The fine tuning of the universe.

[PsychoSarah]

If those universes have basically the same physical laws as ours, but with the constants of nature messed with a bit, which is what the argument about fine tuning posulates, then the calculation can be done.

And already too many assumptions for any of those calculations to be worth doing. Also, what are you talking about with this "constants of nature" phrase? You do realize that how physics works is determinant to how chemistry works, and so on and so forth, right? And last I checked, once you get to the level of biology, claiming that there are constants for it would be rather silly, given that we have only the life on this planet to work with, and we still see quite a bit of variation in metabolism and other processes.

 

[Oncedeceived]

This paper has a very different definition of fine-tuning than you are using. That's certainly interesting. So does the fact that the start of section 4 directly contradicts your assertion in post 116 that FT clams are based on observation. As does the fact that then end of section 4.1 cautions people not to use the arguments that sound a lot like what you're proposing.

Have you actually read this paper?

I see where you think this paper is not in line with my view. The part you are reading is not from Luke Barnes but Victor Stenger.

 

[PsychoSarah]

So? Many who are even atheists claim it is a valid explanation but feel that since it isn't "scientific" it doesn't get them anywhere. I disagree, of course.

Valid does not mean likely enough to be worth considering or evidenced. It just means it isn't demonstrably wrong or contradictory... and that only applies to general deities. Most ones specific to religions do contradict reality in some fashion.

The fact is that fine tuning exists as a real phenomena.

No, but thinking it exists is a real phenomena that stems from a common logical fallacy humans are prone to. Did you ever consider that life forms DESPITE the physics we have? I find it interesting that people never stop and think that, maybe, just maybe, the variation on what form life can have is vast, and whatever form of life forms the most easily in any given universe will be that predominant form. We have no way of knowing exactly what limits in the variation of the conditions life can form and survive within our own universe, let alone potential universes with different physics. Forbid our universe be one of the ones actually more hostile to the formation of life than the norm. But hey, we really don't know enough to make much of a judgement call, do we? And yet you think we can presume this universe was designed, or unlikely without a creator? We can't determine anything in that regard yet, and to behave as if we already have will discourage and hinder people from making the progress necessary to figure this stuff out, if that is even possible.

The facts don't change whether you attribute them to a multiverse or God. The point of the thread if we ever get there is why I feel God is a better explanation. Can I prove God did it? No. I just feel God is the better explanation.

How? There is NO evidence for any deities, let alone ones with specific attributes. There is at least a tiny bit of recent evidence for multiple universes to exist.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Of course it makes sense. The proper answer is "I don't understand yet". If they could possibly have other values then by definition they are not really constants. The point of fine tuning is that those parameters could possibly have other values.

No, what you don't understand is when they say they could have been different...not that they could be different and still have intelligent life on earth.

Let's go back to the Kepler's Laws examples. His third law says that the period of an object is proportional to the cube of its semi-major axis of orbit. One could have tried to claim that cubed values was a "finely tuned parameter" for planets. Now we understand that value is a result of the inverse square attraction of the Sun. It may be possible for parameters to have other values, they may not be explained by deeper laws. If it is possible for them to have other values then they are not constants in the sense that the cubed power in Kepler's law is a constant. The multiple universe concept sometimes has those values vary, but there is more than just one multiple universe hypotheses.

Kepler's laws were not necessary or fundamental constants. These are real as well.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Valid does not mean likely enough to be worth considering or evidenced. It just means it isn't demonstrably wrong or contradictory... and that only applies to general deities. Most ones specific to religions do contradict reality in some fashion.

Well we will talk about this when there is understanding about the fine tuning.

No, but thinking it exists is a real phenomena that stems from a common logical fallacy humans are prone to. Did you ever consider that life forms DESPITE the physics we have? I find it interesting that people never stop and think that, maybe, just maybe, the variation on what form life can have is vast, and whatever form of life forms the most easily in any given universe will be that predominant form. We have no way of knowing exactly what limits in the variation of the conditions life can form and survive within our own universe, let alone potential universes with different physics. Forbid our universe be one of the ones actually more hostile to the formation of life than the norm. But hey, we really don't know enough to make much of a judgement call, do we? And yet you think we can presume this universe was designed, or unlikely without a creator? We can't determine anything in that regard yet, and to behave as if we already have will discourage and hinder people from making the progress necessary to figure this stuff out, if that is even possible.

So what if I said patterns we see in organisms is just due to this common logical fallacy humans are prone to? Life doesn't really have any real relationship to one another except that they are on the same planet and would necessarily have the traits they have?

How? There is NO evidence for any deities, let alone ones with specific attributes. There is at least a tiny bit of recent evidence for multiple universes to exist.

Now what would you believe might be that evidence if you deny any evidence that might support it?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Strange, he is not the only one that thinks this. I have asked more than once for you to define it in your own words and you have refused. You claimed to be following the definition of others, but I am not the only one that does not believe this. You need more than a denial otherwise you will simply have post after post pointing out to you that your definition seems to be different.

You seem to think that I must have a different definition if I am the one presenting it. Why?

 

[Oncedeceived]

She won't provide working definitions for her ID hypothesis; ever.

