A finely tuned universe that points to a God.

[Michael]

And you have no evidence that there isn't more than one. In order to have a realiable calculation, you have to know for sure.

By definition I'm *assuming* there is but one. Your second point is valid however. It's still an 'assumption' which then allows me to make mathematical calculations.

Why would you assume there was just one?

Well, by definition there is only "one' universe, and GR suggests that spacetime is a continuum that is related to the position and location of mass and energy. Furthermore energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms based on the laws of physics. That would all suggest that there has only ever been one universe that simply changes forms over time.

There are only a handful of species that show signs of sentience. In fact, the vast majority of life on Earth is unicellular.

How brainless slime molds redefine intelligence : Nature News & Comment

Also, the feedback that causes beneficial mutations to increase in number is really no different than other feedback systems in nature, such as the production of tonal resonance in confined chambers.

My point is that those feedback system improvements all go directly toward improving the organisms 'awareness' to the environment in which it lives. That's also how that slime mold can start to 'predict' hot and cold cycles and make behavioral changes to them.

Your definition of awareness seems to boil down to the ability of particles to interact. In that way, it is a fundamental feature.

I'm glad we can find agreement on some topics, if not all of them.

Even the concept of "soul" would have physical overtones.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/orchor.html

 

[Loudmouth]

By definition I'm *assuming* there is but one. Your second point is valid however. It's still an 'assumption' which then allows me to make mathematical calculations.

We can use the lottery as an analogy. Our calculations show that winning the lottery is very improbable. On top of that, our methods of detection only allow us to detect winners. What we find is that the highly improbable happens all of the time to the point that we have to conclude that a deity is fine tuning the interaction of the ping pong balls.

Well, by definition there is only "one' universe, and GR suggests that spacetime is a continuum that is related to the position and location of mass and energy. Furthermore energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms based on the laws of physics. That would all suggest that there has only ever been one universe that simply changes forms over time.

Or different sections of the universe that change simultaneously. We also know of event horizons, such as those seen in black holes.

At one time, we would probably have defined the Universe as the Earth and the domed heaven that stood as a roof above it. I think we are both trying to say the same thing, that the Universe is by definition "everything". What changes is our understanding of what makes up the Universe.

How brainless slime molds redefine intelligence : Nature News & Comment

Then water is intelligent for freezing when it dips below 0 Celcius.

What we see in slime molds is a set repsonse to a set stimuli. The emergent complexity may stump us, but it is not a sign of intelligence as related to creating abstract concepts and communicating them.

My point is that those feedback system improvements all go directly toward improving the organisms 'awareness' to the environment in which it lives. That's also how that slime mold can start to 'predict' hot and cold cycles and make behavioral changes to them.

That's how feedback systems work, they amplify a signal. In this case, that signal is survival which relies on beneficial reactions to stimuli.

 

[Michael]

Then water is intelligent for freezing when it dips below 0 Celcius.

What we see in slime molds is a set repsonse to a set stimuli. The emergent complexity may stump us, but it is not a sign of intelligence as related to creating abstract concepts and communicating them.

I couldn't find a whole lot to quibble about, other than this comment. Even authors of published papers have noted the 'intelligence' aspects.

#71: Slime Molds Show Surprising Degree of Intelligence | DiscoverMagazine.com
http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/33004/1/PhysRevLett_100_018101.pdf

However, the opposite conclusion could also be drawn, namely, that the organism is able to remember periodic changes that it has not experienced before. This indicates that the organism has a generalized capacity for learning, independent of the details of the periodicity.

Discerning a periodicity is not easy, even for humans. According to history textbooks, when the ancient Egyptians recognized the regular periodicity of the flooding of the river Nile and succeeded in anticipating the next flood, this breakthrough triggered the invention of the calendar and was a symbol of the dawn of civilization. It is thus remarkable that a single-celled organism can perform such a function.

Even amoeba are able to feed themselves in a 'smart' manner, including seeking out and selecting a balanced diet.

Even single-celled organisms feed themselves in 'smart' manner -- ScienceDaily

 

[Loudmouth]

I couldn't find a whole lot to quibble about, other than this comment. Even authors of published papers have noted the 'intelligence' aspects.

It's called salesmanship. When slime molds have a concept of self, use abstractions, and construct tools, then let me know.

