The Teleological Argument (p4)

[bhsmte]

What exactly have I done to myself?

Something very bad, you disagree with him.

 

[Arythmael]

What exactly have I done to myself?

One does it to ones self.

If one rejects God when He has presented Himself sufficiently, this is the natural result of the fact that one does not want who God is. The result of that is eternal separation from everything God is. That seems fair. God will judge what was sufficient and what each of us was responsible for responding to.

Most of the time, however, people do not know who God really is because there is a lot of wrong stuff being said about Him and being done "in his name" and by people who claim to be "followers". Discernment, an open mind, and rational dialogue are the key.

 

[Arythmael]

Something very bad, you disagree with him.

Please don't keep making these remarks, bhsmte. I would prefer to keep dialoguing with you.

 

[Arythmael]

If you are claiming that the universe is "fine-tuned," then you are invoking the metaphor of an engineer, not an artist; you are saying that someone tweaked the settings to optimise a particular function. Whether those settings are aesthetically pleasing or not is beside the point; all that matters is that they optimise the function in question. In art, it's the aesthetics that are important, not how "fine-tuned" the art is for performing a particular function. In fact, the artwork may have no clear purpose in mind at all; it may be open to interpretation. That's clearly not the same as fine-tuning.

There are two different things happening with this discussion, and you don't seem to be tracking them separately.

1. I made some claims about the designer being an artist and how that relates to efficiency, and then you claimed that my very own ideas about that shoots down the teleological argument of this thread.
2. You are making an argument about fine-tuning being indicative of exceedingly efficient work and therefore ruling out the possibility (or likelihood) that such a designer would be an artist.

Furthermore, the way the discussion has flowed, it is clear that you are using (2) to support your claim in (1).

Do you understand this so far?

Now first, be clear that I am willing to discuss (2) separately if that is an argument you would like to raise on your own. But more importantly, I have clearly stated in my last post that that argument in (2) is not logically derived from what I said in (1). I attacked your attempt to make them the same or derive one from the other, but rather than directly address that attack, you twice just repeated yourself and elaborated on number (2).

I said to you:

You're just repeating yourself by saying that fine-tuning implies efficiency, and if something is efficient it must not have an artist-designer ...

... but did you refute that?

No.

I said:

My statements say that if there is an artist-designer it's not true that everything must show evidence of efficiency. That's not the same as saying that if there is an artist-designer then everything must not show evidence of efficiency.

... did you address that counter-argument which shows that my statement does not imply the argument you are claiming shoots down Joshua260's opening argument?

No. You just repeated yourself.

Or how about this blindingly straight-forward remark saying that my claim about the designer/artist is not this argument you repeated?

Nor is that the same as saying that if there are signs of efficiency then there couldn't be an artist-designer.

No. There is no attempt to provide a counter-argument to my statements -- which you quote in your post -- only the repeated presentation of this argument of yours which I am repeatedly trying to show you can not derive from mine.

That is your own argument, and as such you cannot be claiming that mine shoots down the teleological argument of this thread. Is that clear now? If it is, let me know, so I can acknowledge that you concede my argument about efficiency and a designer/artist, and then we can proceed forward with this argument you are trying to make which says that no artist would have been so efficient as to fine-tune the universe for life.

 

[Davian]

Something very bad, you disagree with him.

Indeed. These exchanges would be so much more productive if we would just assume he is right about everything.

 

[Davian]

One does it to ones self.

If one rejects God when He has presented Himself sufficiently,

And who is the arbiter of that? You?

As an ignostic, I can only work with the concepts that I have seen presented here, from vacuous "first cause" designer-thingies alleged in this thread to a "God" that walked and talked in a garden that has no evidence of having existed, poofed people and animals into existence, and later, in a manner contrary to the modern understanding of genetics, populated the planet with a tiny group of individuals and animals that survived a global flood in an unbuildable boat, a flood that killed the dinosaurs in a manner that only *appears* to be 65 million years ago, because the Earth is really only somehow 6000 years old, yet remains, by every object measure to date indistinguishable from nothing.

this is the natural result of the fact that one does not want who God is.

Then there are all those promises of a loving "god" and an "eternal afterlife". Why would I not want to believe that there is something more to human existence than this relatively brief biological stint on Earth?

And, from what I understand of Christian morality, anything goes as long as you believe.

