Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
IMO there's still a subtle issue involving the overall weight of evidence in favor of each premise. They have more evidence to support their claim than you have to refute it.
Seems like tons of speculation going on here.
Whatever happened to saying; I don't know?
What evidence do they have that this is the only universe?
Seems like tons of speculation going on here.
Whatever happened to saying; I don't know?
True, but they still have *more* evidence to support the concept of a single universe than you have to support a multiverse.
No. Not at all.
You claim that there is more evidence for one universe, than for more than one... and you conclude that from having one to observe?
This doesn't work.
Why would the fact that we have one universe to observe be more evidence for the idea that there is ONLY one, than that there are more than one?
If there was only one, we would also observe one.
If there were more than one, we would also observe this one.
The evidence for this universe doesn't favor either position.
Well, we know there is one universe because we can observe it. Does this mean there are not others? Of course not, there many be many, but so far, we have evidence of one.
Yea, I was thinking the same. The fact that we can observe this one isn't evidence for or against more, but it's evidence of this one, which is more evidence than we have for any others.
Distinguishing Intent
I asked Sam how to tell the difference between intentional similarity and accidental similarity. It would be unfair of me not to answer the question myself.
First of all, I must state my belief that it is possible to differentiate purpose from accident. Again, this belief is rooted in my former employment, some of which involved target recognition. A smart bomb needs to be programmed to distinguish a man-made structure (a bridge or an armored vehicle) from a natural feature (a tree or a rock). Algorithms do exist for making the distinction, which I am not at liberty to share.
The game of poker, however, is not subject to security restrictions, so let’s see if you can recognize purpose from accident in a friendly game of poker. The photographs below show four hands dealt during a poker game. The hands were dealt twice. The first time was Deal A, and the second time was Deal B.
In Deal A, West was dealt a flush, North was dealt a full house, East was dealt four-of-a-kind, and I (South) dealt myself a straight flush (the highest hand).
Do you think I dealt those hands from a shuffled deck, or a stacked deck? If you think those hands (which encourage my three opponents to bet large sums of money, only to lose to my straight flush) were honestly dealt from a shuffled deck, I would like to invite you to my high-stakes poker game next Wednesday night.
Now consider Deal B.
Could those cards have been dealt from a shuffled deck? Yes, they could. In fact, they were.
Why might you believe that Deal B came from a shuffled deck, but Deal A came from a stacked deck? Your first response might be, “The odds against Deal A are so small that it could not possibly have happened by chance.” That’s the wrong answer. Yes, the odds against Deal A are very small indeed, but it could possibly have happened by chance. I would not bet on it—but it could happen.
But it isn’t really a question of probability. The probability that those 20 cards in Deal A were dealt in that order is exactly the same as the probability that the 20 cards in Deal B were dealt in that order. Let me say that again a different way to make sure I make myself perfectly clear. Deal A is no less probable than Deal B. If you shuffle a deck and deal out 20 cards, it is just unlikely that those 20 cards will match Deal B as Deal A.
But you were able, instinctively, to know that Deal A came from a stacked deck, and Deal B came from a shuffled deck, even though both hands are equally unlikely. Since probability has nothing to do with it, how were you able to recognize my nefarious purpose in Deal A?
It all comes down to “meaning” or “purpose.” The four hands in Deal A have meaning, and serve a purpose. (Their purpose is to beat a less powerful hand.) Because it has meaning, there is a name for South’s hand in Deal A. It is called “a straight flush”—but there is no name for South’s hand in Deal B because it has no meaning, value, or purpose.
We're whipping a dead horse at this point. I'm simply noting that there is somewhat *more* support for a universe than there is for a multiverse. It's a "preponderance of evidence" argument in the final analysis, and therefore it's still a "weak" argument IMO.
From what I've read multiverses doesn't solve the fine-tuned (odds) problem.
Someone has put it if you were at a poker game and the dealer got 4 aces and a wild card 20 times in a row would you believe multiverses will help the odds of it happening or would you believe the dealer is cheating?
Just one of those fine tune factor equals dealing 20 aces and a wild card 20 times in a row.In the case of our universe, you only have 4 aces and a wild card in one hand, and you have no idea how many hands have been dealt. You have one winner and no idea how many losing hands there are.
You seem to miss the point. We have the ability to detect "purpose", something with a cause , which atheist has to completely ignore.Given 100 billion hands, you would expect both Deal A and Deal B to occur. You also forget that.
The fine tuning argument is really just a repeat of the irreducible complexity argument. We don't know how something could have evolved, therefore it didn't. This means that a designer had to do it. In the case of the fine tuning argument, it is claimed that we don't know how natural processes could produce our universe, therefore natural processes didn't do it. This means that a designer had to do it.
Both are based on the same logical fallacy, an argument from ignorance. We don't know how nature could have done it, therefore God.
Yea, I was thinking the same. The fact that we can observe this one isn't evidence for or against more, but it's evidence of this one, which is more evidence than we have for any others.
Somehow that doesn't seem any better or worse to me than "We don't know what the actual empirical cause of photon redshift might be in the patterns that we observe from space, therefore space expansion, inflation and dark energy did it. That's also an argument from ignorance.
Emphasis mine. That was my point. I do find it somewhat amusing to see that atheists seem quite willing to believe in things which they cannot see when it suits them.
Just one of those fine tune factor equals dealing 20 aces and a wild card 20 times in a row.
Mathematician now are you? How's the tree pruning going. Plenty of work to keep you employed?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?