[qutoe]Even amoeba are able to feed themselves in a 'smart' manner, including seeking out and selecting a balanced diet. [/quote]

What are the mechanisms they use to do this?

 

[Michael]

It's called salesmanship. When slime molds have a concept of self, use abstractions, and construct tools, then let me know.

Gee, you don't want much do you? You'll note that crows routinely use tools to get what they want, as do other types of animals. We're really talking about the *level* of intelligence/awareness, not whether or not it's found in multiple arrangements of DNA.

What are the mechanisms they use to do this?

I'd have to guess that 'awareness' was one of the mechanisms.

 

[Loudmouth]

Gee, you don't want much do you? You'll note that crows routinely use tools to get what they want, as do other types of animals.

Yes, and they may also have a concept of self. I do consider crows to have something akin to human intelligence.

We're really talking about the *level* of intelligence/awareness, not whether or not it's found in multiple arrangements of DNA.

With slime molds, we are talking about set responses to set stimuli. There is no thought that goes into the process. I do not consider that to be intelligence. You seem to be confusing effeciency and benefice with intelligence. They aren't the same thing.

I'd have to guess that 'awareness' was one of the mechanisms.

Awareness isn't a mechanism.

 

[Michael]

Awareness isn't a mechanism.

You've still not explained how an amoeba manages to eat a balanced diet without being "aware" of it's environment and making *choices* about which foods to eat and not to eat.

 

[Loudmouth]

You've still not explained how an amoeba manages to eat a balanced diet without being "aware" of it's environment and making *choices* about which foods to eat and not to eat.

You haven't shown that an amoeba has those characteristics.

I can show you an example of an unintelligent process that produces the same outcome in bacteria. In E. coli, they are able to turn on the expression of enzymes that break down lactose in the presence of lactose. However, if the more energy rich glucose is present, the expression of the lactose digesting enzymes are low and the glucose enzymes are high. It isn't until you have low glucose and high lactose that you get expression of lactose digesting enzymes. How does this work? It is controlled by the lac operon:

Lactose causes the gene repressor to fall off of the promoter region. Low glucose produces cyclic-AMP which allows the RNA polymerase to bind to the open promoter and transcribe the gene. It is all deterministic and non-intelligent processes that result in the "awareness" you are talking about. You might as well claim that water is intelligent because it always knows what the temperature is, and knows when to freeze.

 

[RichardParker]

From the book The Grand Design by Hawking

Stephen Hawking has calculated that if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball.

Doesn't answer my objection at all.
What would be burning? How could anything be burning?
Can you give the quote? Was he maybe talking figurativly there? Without context, this claim doesn't tell me anything.

Also: Didn't I already grant, that there certainly can be configurations of the constances, that wouldn't allow for a stable universe? If not, let me make this clear:
Yes, I don't think and have never claimed, that if you took the universe as it is now, and changed one property, you might not end up with a non-stable universe, one that collapses, one that expands too fast, etc...
So what? I'm not surprised that we don't live in any of these universes... because we couldn't exist in any of these universes. That's very simple.

But your claim to a fine-tuned universe only makes sense if this configuration that we have is the ONLY ONE that could lead to any sort of stable universe. And I object to that. And I don't think that any cosmologist would make that claim either, because I have no idea how we simulated all these possible configurations.

 

[Michael]

You haven't shown that an amoeba has those characteristics.

It actively moves around from one food source to another looking for the 'right' foods in the 'right' balance. You've certainly haven't shown that it *lacks* awareness.

 

[davidbilby]

After your failure to show me that the cosmological constant is not a constant you now reply with cheap responses. First reply to this then we can talk.

In Defence of The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life | Letters to Nature

Only to a charlatan would "debating" by copying other people's paragraphs that aren't entirely relevant be a form of debate.

My reply to that other point is I have no idea why you want me to demonstrate non-constancy of a constant. You brought that up - I have literally no idea what you're trying to refer to here but your straw man burned.

 

[davidbilby]

Perhaps that calculation is a problem for you, but Penrose was able to 'calculate the odds' of a universe that looks like ours based on inflation theory:

Inflation (cosmology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ten to the 100th power sounds pretty 'fine tuned' to me.

The texas sharpshooter fallacy was correctly brought up to answer this, but the other answer - as I've told you before - is not many people think Penrose is right about this.