But, as I tried to imply in my previous post, belief is not a conscious choice. There is no switch in my head that I can flip that says "believe".

The result of that is eternal separation from everything God is. That seems fair.

Then there are all the stories of fire and brimstone, that those that don't believe will burn eternally.

Your hypothetical deity would have most of the inhabitants of this planet suffer for something beyond their conscious ability to control. This seems fair to you?

(note: I do not for one second suspect that I have anything to worry about. )

God will judge what was sufficient and what each of us was responsible for responding to.

Sounds like you

• Davian
• Nov 4, 2014

Most of the time, however, people do not know who God really is because there is a lot of wrong stuff being said about Him

lol. And how do you go about discerning what is right or wrong about your god? If I say you have to wear something on your head when you go into church, and you say I have to take it off my head in church, how do we figure that out?

and being done "in his name" and by people who claim to be "followers".

Of course. We should only listen to True® Christians.

Discernment, an open mind, and rational dialogue are the key.

On the subject of an "open mind", are you open to the possibility that all of your "god" experiences were simply imagined, and that your god is only a character in a book? It would explain why no one can demonstrate otherwise.

 

[Moral Orel]

And that is also the case for a true Artist...

Then the fine-tuning argument misses the mark entirely because "fine-tuning" implies efficiency and the image of an engineer, not an artist. You've just deflated the argument.

Sadly, not everything is a hole in the argument for God. Arythmael has just defined God in another exceedingly vague way to make it impossible to see his true intentions so that they are mysterious to us, so that we cannot logically decide what God should or should not have done. It doesn't say that God didn't hide fine-tuning for us to find, it just makes it more impossible to understand him, and to therefore decide whether he makes any sense or not.

Here's the argument being put forth by the idea that the universe doesn't need to be as large and complex as it is though:

The fact that the world and the universe works in these ways that we can calculate and predict has driven people away from God, not brought them closer to him. In ancient times past, everyone believed in God because it was the only way to explain things. They might have disagreed on who actually talked to him, and which God was the right God, but they all believed in the supernatural because they couldn't explain the natural. So if the ultimate goal is to get people into Heaven, then designing the universe in the way that it is (explained by math and natural processes) deters from that goal.

It would be more productive to the creation of adherents to religion to make it inexplicable than to make it possible for us to explain away all the things we used to think God did.

Now all that's left is the origins, but we've done so well so far at making God unnecessary, why would we believe we've hit our limit? So why would God exhibit these aspects of being an engineer and tweaking constants to make things work instead of just making it impossible for us to understand at all? If we couldn't understand it at all, we would believe in him because it would be the only explanation.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

There are two different things happening with this discussion, and you don't seem to be tracking them separately.

1. I made some claims about the designer being an artist and how that relates to efficiency, and then you claimed that my very own ideas about that shoots down the teleological argument of this thread.
2. You are making an argument about fine-tuning being indicative of exceedingly efficient work and therefore ruling out the possibility (or likelihood) that such a designer would be an artist.

Furthermore, the way the discussion has flowed, it is clear that you are using (2) to support your claim in (1).

Do you understand this so far?

Now first, be clear that I am willing to discuss (2) separately if that is an argument you would like to raise on your own. But more importantly, I have clearly stated in my last post that that argument in (2) is not logically derived from what I said in (1). I attacked your attempt to make them the same or derive one from the other, but rather than directly address that attack, you twice just repeated yourself and elaborated on number (2).

I said to you:



... but did you refute that?

No.

I said:



... did you address that counter-argument which shows that my statement does not imply the argument you are claiming shoots down Joshua260's opening argument?

No. You just repeated yourself.

Or how about this blindingly straight-forward remark saying that my claim about the designer/artist is not this argument you repeated?



No. There is no attempt to provide a counter-argument to my statements -- which you quote in your post -- only the repeated presentation of this argument of yours which I am repeatedly trying to show you can not derive from mine.

That is your own argument, and as such you cannot be claiming that mine shoots down the teleological argument of this thread. Is that clear now? If it is, let me know, so I can acknowledge that you concede my argument about efficiency and a designer/artist, and then we can proceed forward with this argument you are trying to make which says that no artist would have been so efficient as to fine-tune the universe for life.