Hitch I am really hoping that his conversation can stay on topic and personal jabs and attacks won't happen. Please.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Sad, rather than taking a chance and learning by her mistakes she is probably going to play coy.

Same to you SZ. Stay with the argument and not me personally please.

 

[Oncedeceived]

In order to "calculate" what potential alternatives there are for universes to be like, we sure would first have to have a basis for those calculations that entirely depends on the parameters and conditions (and their potential variables) in which universes come into being.

Why?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Yes.
Why would we assume the bolded part?
And what is the exact difference between "physical laws" and "constants of nature", for purposes of your statement?
And once we assume that all potential universes must have the same physical laws as ours - what keeps us from assuming that these physical laws necessarily lead to those "constants of nature" that they have lead to?
IOW: What do we even base the premise on that things "could have been" different at all, and where and how do we draw the line between things that "could have been" different and those that couldn´t?

Science is all about that. Are you against science for some reason?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Well we will talk about this when there is understanding about the fine tuning.

There is none. Life is tuned to the universe, not the other way around. We are but weeds growing in the cracks of a roadway, developing where we weren't intended to be regardless of that fact because we happen to be able to do it, and anything that can't fails to thrive. Natural selection drives organisms to adapt to what is there.

So what if I said patterns we see in organisms is just due to this common logical fallacy humans are prone to? Life doesn't really have any real relationship to one another except that they are on the same planet and would necessarily have the traits they have?

-_- except common ancestry, hence common metabolic pathways (which all forms of life don't actually share, btw), hence common DNA structure (amongst most eukaryotes. It can get very weird with prokaryotes)... actually, what pattern? As I mentioned before, THE FORM OF LIFE THAT FORMS MOST EASILY BECOMES THE PREDOMINANT ONE. So, the similarities that almost always have a few defectors are pretty easy to understand when you take all of that into consideration. It'd be more perplexing and harder to explain through naturalistic means if there were no or few similarities between living organisms on this planet. What you view as evidence for a deity is actually what we would expect without one rather than what we would expect with one. A deity has no reason to make such vague patterns that in no way point to an intelligence behind them, like the number of sides crystals have. It's consistent and has a pattern, but the naturalistic processes observed explain it well. Deviations from the norm are more extraordinary and hard to explain than ones that hold the status quo.

Now what would you believe might be that evidence if you deny any evidence that might support it?

I don't deny ANY evidence; I don't think what you are presenting as evidence is evidence to begin with. An example of what would convince me a creator was behind life on earth, or the universe itself? Hmm, a rabbit laying a crocodile egg would do it. Naturalistic explanations have clearly defined rules that can't be defied while retaining the explanation's validity. Anything completely defying that would convince me of an interfering force of some kind.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I was using the multi-verse to show how fine tuning is not like a lottery. The multi-verse doesn't eliminate the fine tuning argument because there needs to be something that cranks out all those universes and produces the laws that govern them, that process would entail its own laws.

Why must that something be conscious, or directed, or anything other than just an extension of natural processes of universes? Maybe some universes divide, or reproduce, or fracture into other universes from time to time. We know so little on the subject, that all those proposals would be considered reasonable and valid. We just don't know, and how would we know how universes come to be in a multiverse we're not even sure exists? And yet, you dare to assume that this, or a single universe model, or any universe origin model, would require a deity to work, on the basis of nothing but our own ignorance on the matter? We don't even know enough about any of this to think it looks fine-tuned, random, or any other such thing. To make an opinion is jumping the gun. Sigh, this is why I hate talking physics. So much unknown stuff, our ignorance is overwhelming.

Would you say the same of the scientists in biology and evolution?

Absolutely. Sure, there are arguments so completely debunked and old that using them seriously is a sign of complete ignorance to the topic at hand, and even those people will not cease to use those arguments without seeing the refutations. It'd be ridiculous for me to assume the position I support is wrong just because there is a chance my argument is bad, and it's be even more foolish for me to try to use statistics to see the chances of my argument being debunked than just finding the rebuttal.

Biology has the benefit of being a subject with far fewer unknowns than physics, which makes debunking arguments a lot easier. Speaking of that, are you going to actually try yourself to destroy my argument, or do you want to hide behind hypothetical rebuttals?

My point was that scientists in most fields of science are methodological in their work. Bias exists I agree. It exists in humans period. However, those biases do not affect the measurements of the fundamental constants nor the necessary requirements for this universe to exist including the intelligent life therein. Where bias comes in is in interpreting what those facts mean.

Yeah, and the presence of measured constants doesn't equate to deities on any objective level. I think you fail to realize that the fine-tuning thing is an interpretation rife with certain biases inherent in our species. We design tools for a purpose. As a result of us liking to fit things into neat little boxes, if any item, designed or otherwises, looks like it has some use or purpose, we automatically are prone to thinking it is designed, even if it isn't.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That does seem to be God's objective. He wants people to be in or out. If you are not for Him then you are against Him. There is no middle ground and there are no fence sitters allowed.

He is not against God. Very few atheists are against God. But it is rather clear that atheists have better understanding of the Bible.