Calculating probabilities of what "might" be or have been, is based on making certain assumptions, as you correctly noted above, and Penrose's assumptions here aren't particularly tenable and are certainly not reflective of present inflationary theories. Most of the fine-tuning probabilities in this thread - I haven't read it exhaustively so I won't say all, but all of the ones I did read so far - are in a similar boat. If such calculations form the cornerstone of a theological or deistic argument, that argument is on very shaky ground indeed...and again, the obvious point remains, even if you could prove that there was a creator, that there was a divine entity, one would still have ALL one's work to do to show it was a particular deity and not a blind watchmaker.

 

[JimFit]

False. We don't know how many universes there are, therefore we can not calculate the probability of a universe like ours appearing by chance.

If we can't calculate that probability, then the fine tuning argument can not go anywhere.



This is already falsified. Both humans and natural forces can create waterways, as one example.



Now you have inserted your conclusion in your premises which is begging the question.

Your argument fails in the very first two premises.

Can you please tell me how Multiverses destroy the Fine Tuning?
First read this and then reply.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/89/The_Multiverse_Conundrum

Again your reply is pure ignorance.

You said

"We don't know how many universes there are"

How do you know that there are other Universes? Arguing with Multiverses is like arguing with Unicorns.

 

[JimFit]

Only to a charlatan would "debating" by copying other people's paragraphs that aren't entirely relevant be a form of debate.

My reply to that other point is I have no idea why you want me to demonstrate non-constancy of a constant. You brought that up - I have literally no idea what you're trying to refer to here but your straw man burned.

You can debate instead of me the author, he accepts questions from ignorant people (in cosmology).

 

[JimFit]

With slime molds, we are talking about set responses to set stimuli. There is no thought that goes into the process. I do not consider that to be intelligence. You seem to be confusing effeciency and benefice with intelligence. They aren't the same thing.

Awareness isn't a mechanism.

Single-celled amoebae can remember, make decisions and anticipate change, urging scientists to rethink intelligent behavior

How Brainless Slime Molds Redefine Intelligence [Video] - Scientific American

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lls27hu03yw

 

[JimFit]

The texas sharpshooter fallacy was correctly brought up to answer this, but the other answer - as I've told you before - is not many people think Penrose is right about this.

This is ad populum fallacy, many people think Penrose is wrong therefor Penrose is wrong.

Calculating probabilities of what "might" be or have been, is based on making certain assumptions, as you correctly noted above, and Penrose's assumptions here aren't particularly tenable and are certainly not reflective of present inflationary theories. Most of the fine-tuning probabilities in this thread - I haven't read it exhaustively so I won't say all, but all of the ones I did read so far - are in a similar boat. If such calculations form the cornerstone of a theological or deistic argument, that argument is on very shaky ground indeed...

The Cosmological Constant and the other 11 Constants are not shaking, if you don't accept something (because it destroys your belief that you are a cosmic mistake without purpose or free will that nothingness spewed) its your problem. The Constants are well defined and accepted from the whole Scientific community, Stenger was a heretic but i hope God will rest his soul.

and again, the obvious point remains, even if you could prove that there was a creator, that there was a divine entity,one would still have ALL one's work to do to show it was a particular deity and not a blind watchmaker.

God is one because He is Eternal, you can't use 2 infinities (2 Gods), it doesn't make sense, it is like using 2 nothings.
In the question which God is Him? Well here Theology comes in, if God was bad why did He even create us? So God is Good, if God was arrogant and unfair that created us to show off his power why we can understand the Creation he made? So God is fair and so on and so forth...it takes lots of studies to learn about the true nature of God.

 

[JimFit]

Doesn't answer my objection at all.
What would be burning? How could anything be burning?
Can you give the quote? Was he maybe talking figurativly there? Without context, this claim doesn't tell me anything.

Also: Didn't I already grant, that there certainly can be configurations of the constances, that wouldn't allow for a stable universe? If not, let me make this clear:
Yes, I don't think and have never claimed, that if you took the universe as it is now, and changed one property, you might not end up with a non-stable universe, one that collapses, one that expands too fast, etc...
So what? I'm not surprised that we don't live in any of these universes... because we couldn't exist in any of these universes. That's very simple.

But your claim to a fine-tuned universe only makes sense if this configuration that we have is the ONLY ONE that could lead to any sort of stable universe. And I object to that. And I don't think that any cosmologist would make that claim either, because I have no idea how we simulated all these possible configurations.

