The Genetic Fallacy

[CatholicSoxFan]

Granted we would accept the rest of the argument for the universe requiring an external cause:

It would only have to be external to "the universe" as composed at the big bang, not necessarily outside the physical realm.

We actually have no experience with anything that is outside of the physical realm so concluding this from available evidence or logically concluding it would be quite impossible.

You've become a YEC before my very eyes!
I'll need to look more into other physicalities (did I just make up a word? Possibly.) causing the Big Bang in order to argue about it.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Saying things doesn't make it so.

Very true. I totally agree. Saying that God makes the fine-tuning constants what they are -- or what have you -- is just that, an assertion.

(Or are you skeptical about what I put in brackets; that the average theist can't spell "fine-tuning" etc. Sounds more offensive than it really is; if you look back through history you'll find that this is true.)

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

Very true. I totally agree. Saying that God makes the fine-tuning constants what they are -- or what have you -- is just that. An assertion.

(Or are you skeptical about what I put in brackets; that the average theist can't spell "fine-tuning" etc. Sounds more offensive than it really is; if you look back through history you'll find that this is true.)

If the fine-tuning argument went as follows, you'd have a point:
"Therefore, an intelligence causes fine-tuning"
Unfortunately, that's not actually how the argument goes.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

If the fine-tuning argument went as follows, you'd have a point:
"Therefore, an intelligence causes fine-tuning"
Unfortunately, that's not actually how the argument goes.

Believe me, I have seen it. Maybe the phrasing was a little careless in my previous post, but I simply don't see theists pull their weight with the FTA. There are no explanations, it is full of assertions and assumptions. Same with the various CAs that I have seen. Or arguments involving morality. (Or with how come the golden ratio. Or the pretty flowers.)

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

To prove that intelligence is an explanation for these things?

Among other things. The complete lack of a workable 'supernatural' epistemology should be your chief concern.

I caught your original post just in time

Good. I stand by it (but this is more pertinent).

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

Believe me, I have seen it. Maybe the phrasing was a little careless in my previous post, but I simply don't see theists pull their weight with the FTA. There are no explanations, it is full of assertions and assumptions. Same with the various CAs that I have seen. Or arguments involving morality. (Or with how come the golden ratio. Or the pretty flowers.)

If the fine-tuning argument went like this, you might have had a point:
"P1: Look at the pretty flowers!
Therefore, God exists."

 

[Lord Emsworth]

If the fine-tuning argument went like this, you might have had a point:
"P1: Look at the pretty flowers!
Therefore, God exists."

I wasn't saying that the FTA goes like you outline. You could turn the 'pretty flowers' into a pretty sophisticated-looking argument that heavily taps into aethetics, that still would not bring anything to the table in terms of knowledge, though. As is the case with the FTA. Or have we gotten any cleverer after the FTA? I daresay no.

 

[quatona]

You don't have to observe the universe coming into existence to conclude that nothing can come from nothing without a cause... this is like saying that in some other world , maybe the law of identity doesn't apply.

1. We never have observed anything "coming into existence". All we observe is permanent change/transformation of that which already is. So we don´t even have any basis whatsoever for making postulations as to what´s required for something to come into existence.
2. And even if we had experiences with things coming to exist within the universe, there wouldn´t be any reason to conclude that the laws observed within the universe apply to the universe itself.
3. Beyond that, just postulating something to be a cause doesn´t make it so. We have pretty strict criteria as to what counts as a cause for physical events, and e.g. speaking them into existence (or any other "spiritual cause for a physical event, for that matter) is not among them.

 

[quatona]

If the fine-tuning argument went like this, you might have had a point:
"P1: Look at the pretty flowers!
Therefore, God exists."

The main problem with the fine-tuning argument is: It assumes the result to be the intended result.

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

P1 of the Kalam is just another version of the proposition that something can't come from nothing without a cause. You don't have to observe anything to conclude that.

 

[quatona]

P1 of the Kalam is just another version of the proposition that something can't come from nothing without a cause. You don't have to observe anything to conclude that.

So what is this proposition based upon, what is it concluded from?

 

[Belk]

P1 of the Kalam is just another version of the proposition that something can't come from nothing without a cause. You don't have to observe anything to conclude that.

