Fine tuning, a new approach

[[serious]]

Everything we know of that comes into being has a cause is that not true?

His point is that if you are assuming the natural laws did not exist, that includes the laws that govern causation

 

[[serious]]

I am asking you if it is true that everything that begins needs a cause? Even the quotes are claiming there is a cause for the universe to exist.

Nope.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Nope, read it again.

Yes, still contradicts what you were saying.

 

[Oncedeceived]

You are arbitrarily assigning purpose.

I don't see how it would be arbitrary.

 

[Oncedeceived]

His point is that if you are assuming the natural laws did not exist, that includes the laws that govern causation

What laws govern causation?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Nope.

Yep.

 

[Oncedeceived]

This is exactly what I mean with "100% correct in hindsight".

Let's look at Isaiah 40:22
"It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in"

God stretches out the heavens... as a curtain, as a tent.
For someone comming from a non-scientific community, one accustomed to nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyles, this is very clear: there is a heaven.. You can see it. It's blue and above our heads. It is a vast expanse of some kind of fabric, like a curtain or a tend that is above our head... just a lot bigger!

You think the sky looks like fabric?

You can see it... and here is the Bible verifying it that it is correct.

If you accept heaven as a massive dome above the earth... you can read the Bible and see that you are correct. If you see heaven as the space-time-continuum... you can read the Bible and see that you are correct.
But you will never get the slightest notion of a twelve-or-higher dimensional space-time continuum by reading about a heaven that is like a tent.

That is the problem. It is not that the Bible wasn't taken seriously... it was. But taking it seriously doesn't help you making new discoveries when it always confirms what you already think. Hindsight.

I agree that the Bible will not give great detail but there are numerous passages that speak of God spreading out the heavens.

 

[quatona]

What laws govern causation?

Well, the law your entire argument rests on would an example:
"Everything that has a beginning has a cause."
Now, the funny thing is: We wouldn´t even have an experiental or empirical basis for this "law" of yours:
Within the universe, we don´t observe things beginning. We see that which already exists transforming.
[If we want to describe causation as observed in the universe in a "law" it would be something like:
Every event (change) occuring within the universe has (a) cause(e). Every physical event (change) within the universe has (a) physical cause(s).]"

 

[[serious]]

What laws govern causation?

Causality: an effect can not occur from a cause which is not in the back (past)light cone of that event. Similarly, a cause can not have an effect outside its front (future) light cone.

Adapted from the wiki

 

[[serious]]

Yep.

Nope times infinity?

 

[KCfromNC]

I'll bite. Did they at all?

If you can't answer the question, it is yet another example of this whole thing being an argument from ignorance. Since I see your argument as a giant trainwreck I'm not going to be much help. You'll have to do your own work if you want to try and salvage it.

 

[KCfromNC]

Cats can purr, they must be fine tuned.

Assuming you're serious this is a good example of fine tuning without the need for an intelligent designer.

 

[KCfromNC]

That's what I do for a living.

Be gone, evil sorcerer. I know all you guys must be dabbling in the dark arts to get that stuff to even barely work.

PS - pre and post-sil performance validation here.

 

[KCfromNC]

First of all the Bible does talk about the heavens being spread out...

Yes, in a solid dome holding the waters of the sky from crashing down onto a flat earth below it. Let's not confuse ancient poetry with reality.

 

[Freodin]

You think the sky looks like fabric?

You think the sky looks like a n-dimensional, mostly empty, filled with plasma, electromagnetical radiation and all kinds of very very strange stuff space-time continuum?

I agree that the Bible will not give great detail but there are numerous passages that speak of God spreading out the heavens.

Yes, there are. So what? If we somehow found out that our current model of the universe is completely incorrect (as a lot of Christian posters here assert)... if we found out that the universe was not expanding, or even if we found that the "heavens" were really a solid sphere around our planet / solar system... people - people just like you! - would point to exactly these same verses and say "Look here, the Bible says exactly that."

If a verse is vague enough to encompass completely opposing facts... I'd say "no great detail" is the understatement of the decade.

 

[DogmaHunter]

You made an assertion without any support and I answered back to the point being made. No evasion whatsoever.

I didn't make any assertion at all.

I merely stated that the only reason that I can build tools, is because my body is "fine tuned" to do so. I'll assume that you agree with that.

I have a brain with which I can build a 3d model in my head about what it is that I am going to build. I can use my brain to analyse how I will go about constructing the tool, what materials I need (some of which, I might have to create), how the tool will work, etc.

I have fine motoric skills and opposable tumbs, which are required to actually do the fine work to construct the tool.

Ergo, I am "fine tuned" to make tools.
A cat is not "fine tuned" to make tools.

Therefor, we can conclude that in order to be able to create a certain thing, one has to actually be able to create such a thing. Certain criteria need to be met. You need to be "fine tuned" for the job, in the exact same way that a universe must exist in such a way that it has the potential of bringing forward life before it can do so. It must be "fine tuned". That is your argument, correct?


From all that, it follows that if God created the universe.... he had to be "fine tuned" to even only be able to do so.


Please point out the flaw in that reasoning, if you disagree...

 

[DogmaHunter]

Everything we know of that comes into being has a cause is that not true?

Not really.

I seem to remember that in the quantum world, that "rule" doesn't really apply as you would expect it to...

But even if we would forget that for a second and accept that "everything has a cause"... That phenomena, causality, is a phenomena that applies IN the universe.
It is subject to a temporal dimension. No time = no causality.

Causes happen before effects. There is no before t = 0.

 

[AdamSK]

What laws govern causation?

Apparently timelike spacetime intervals govern causation - that is, any event necessary to cause a phenomenon will occur at a time that all observers agree is before the phenomenon.

Also, not all events have efficient causes. Some events appear to be purely stochastic and are not deterministically preceded by triggering events.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Why because the universe before the universe we have no evidence that a natural or supernatural cause can be shown.

No, that is not the reason mentioned in the quote of Davies.
Perhaps you should read it again.

The reason is because there is no "prior" where the cause could happen in.
As said, causes happen before effects. But there is no logical "before" here....

However, while we can legitimately know why a natural cause could not operate, how does one determine that the supernatural could not cause it?

In the exact same way. A cause is a cause. Supernatural or not. A cause happens before an effect.

 

[DogmaHunter]

If we include assertions to the "supernatural" into the category of valid "explanations", everything can be asserted and declared an "explanation".

Why?

Because unfalsifiable models are infinite in number.

Science looks for explanations that best explain the evidence. Yes, it limits itself to the natural world. That doesn't mean that is all there is.

Actually... science limits itself to that which can actually be independently verified. That just happens to be "limited" to the natural world.

Don't blame it on science that the supernatural is an unfalsifiable, untestable, unverifiable idea. In terms of explanatory power, it is entirely useless and meaningless for that reason.

God created the universe from nothing is the claim.

Good luck supporting that claim.