This last sentence suggests that you do not understand my argument. It's not that not that "no artist would have been so efficient as to fine-tune the universe for life;" it's that, if fine-tuning is what you are arguing for, then you aren't talking about an artist at all.

 

[Dave Ellis]

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.

Premise 1 & 3 are unsupported, therefore premise 2 (which depends on premise 1) is also unsupported, and your conclusion can be disregarded until you support your claims.

Let's start with premise 1... How have you determined the universe is fine tuned for life?

 

[The Cadet]

Ultimately, you do it to yourself. And that sounds perfectly fair to me.

Did god create hell? Can god change hell? Can god change the criteria by which people do or do not go to hell?

One does it to ones self.

If one rejects God when He has presented Himself sufficiently

God has not presented Himself sufficiently to me. In fact, I have not found any evidence of God's existence, and when I've looked where people have told me to look (the bible, inside myself, etc.) what I've found is that their reasons for belief fall horribly flat as well.

this is the natural result of the fact that one does not want who God is. The result of that is eternal separation from everything God is. That seems fair.

Even if this logic holds up (If you tell me a magical ice cream kingdom exists where we can eat and eat and never get stomacheaches, get fat, or become diabetic, and I doubt your claims, it does not then follow that I do not want to go to such a magical ice cream kingdom! Even if I doubt your claims in the face of strong evidence, it simply does not follow that I don't want it, it merely follows that I don't believe your claims and/or have some sort of mental block), Davian was clearly not talking about hell as a separation from god, but rather as a consequence those of us already separated from god would care about.

Most of the time, however, people do not know who God really is because there is a lot of wrong stuff being said about Him and being done "in his name" and by people who claim to be "followers". Discernment, an open mind, and rational dialogue are the key.

Actually, it's usually because the concept of god is so designed as to evade any investigation.

 

[KCfromNC]

Premise 1 & 3 are unsupported, therefore premise 2 (which depends on premise 1) is also unsupported, and your conclusion can be disregarded until you support your claims.

Let's start with premise 1... How have you determined the universe is fine tuned for life?

Mainly quote-mining and equivocation.

 

[nonbeliever314]

I saw this thread was still going and I farted.

 

[bhsmte]

Please don't keep making these remarks, bhsmte. I would prefer to keep dialoguing with you.

I call them as I see them.

 

[Ken-1122]

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.

*The problem with the Cosmological argument, unmoved mover argument and all others similar, is it imposes a set of rules it does not apply to itself.


According to what little bit we know about the Universe, the unmoved mover does not exist; it is merely a concept. He proclaims the unmoved mover MUST exist, and presupposes the vast majority of the Universe that we are ignorant of is consistent with the tiny percentage of the Universe we DO know of (a claim nobody is not qualified to make), thus this unmoved mover cannot exist within the Universe, so it must exist outside it. He then proclaims his God exists outside the Universe and is the unmoved mover.


Problem with this is the opposing argument will simply proclaim the Universe as the unmoved mover to which he will probably use science to prove it cannot be. The problem with using science this way is the same science that will dismiss the possibility of the Universe being the unmoved mover will also dismiss the possibility of his God even existing let alone being an unmoved mover! In other words, according to science God is a worse explanation than the Universe!


These arguments will only work on those who presuppose the existence of his God because they are the only ones who will allow you to apply rules to the opposing argument without applying them to his own. I think they call that; “preachin to the choir”.

Ken

 

[Joshua260]

*The problem with the Cosmological argument, unmoved mover argument and all others similar, is it imposes a set of rules it does not apply to itself.


According to what little bit we know about the Universe, the unmoved mover does not exist; it is merely a concept. He proclaims the unmoved mover MUST exist, and presupposes the vast majority of the Universe that we are ignorant of is consistent with the tiny percentage of the Universe we DO know of (a claim nobody is not qualified to make), thus this unmoved mover cannot exist within the Universe, so it must exist outside it. He then proclaims his God exists outside the Universe and is the unmoved mover.


Problem with this is the opposing argument will simply proclaim the Universe as the unmoved mover to which he will probably use science to prove it cannot be. The problem with using science this way is the same science that will dismiss the possibility of the Universe being the unmoved mover will also dismiss the possibility of his God even existing let alone being an unmoved mover! In other words, according to science God is a worse explanation than the Universe!