 

[Subduction Zone]

If God does not exist then atheists would not exist either. I have said many times in many different ways that they give a witness and a testimony for God if they realize it or not. He tells us that you are in or out with God. If you are not for Him then you are against Him and they prove that is true.

Repeating nonsense does not make it so. Gods are human inventions, not the other way around.

 

[Oncedeceived]

There is none. Life is tuned to the universe, not the other way around. We are but weeds growing in the cracks of a roadway, developing where we weren't intended to be regardless of that fact because we happen to be able to do it, and anything that can't fails to thrive. Natural selection drives organisms to adapt to what is there.

What evidence do you have that life is tuned to the universe and not the other way around?

-_- except common ancestry, hence common metabolic pathways (which all forms of life don't actually share, btw), hence common DNA structure (amongst most eukaryotes. It can get very weird with prokaryotes)... actually, what pattern? As I mentioned before, THE FORM OF LIFE THAT FORMS MOST EASILY BECOMES THE PREDOMINANT ONE. So, the similarities that almost always have a few defectors are pretty easy to understand when you take all of that into consideration. It'd be more perplexing and harder to explain through naturalistic means if there were no or few similarities between living organisms on this planet. What you view as evidence for a deity is actually what we would expect without one rather than what we would expect with one. A deity has no reason to make such vague patterns that in no way point to an intelligence behind them, like the number of sides crystals have. It's consistent and has a pattern, but the naturalistic processes observed explain it well. Deviations from the norm are more extraordinary and hard to explain than ones that hold the status quo.

Evolution of life would not be possible if not for the way the universe is in so many way but most importantly is for the order we see in the universe. Evolution doesn't evolve. For evolution to even begin there must be order.

I don't deny ANY evidence; I don't think what you are presenting as evidence is evidence to begin with. An example of what would convince me a creator was behind life on earth, or the universe itself? Hmm, a rabbit laying a crocodile egg would do it. Naturalistic explanations have clearly defined rules that can't be defied while retaining the explanation's validity. Anything completely defying that would convince me of an interfering force of some kind.

Naturalistic principles are what we are talking about and you are denying them.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Repeating nonsense does not make it so. Gods are human inventions, not the other way around.

This is assertion and nothing more.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No, what you don't understand is when they say they could have been different...not that they could be different and still have intelligent life on earth.

I understand just fine what they are saying. They are actually saying that life as we know it would not be possible. That does not mean "no intelligent life". And you still don't seem to realize by saying that those parameters could have had different values for a universe you are saying that they are not constants.

Kepler's laws were not necessary or fundamental constants. These are real as well.

It is not now because it is explained by other laws. My point was that those parameters may be explained too. I do believe that some of them have been solved since the start of the 20th century. I would suggest asking essential saltes. The rest we simply don't know enough about yet to make such claims. And trying to squeeze a god into an area where we don't know the answers yet is by definition an argument from ignorance. It is also a "god of the gaps" argument. It does not hold any water.

 

[PsychoSarah]

What evidence do you have that life is tuned to the universe and not the other way around?

Life adjusts to changes in the environment around it, not the other way around.

Evolution of life would not be possible if not for the way the universe is in so many way but most importantly is for the order we see in the universe.

Evolution of the narrow bit of life as we know it that we can study. For all I know, there is a universe in which all laws of physics are backwards, and life STILL forms there in some manner. We don't have the knowledge to make such determinations, and I am getting a bit annoyed that you persist in arguments that assume that we do.

Evolution doesn't evolve. For evolution to even begin there must be order.

Define order. The thermodynamics order? Life generates order, in that sense, and order is little more than a physical state of energy. It's not like an organized shelf.

Naturalistic principles are what we are talking about and you are denying them.

How? What am I denying, exactly? We have our universe to study at the moment. If there are other universes, we can't exactly access them currently, so any description of these already hypothetical items is purely speculative. We also do not come even close to knowing enough about our universe to determine if it has any properties that can't be explained reasonably by anything other than an intelligent force on a deity scale. Any statistical argument you have brought up is inherently flawed by the fact that statistics becomes useless once the scale is too large, so that even if we didn't have gratuitous gaps in knowledge that already make a statistical analysis of the likelihood of the universe an impossible task (if you want the results to actually be representative of the universe), the scale alone is enough to throw off the numbers.

So, are you going to try to refute any of this as wrong? Because if you don't, what am I denying?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You seem to think that I must have a different definition if I am the one presenting it. Why?

Because of the way that you try to use this argument. Others think so too. It was a more than reasonable request that I made. When you say that you are using the same definition as others but then respond otherwise that does not seem to be the case.

Here is a rather extreme analogy. A person claims to be the "same sort of Christian" as others, and yet when you seem him walking down the street he regularly spits at and kicks the homeless. You would have a very good reason to doubt him.

So would it be unreasonable for you to state exactly what you believe this argument is?

 

[Subduction Zone]

This is assertion and nothing more.

So you are saying that all of the Hindu gods may be real? The Norse gods? The Greek gods? I can cite example after example of gods that you would probably claim were invented by man. You will only disagree with one and that will be only assertion from you and nothing more. It seems that you may be projecting your faults upon others.