• 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.

The Teleological Argument (p4)

Status
Not open for further replies.

KCfromNC

Regular Member
Apr 18, 2007
30,256
17,181
✟545,630.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
Why do I need to prove what scientists already agree to?

You don't have to provide any backing for your random claims - if you don't want to be taken seriously, that is.

If you do, though, now's the time to come up with an actual answer to my objection rather than pretending you already answered it when you obviously haven't.
 
Upvote 0

KCfromNC

Regular Member
Apr 18, 2007
30,256
17,181
✟545,630.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
Scientists agree that slight variations in various constants would make this a life-prohibiting universe. I've already provided you citations for this.

But my objection wasn't to that, but to the guess that it was possible for the constants to be different in the first place. So you're pretending you've presented a scientific answer to a question I didn't ask. Try again.
 
Upvote 0

KCfromNC

Regular Member
Apr 18, 2007
30,256
17,181
✟545,630.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
I need clarification concerning premise 2:
The fact that Mr. A won the lottery last week - is that due to chance or physical necessity or design?

I'm actually curious why design is automatically separated from physical processes? Seems like the other categories should be physical contingency, non-physical necessity and non-physical contingency. Design could be the result of any number of these - even chance, if you're looking at the end result as in "the hole in the ground looks like it was designed for the puddle".
 
Upvote 0

KCfromNC

Regular Member
Apr 18, 2007
30,256
17,181
✟545,630.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
However, many scientists believe that there is an acceptable range of possible settings for these constants in possible alternative universes

So there's no scientific consensus on this, but rather just various different opinions? Weird you'd claim there was earlier when I asked about this.

Anyway, this means that the remaining scientists disagree with P3. So why are you going against the beliefs of those scientists to further your argument? Doesn't it matter to you what actual scientists believe about this problem, or do their opinions only count when they agree with your attempts to rationalize a reason for believing in your god?
 
Upvote 0

quatona

"God"? What do you mean??
May 15, 2005
37,512
4,301
✟182,792.00
Faith
Seeker
Yes.
I´m actually curious how the three criteria became a trichotomy. In my understanding they aren´t even in the same category, they aren´t mutually exclusive and - seeing how randomly they appear to be chosen - they aren´t complete.
 
Upvote 0

Joshua260

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2012
1,448
42
North Carolina
✟17,004.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
I am asking the same of you.
I did not put words in his mouth, you did. You interpreted the following:
"If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size."
as Hawking saying "we got lucky".

I'm saying that what he said was:
"If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.""


Joshua260: He is saying that if that particular constant had varied just a bit, the universe would not exist.
What has that to do with tuning? The weak anthropic principle is a tautology.
This demonstrates that you do not understand what is being communicated in p1. Fine-tuning in p1 means that if slight variations had occurred in certain constants (see (a) in Hawking's statement), this would be a life-prohibiting universe (see (b) in Hawking's statement).
Hawking:
"[If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million = (a)], [the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.= (b)]"

Hawking's statement above matches the definition of fine-tuning as used in p1.

Joshua260:Who's talking about God?
You, by all appearances.
If so, please quote the specific passage in my OP.
 
Upvote 0

Joshua260

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2012
1,448
42
North Carolina
✟17,004.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
Thanks for confirming that Hawking agrees that the fine-tuning of the universe is not due to physical necessity. And we all know he rules out design a priori. From this article, we can gather that Hawking agrees with p1 and p2. It is p3 (as I said earlier) that is the controversial premise of the argument. So Hawking believes that the fine-tuning is due to chance. I'm curious as to why you left out the last paragraph:
"Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states. Only a very few would allow creatures like us to exist. Although we are puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense the lords of creation.

So even though Hawking recognizes the low probability of a life-permitting universe, he prefers that explanation over design.
 
Upvote 0

Joshua260

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2012
1,448
42
North Carolina
✟17,004.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
what objection are you referring to?
 
Upvote 0

Joshua260

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2012
1,448
42
North Carolina
✟17,004.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
So there's no scientific consensus on this, but rather just various different opinions? Weird you'd claim there was earlier when I asked about this.

Consensus : "the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consensus

"Most physicists would rather believe string theory uniquely predicts the universe..." If this is being discussed, it is because they believe the universe if fine-tuned.
S.W. Hawking "Cosmology from the Top Down" paper presented at the Davis Cosmic Inflation Meeting. U.C. Davis May 29, 2003.

Even Hawking, though he chooses to believe that the fine-tuning of the universe was by chance, recognizes that it is a low probability.
"Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states. Only a very few would allow creatures like us to exist. Although we are puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense the lords of creation.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704206804575467921609024244
Hawking is an atheist. He cannot prove that the fine-tuning is due to either chance or design. Yet even while admitting the low probability, he chooses to believe it's by chance.
 
