Cosmology from the Top Down" paper presented at the Davis Cosmic Inflation Meeting. U.C. Davis May 29, 2003.

Now it's your turn. Please demonstrate where Hawking left out a fourth alternative.

 

[Joshua260]

And, your citations only provided opinion, and opinions that did not directly support your premise.

So now you are going to dispute scientists when they say things you don't want to believe?

 

[Davian]

P1 is more plausibly true than not,

No, it isn't.

and the scientists agree with that fact.

The "fact" in that quote, is that the numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted, not that they have been determined to be fine-tuned. The scientists do not agree with you.

Go argue with Hawking.

I agree with Hawking. I need not misrepresent his words.

Can you not do better than that?

 

[Davian]

So now you are going to dispute scientists when they say things you don't want to believe?

I don't know. You will have to provide me with an example.

 

[Arythmael]

I'd like to discuss and explore the Teleological Argument, so I offer the following version:

1. The universe is fine-tuned for life.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
3. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
4. Therefore, it is due to design.

Here are some of my thoughts:

You should be careful about using the term "fine-tuned" in the opening premise, since it already implies a goal-oriented activity (the tuning process). I think people know what you mean, but there is probably a better way to word it so that it does not appear to presuppose what you are trying to prove.

I do not understand what you mean here by "physical necessity". The concept of necessity implies the existence of an unfulfilled "need" of some kind. And any such unfulfilled need will, of course, remain unfilled unless something comes along to fulfill it. When it does, it is either by chance or design. So the term "physical necessity" does not appear to offer an option which in any way removes the requirement for one of the other options. In fact, it only appears to try to describe in what WAY the process of life happens.

Another thing to consider is the concept of "meaning". What if someone designed life, but with no apparent meaning or purpose. In that case it would be "designed" but very much arbitrary. With no apparent goal for this creator's actions, even those actions came upon us merely by ... chance. So in order to rule out chance, you need to show there is "meaning", that is, a real "goal" that is evident (or communicated).

As a logical argument, whatever other folks here may say, the outline you gave is valid. It may not be "sound". But it is valid. For those who are unfamiliar with the difference, here is a valid, but unsound argument:
1. All cows fly.
2. Jessie is a cow.
3. Therefore, Jessie flies.
That is valid because IF the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. But that is also unsound because, well, the first premise is wrong.

So your argument is valid, but yes, we would need to show that the first three premises are actually true. For anyone who is willing to accept those premises based on your evidence, they must rationally accept your conclusion. But until then, no.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Your reply demonstrates that you are still not clear as to the nature of the claim of p1.

Yes, one could just as easily re-write my p1 to say that the universe is fine-tuned for stars (that is if in fact evidence supports that slight variations in certain conditions would render star formation impossible).

What you're really doing here is straying into p3 and questioning whether the universe is necessarily life-permitting, and you are confusing that issue with p1. Let me provide an example to illustrate:
Suppose that you and I walk into a house and find a 70" SONY Flat Screen TV in the front room. I might look around and see how big the room is and how the layout is extremely suitable for sound, and proclaim "This particular room is extremely suited for a 70" Sony Flat Screen TV." [That in itself is the nature of the claim of p1...scientists have noticed that so many conditions in the universe are set at a really narrow range that is extremely suitable for life. This observation in itself is not controversial.]

This "particular room" (i.e., the universe) contains much more than a flat screen TV. One could say that it is "extremely well suited" for that bookcase in the corner, that couch in the centre, and that side-lamp, etc.

By the way, you ignored the rest of my post:

In any case, the claim that the universe is "extremely well suited" for life is in need of further justification. What would a universe "moderately well suited" for life look like, or how about a universe "poorly suited" for life? By what criteria is our universe "extremely well suited" for life? How do you differentiate universes that are "extremely well suited" for life from those that are "poorly suited"?

Presumably, you will say something along the lines of "the presence of life." But if "the presence of X" is taken as the criterion for fine-tuning, for being deemed "extremely well suited for X," then we are back to the beginning, with a universe that is "extremely well suited" for everything that happens to be in it, living or not.

continuing in my example: But then you point out "Hey, why don't you comment on that fancy couch over there? Isn't this also a extremely suitable room for that couch?" (That's analogous to your replies). But then I reply "So what? Everybody's got a couch..."
[In other words, we can have lots of front rooms that have couches, but they don't all have to have TVs. Scientist agree that the universe could have existed without life.]

Ignoring for a moment the fact that you don't know whether "everybody's got a couch," the universe could also have existed without heavy elements, without a Jupiter with 63 moons, without galaxies, etc.

Now into p3 (for chance)
me continuing: "...It's the TV here that makes this room extra special". You: "But a lot of other rooms have a TV also." Me: "Yes, but very few have 70" Sony Flat Screens".
[So the odds of having a universe with life is extremely small compared to the odds of a universe existing that is totally dead.

This is where your analogy falls apart. You don't know whether very few rooms have 70" inch flat screens. You haven't been to any other room but this one! This is the only room you have ever been in.

"“If you believe the equations of the world’s leading cosmologists, the probability that the Universe would turn out this way [life-permitting] by chance are infinitesimal — one in a very large number.”
Geoff Brumfiel “Our Universe: Outrageous Fortune,” Nature, Vol 439:10-12 (Jan. 5, 2006)]

Did you read the rest of the paper you are quoting from?

But things have changed in the past few years, says astronomer Bernard Carr of Queen Mary, University of London, UK. String theorists and cosmologists are increasingly turning to dumb luck as an explanation. If their ideas stand up, it would mean the constants of nature are meaningless. “In the past, many people were almost violently opposed to that idea because it wasn’t seen as proper science,” Carr says. “But there’s been a change of attitude.”

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Necessity:
"Most physicists would rather believe string theory uniquely predicts the universe than the alternatives (God and multi-universes in which ours is "picked out" by the Anthropic Principle)".
But Hawking points out that string theory fails to support necessity:
"[String theory] cannot predict the parameters of the standard model."
Chance:
Not only is it not necessary, but it is unlikely:
"Does string theory predict the state of the universe? The answer is that it does not. It allows a vast landscape in which we occupy an anthropically permitted location."
S.W. Hawking "Cosmology from the Top Down" paper presented at the Davis Cosmic Inflation Meeting. U.C. Davis May 29, 2003.

It bears repeating: "I don't want to second-guess apologists, but I presume the first two options were eliminated due to paucity of evidence? If paucity of evidence is a problem for those two options, it is just as much a problem (or even more so) for the third option (design)."

 

[Archaeopteryx]

How about staying on topic?

That is on topic. The designer is supposed to be timeless, no? Or do you disagree with your version of the KCA now?