These arguments will only work on those who presuppose the existence of his God because they are the only ones who will allow you to apply rules to the opposing argument without applying them to his own. I think they call that; “preachin to the choir”.

Ken

Hello Ken. Long time, no see.
Instead of sweeping responses, I was kind of looking for responses directed specifically at the OP.

More on that in a minute, but first, I'd like to explain something about the type argument in the OP. It is called an abductive inference. There's nothing wrong at all with this type of logic, and it is in fact used all the time during criminal and historical investigations. It does not carry with it the level of certainty that an inductive inference does, but never-the-less, it is a valid line of reasoning. It boils down to making an observation and then exploring the possible explanations for it.

This is the argument of the OP.

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

So I call your attention to the following quote which I broke up into several parts:

q1: "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?

q2: 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...

q3: ...or that there are many universes, and our universe is picked out by the anthropic principle "
S.W. Hawking "Cosmology from the Top Down" paper presented at the Davis Cosmic Inflation Meeting. U.C. Davis May 29, 2003.

First, note that Hawking is not denying the fine-tuning of the universe, but is in fact offering a comment on the possible cause of it.
q1 is considering whether physical necessity is the cause of the fine-tuning.
q2 is saying that most physicist prefer the option of physical necessity and Hawking states that there are alternatives and he lists design as one of the options.
q3 is saying that the other alternative is chance.

So the quote above is actually confirming p1 and p2 of my argument.

Other quotes that support p1:
a. "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life". However, he continues, "the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires." Physicists Paul Davies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
*note: his second sentence is only claiming that the usage of the phrase "fine-tuned" is not meant to imply purpose, which is exactly how I use it in p1.

b. “We don’t really know that the universe is tuned specifically for life…”
Quote from Sean Carroll blog (a backwards concurrence of P1. P1 is not claiming that the universe is fine-tuned specifically for life, but P1 is simply an observation that the universe is fine-tuned for life).

Now back to your sweeping response. You imply that I presuppose that a designer exists. However, that is simply not demonstrable using my argument. I simply state an observation that has been made by the scientific community, list the options that Hawing did, and then come to a conclusion which I think has the best explanatory power and I explained why earlier. The difference between Hawking / Carroll's conclusion and mine is that I don't rule out the design option without due cause. They do, so only the other two options are left.

BTW, here is more of Hawking's comments:

"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.

So Hawking seems to be using the following reasoning:

1. The universe is fine-tuned for life.
   
2. The fine-tuning is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
   
3. It is not due to design (I've never seen him offer any evidence for ruling out design), so it is either due to physical necessity or chance.
   
4. String theory does not support physical necessity
5. Even though it is extremely unlikely that a life-permitting universe would be realized, String theory supports a multiverse which raises the odds.
6. Therefore, it is due to chance.

Here's a really short film on the argument of OP (which is a slight variant of Craig's) and includes quotes from various scientists:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/finetuning

I'd just like to know why atheists, especially those who proclaim to hold to "a lack of belief in God", rule out the design option as a cause for the fine-tuning. Without evidence to support ruling out the design option, it seems like they are acting on an assertive belief that a designer "code named God" does not exist.

 

[The Cadet]

Hey Joshua, have you picked over the design prong with the same fine-toothed comb you subjected the chance and necessity prongs to?

 

[Moral Orel]

I'd just like to know why atheists, especially those who proclaim to hold to "a lack of belief in God", rule out the design option as a cause for the fine-tuning. Without evidence to support ruling out the design option, it seems like they are acting on an assertive belief that a designer "code named God" does not exist.

There are two reasons that design is ruled out almost a priori. First, what good would it do for scientific progress if we just assumed God did it? We would be done exploring and figuring things out.

Even if God exists, there's no telling where the end of the line is that creation started from. We used to think it was the Earth, then the Galaxy, now the Universe, so who's to say that's the end? There could be a thousand more steps back that we just can't fathom yet, and there could still be a God.

But if we assumed that God did it, then what reason would there be to understand the universe any better than we do now? And that comes from the fact that God is so poorly defined and abstract. We can't formulate God as a model that we can test and determine if it is true.

And secondly, the reason God is ruled out as a reason for things almost a priori, is because that hypothesis has been wrong in every other thing we have ever figured out... ever.