You really do. Understanding how things work tends to require some experience or data of the phenomena, which is absent in this case.

 

[Ana the Ist]

P1 of the Kalam is just another version of the proposition that something can't come from nothing without a cause. You don't have to observe anything to conclude that.

You know...

This all might be a lot easier if you actually made the arguments you're defending instead of just stating what the premises aren't. Once you actually state the premises upon which your argument is founded, I'm certain any number of posters will be more than happy to explain which premises are faulty and why.

 

[durangodawood]

So what is this proposition based upon, what is it concluded from?

It just can't!!!

 

[variant]

You've become a YEC before my very eyes!
I'll need to look more into other physicalities (did I just make up a word? Possibly.) causing the Big Bang in order to argue about it.

A YEC?

The events surrounding the "causation" of the big bang are unknown to all of us even if we take the cosmological argument at face value to be true.

It simply does not follow that they would be "supernatural", natural with a different setup than what were used to could easily cover it.

And "God" doesn't exactly explain how the universe comes into being, as explanations usually give you insight into the "how".

 

[variant]

If the fine-tuning argument went like this, you might have had a point:
"P1: Look at the pretty flowers!
Therefore, God exists."

Fine tuning does require the premise that the universe can be tuned externally, in reality we have no idea why the constants are what they are.

Given what we know for instance the predicted value for say the cosmological constant was off by over a hundred orders of magnitude, which is quite possibly the worst scientific prediction ever in the history of man.

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

Fine tuning does require the premise that the universe can be tuned externally, in reality we have no idea why the constants are what they are.

Given what we know for instance the predicted value for say the cosmological constant was off by over a hundred orders of magnitude, which is quite possibly the worst scientific prediction ever in the history of man.

Of course it's possible that we could be off on the cosmological constant; it's also possible that I'm a brain in a vat. But we don't come to logical conclusions like that; we come to logical conclusions based on the knowledge we have, not some future discovery that maybe could be contradictory. Ironically, when the atheist appeals to things we could discover in the future, they are the ones appealing to ignorance; they are the ones appealing to something which we do not know.

 

[variant]

Of course it's possible that we could be off on the cosmological constant; it's also possible that I'm a brain in a vat. But we don't come to logical conclusions like that; we come to logical conclusions based on the knowledge we have, not some future discovery that maybe could be contradictory.

You're not getting my point, based upon what we know the cosmological constant is off by over one hundred orders of magnitude. We do not know why the cosmological constant is what it is.

http://phys.org/news/2012-03-weve-cosmological-constant-wrong.html

Ironically, when the atheist appeals to things we could discover in the future, they are the ones appealing to ignorance; they are the ones appealing to something which we do not know.

I am simply saying we do not know why the cosmological constant is what it is so it would be difficult to draw conclusions from the fact that it needs to fall in a small range for our universe to work out.

When you take something that we don't know a lot about and use that to buttress your pre-existing belief by filling in your belief for our ignorance, that, we call an appeal to ignorance.

I don't use the cosmological constant or our ignorance of why it is what it is as a prop to my lack of belief, I simply observe that we don't know much about this problem and thus it would be amazingly difficult to conclude things from it.

 

[KCfromNC]

You don't have to observe the universe coming into existence to conclude that nothing can come from nothing without a cause...

Making up any sort of conclusion you wish is the easy part. Demonstrating that conclusion is valid and corresponds to reality is where things get tough. All you've done in your post is the former. I wonder why.

this is like saying that in some other world , maybe the law of identity doesn't apply.

Heck, we have systems of logic on this world where it doesn't. What's your point?

 

[KCfromNC]

we come to logical conclusions based on the knowledge we have

Speaking of which, what knowledge do "we" have about the range and distribution of various physical constants? While you're at it, explain the mechanisms used to fix the values of those physical constants as we observe them here in the universe.

It seems like this would be pretty important knowledge to have before concluding that there's fine tuning. If the constants couldn't have been anything else, or if they were very likely to be close to the values we see, then there's no fine tuning that needs to be explained. On the other hand, if the constants had a large possible range or were unlikely to end up at the values we see, then maybe the fine tuning argument has a point.

So please explain the knowledge you have which points to the latter being the case for our universe.