That's easy to refute. Lets say that Nothingness or a mother Multiverse tried to create a hundred thousand million million Universes, all went KABOOM, how do we know it didn't happen? We know it because of Entropy and Thermodynamics, if truly there were so many failed Universes we wouldn't have high Entropy in the beginning. Neitherhow we would observe Universes to pop out of Nothingness all the time, if nothing could create a hundred thousand million million Universes in a row it could do it again, why did it stopped to produce all these 13.7 Billion years? This argument is dead from the beginning. Needless to say that if Nothingness or a Multiverse created Universes without purpose it couldn't do it without a rate of creation because if you shoot one universe to another they would had collapsed, we have this Universe so they didn't collapsed therefor there is a rate and if it had a rate that creates Universes it would still need to be fine tuned!

 

[RichardParker]

That's easy to refute. Lets say that Nothingness or a mother Multiverse tried to create a hundred thousand million million Universes, all went KABOOM, how do we know it didn't happen? We know it because of Entropy and Thermodynamics, if truly there were so many failed Universes we wouldn't have high Entropy in the beginning. Neitherhow we would observe Universes to pop out of Nothingness all the time, if nothing could create a hundred thousand million million Universes in a row it could do it again, why did it stopped to produce all these 13.7 Billion years? This argument is dead from the beginning. Needless to say that if Nothingness or a Multiverse created Universes without purpose it couldn't do it without a rate of creation because if you shoot one universe to another they would had collapsed, we have this Universe so they didn't collapsed therefor there is a rate and if it had a rate that creates Universes it would still need to be fine tuned!

This is completly incoherent.
Because:
-it applies rules of THIS universe to all potential universes.
-it assumes we could observe universes pop into existence out of nothingness all the time... when we simply don't have any example of nothingess to observe... seriously... Where do you find "nothingness", where we would expect universes to pop into existence?
-it talks about "shooting one universe into another", which made me uncertain if I should laugh about the hillerity of this comment, or cry about the idiocy of it
-it doesn't adress anything I've said at all, and sets up strawmen once again.
...
I'm sorry, JimFit, but you are by far too incoherent to talk to. I'm not even sure you are capable of actually understanding your oponents position, instead adressing strawmen seems to be your only game. And I'm really getting annoyed by having to constantly fight against the strawmen you've set up, and having to explain all the time what my positions or arguments are, just so you can turn then around and ignore them again.
If at any point you decide that you want to actually adress the things I've said, come back to me, otherwise consider this conversation over.

 

[JimFit]

This is completly incoherent.
Because:
-it applies rules of THIS universe to all potential universes.
-it assumes we could observe universes pop into existence out of nothingness all the time... when we simply don't have any example of nothingess to observe... seriously... Where do you find "nothingness", where we would expect universes to pop into existence?
-it talks about "shooting one universe into another", which made me uncertain if I should laugh about the hillerity of this comment, or cry about the idiocy of it
-it doesn't adress anything I've said at all, and sets up strawmen once again.

You said

Yes, I don't think and have never claimed, that if you took the universe as it is now, and changed one property, you might not end up with a non-stable universe, one that collapses, one that expands too fast, etc...
So what? I'm not surprised that we don't live in any of these universes... because we couldn't exist in any of these universes. That's very simple.

I refuted that there were other Universes before this one and even that Universes are created randomly. You proposed that there are other Universes without presenting evidence that there are. Thats the argument from ignorance.

Then you said

But your claim to a fine-tuned universe only makes sense if this configuration that we have is the ONLY ONE that could lead to any sort of stable universe. And I object to that. And I don't think that any cosmologist would make that claim either, because I have no idea how we simulated all these possible configurations.

If you change the Planck Constant there is no Universe at all! You don't object to that, you are closing your eyes in front of the evidence. Here, read this.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf

P.S

Doesn't answer my objection at all.
What would be burning? How could anything be burning?

The Big Bang theory, based on speculations dating back to 1922 and confirmed by astronomers in the 1960s, posited that the universe began as a minuscule fireball of extreme density and temperature and that it has been expanding and cooling ever since.

 

[Loudmouth]

Single-celled amoebae can remember, make decisions and anticipate change, urging scientists to rethink intelligent behavior

How do they make decisions? Is it like the process seen with E. coli and lactose?