We know how planets form themselves.
We know how galaxies form themselves.
We know how the universe came to look the way it does.
We know how weather works.
We know how bacteria/viruses/disease/pestilence works.
We know how earthquakes/tornadoes/hurricanes/floods/volcanoes work.
We know how evolution works.

These are all things that God used to be the hypothesis for, and it turns out none of them have anything to do with him. So why would we make a guess that God did it now when that guess has been wrong every time before?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Hello Ken. Long time, no see.
Instead of sweeping responses, I was kind of looking for responses directed specifically at the OP.

More on that in a minute, but first, I'd like to explain something about the type argument in the OP. It is called an abductive inference. There's nothing wrong at all with this type of logic, and it is in fact used all the time during criminal and historical investigations. It does not carry with it the level of certainty that an inductive inference does, but never-the-less, it is a valid line of reasoning. It boils down to making an observation and then exploring the possible explanations for it.

This is the argument of the OP.

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

So I call your attention to the following quote which I broke up into several parts:

q1: "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?

q2: 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...

q3: ...or that there are many universes, and our universe is picked out by the anthropic principle "
S.W. Hawking "Cosmology from the Top Down" paper presented at the Davis Cosmic Inflation Meeting. U.C. Davis May 29, 2003.

First, note that Hawking is not denying the fine-tuning of the universe, but is in fact offering a comment on the possible cause of it.
q1 is considering whether physical necessity is the cause of the fine-tuning.
q2 is saying that most physicist prefer the option of physical necessity and Hawking states that there are alternatives and he lists design as one of the options.
q3 is saying that the other alternative is chance.

So the quote above is actually confirming p1 and p2 of my argument.

Other quotes that support p1:
a. "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life". However, he continues, "the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires." Physicists Paul Davies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
*note: his second sentence is only claiming that the usage of the phrase "fine-tuned" is not meant to imply purpose, which is exactly how I use it in p1.

b. “We don’t really know that the universe is tuned specifically for life…”
Quote from Sean Carroll blog (a backwards concurrence of P1. P1 is not claiming that the universe is fine-tuned specifically for life, but P1 is simply an observation that the universe is fine-tuned for life).

Now back to your sweeping response. You imply that I presuppose that a designer exists. However, that is simply not demonstrable using my argument. I simply state an observation that has been made by the scientific community, list the options that Hawing did, and then come to a conclusion which I think has the best explanatory power and I explained why earlier. The difference between Hawking / Carroll's conclusion and mine is that I don't rule out the design option without due cause. They do, so only the other two options are left.

BTW, here is more of Hawking's comments:

"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.

So Hawking seems to be using the following reasoning:

1. The universe is fine-tuned for life.
   
2. The fine-tuning is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
   
3. It is not due to design (I've never seen him offer any evidence for ruling out design), so it is either due to physical necessity or chance.
   
4. String theory does not support physical necessity
5. Even though it is extremely unlikely that a life-permitting universe would be realized, String theory supports a multiverse which raises the odds.
6. Therefore, it is due to chance.

Here's a really short film on the argument of OP (which is a slight variant of Craig's) and includes quotes from various scientists:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/finetuning

I'd just like to know why atheists, especially those who proclaim to hold to "a lack of belief in God", rule out the design option as a cause for the fine-tuning. Without evidence to support ruling out the design option, it seems like they are acting on an assertive belief that a designer "code named God" does not exist.

Joshua, this has already been addressed. You haven't made any new points.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

b. “We don’t really know that the universe is tuned specifically for life…”
Quote from Sean Carroll blog (a backwards concurrence of P1. P1 is not claiming that the universe is fine-tuned specifically for life, but P1 is simply an observation that the universe is fine-tuned for life).

How you are able to take Sean Carroll's disagreement with the first premise to claim that he actually agrees with it is nothing short of amazing. Of course you have to do this since your entire argument was built on "the scientific community agrees with P1." We can't have anyone in the scientific community disagree then, can we? But since we are concerned by the views of the scientific community, what does the scientific community think about the rest of your argument?

 

[Joshua260]

How you are able to take Sean Carroll's disagreement with the first premise to claim that he actually agrees with it is nothing short of amazing.

It seems amazing to you because
a. you misunderstand Carroll's position on p1 and
b. you still don't seem to understand the meaning of p1 itself.