Upvote 0

Joshua260

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2012
1,448
42
North Carolina
✟17,004.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
Yes.
I´m actually curious how the three criteria became a trichotomy. In my understanding they aren´t even in the same category, they aren´t mutually exclusive and - seeing how randomly they appear to be chosen - they aren´t complete.
See post #132. Hawking himself confirms the trichotomy.
 
Upvote 0

Moral Orel

Proud Citizen of Moralton
Site Supporter
May 22, 2015
7,379
2,640
✟499,248.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
"If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size."
as Hawking saying "we got lucky".
You see, this is why "fine tuning" is misleading. It implies that there are a lot of different constants that could be changed by just a bit to make the universe not exist, when in actuality only one has that much importance: the rate of expansion. So the premise should be "if the rate of expansion wasn't what it was...".

As to the conditions necessary for life, I believe evolution answers the idea very well that life is going to capitalize on its surroundings. We have eyes that can see a very narrow spectrum of light, because that is the spectrum our Sun gives off. Water and oxygen are important because we have them. There are some things that seem necessary, like the way carbon molecules can connect to so many other types of molecules. But so can silicon. And liquid is important as a type of substance to evolve in, since we can't move around in solid rock, or stay together in a gas. But I believe the "necessary conditions for life" are a lot more vague than we think.

We aren't even sure if there's life on Mars, so we don't have a good idea of whether there is some form of life in the solar system next to us. We may have a good idea that it isn't anything like ours, but that's very different.

Low probability? That isn't really how probability works.

If there are a thousand different configurations that the universe can have, and only one permits and has life, but all the configurations exist, then what is the probability that life exists?
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

Davian

fallible
May 30, 2011
14,100
1,181
West Coast of Canada
✟46,103.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Ignostic
Marital Status
Married
I do wonder if you read any of this stuff in context.

"The book concludes with the statement that only some universes of the multiple universes (or multiverse) support life forms. We, of course, are located in one of those universes. The laws of nature that are required for life forms to exist appear in some universes by pure chance, Hawking and Mlodinow explain" link

Where did I say it was in this particular OP?
 
Upvote 0

Davian

fallible
May 30, 2011
14,100
1,181
West Coast of Canada
✟46,103.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Ignostic
Marital Status
Married
So how 'bout premise 3? How's that one gonna work?
Joshua is consistently appealing to Hawking; Hawking thinks that the laws of nature we observe are due to chance.

"The laws of nature that are required for life forms to exist appear in some universes by pure chance, Hawking and Mlodinow explain" link

So I expect that Joshua will conclude it was by design.
 
Upvote 0

The Cadet

SO COOL
Apr 29, 2010
6,290
4,743
Munich
✟53,117.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
In Relationship
Politics
US-Democrat
So even though Hawking recognizes the low probability of a life-permitting universe, he prefers that explanation over design.

So does everyone else, because "design" is not considered a real explanation.
 
Upvote 0

Winepress777

Well-Known Member
Jun 8, 2015
497
145
69
✟16,405.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
If you are trying to say this;

(Gen 1:1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

...then you are correct!
 
Reactions: Joshua260
Upvote 0

Arythmael

Member
Jul 3, 2006
223
27
60
✟23,011.00
Faith
Baptist

I understand your definition of "physical necessity" better now, but you failed to show me how this concept is not orthogonal to the notions of chance and design. The phrase "due to physical necessity" treats this concept of their being a one-to-one mapping of those physical constants to a resultant universe containing life ("physical necessity") as something having properties of causation (as we think of design and chance having, although perhaps to opposite extremes). Even if there is only one recipe for making the perfect chocolate cake, that tells you nothing about how one might have actually come into being. Please explain to me how this option can stand alone even as a concept of causation to begin with such that it does not require incorporating one of the other two (chance and/or design) to make sense out of it.


This was not meant to be a proof-breaking point on my part, but I found it interesting nonetheless. Your argument said that there was one of three possible options, and went on to imply that it could not be both chance and design (which, on the face of it seems natural to assume). But if you acknowledge even the possibility of a universe whose creation was driven by chance, then you must allow the possibility of a creator whose designs are driven by chance (arbitrary or meaningless goal). That makes chance and design not mutually exclusive, unless you also require design to have a purpose (no longer arbitrary) -- in which case you must also prove that that purpose exists in order to prove it was design!

PS: Be careful before you claim that "Whoever is responsible for the design of life must have had life itself as the goal (or purpose)." That would be much to presumptuous, and many other options and arguments could brought to bear against it.
 
Last edited:
Reactions: quatona
Upvote 0
Status
Not open for further replies.