Thoughts On Robin Collins and the Many Universe Generator

But geology doesn't produce f-18s, it produces mountains through processes we understand pretty well.>>That's why it's called an analogy. On the other hand, the multiverse (if it even exists) DOES produce us, machines far complex than any f-18........Whatever reason you can put forward as to why your designed doesn't require an explanation I can put forward as to why the universe doesn't require one - and the universe will always be the simpler explanation.>>I don't understand a thing you say here.

Would we be having this conversation if the universe didn't form at all?It's like saying "it's a miracle that I exist at all because if my parents didn't have sex at the exact time that they did then there wouldn't be me standing around..." The question is would you be questioning the chances of your existence if you didn't exist at all?My brother married a girl he met on a California beach. They now have 2 chidren. What if my brother arrived at the beach 3 seconds later or earlier? Chances are that they wouldn't have met each other at all. Well, the fact of the matter is they did meet each other and they did get married... after 2 years of expensive phone bills.

Would we be having this conversation if the universe didn't form at all?
It's like saying "it's a miracle that I exist at all because if my parents didn't have sex at the exact time that they did then there wouldn't be me standing around..." The question is would you be questioning the chances of your existence if you didn't exist at all?My brother married a girl he met on a California beach. They now have 2 chidren. What if my brother arrived at the beach 3 seconds later or earlier? Chances are that they wouldn't have met each other at all. Well, the fact of the matter is they did meet each other and they did get married... after 2 years of expensive phone bills.>>Those aren't good analogies at all. Because with as many places as your brother must have gone in his life where he could potentially meet women, he was bound to find one he'd eventually marry. With the frequency with which my parents had sex, I was bound to be concieved.But you can't say that there was BOUND to be a physical principle which keeps electrons from orbiting the nucleus of an atom at its lowest orbit, which is what the Pauli exclusion principle does. Or there was BOUND to an inflation field on which every universe in existence could come to life. Or there were BOUND to be 10-11 dimensions in every universe. Without these things, none of which HAD to be set into place, we wouldn't exist.

Well, the obvious question is how do you know? We have only been able to observe this particular universe in our very small part of it. How do we know that it wouldn't have turned out to be a universe, regardless of what the universal constants happened to be?The fact of the matter is we really don't know enough about the beginning of the universe or if there is a possibility at all that the universe could have existed in another form with a different set of laws and constants. I'd say that it's a little premature to say that there was a creator just like there was someone that masterminded a meeting between my brother and his wife on the beach.I must agree that there was a weakness in my analogy. I was assuming that the person questioning his own existence was a mature adult who's been through life and learned that there are many many other women out there. I should have said that what if my 1 year old nephew questioned the chances of his own existence? He's too young to even know that my brother could have met any other girls out there and concieved a totally different person. To him, it was a miracle. Well, that's what we are if you consider what we can know compared to what we do know.This message has been edited by Lam, 10-08-2004 11:18 AM

The fact of the matter is we really don't know enough about the beginning of the universe or if there is a possibility at all that the universe could have existed in another form with a different set of laws and constants.>>No offense, but you're repeating yourself. As I said earlier, even if EVERY universe supports life because that's just the nature of things, what are the odds that arbitrary forces would act together to ensure that every universe could support life? The only logical presumption is that these forces AREN'T arbitrary.This message has been edited by JasonChin, 10-08-2004 11:47 AM

No, the only presumption is to leave a blank spot for future people to solve.Read this thread to see why we can't use common sense and presumptions for something as complex as what we are talking about.

No, the only presumption is to leave a blank spot for future people to solve.>>But there is no even POSSIBLE non-metaphyiscal explaination........that's the point. It's either coincidence that things like gravity and the Pauli exclusion principle and the principle of quantization and all the other things that make our being here possible exist, or it's not. And the odds seems to be heavily against the former. Even if all these things got their origin in some big yet-to-be-discovered super-law of quantum physics, even then the odds of this big super-law existing and having the nature it does ALSO aren't good.

I'm inclined to go back to my brother as an example. The odds of him meeting the girl of his dream while in California for vacation and have the 2 wonderful children are astronomical, considering that he could have gone to Florida or elsewhere.As I stated before, there's no way to tell if our set of laws and constants are the only ones possible. You are coming from a premise that says "all things that are improbable are impossible." This is a false premise.Also, odds according to what? Your common sense? Noone has ever made such calculation and been taken seriously.

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Yes. But the difference is that not only does a theoretical metaphysical force, like God, not require an explaination, but the attempt at explaining a metaphysical being or process through physical means would be absurd.

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That sounds like a pitiful copout. Why on earth would a theorectical metaphysical force need any less of an explanation than the physical universe? All you're doing is passing the torch here. You're taking a seemingly arbitrary universe an attempting to explain by postulating the existence of an equally arbitrary designer. Simply assigning magical attributes to God is not going to explain sweep that problem away.

It cuts the theistic argument off at the knees. If lifeless universes aren't even a possibility, then why would there need to be a god to make sure the universe could sustain life? It's like appointing a Minister of Gravity to make sure that objects continue to fall towards the Earth - it's redundant and pointless. Ah, but the majority - in fact, the entirety - of geological formations we've observed aren't F/A-18's.On the other hand, 100% of the universes we've observed are capable of life, and 0% of the universes we've observed are incapable of it. Of course, I'm playing numbers games here, but my point is that none of us have any idea of the universe is fine-tuned or not, so there's no basis on which to build a theistic argument.

Someone would have been concieved. It certainly wouldn't have been you. Why not? These things have been the case in every universe we've ever observed.

I'm inclined to go back to my brother as an example. The odds of him meeting the girl of his dream while in California for vacation and have the 2 wonderful children are astronomical, considering that he could have gone to Florida or elsewhere.>>Your brother going to California is a variable. Your brother meeting the particular woman he did is a variable. Your brother having two kids is a variable.If your brother hadn't gone to California, he'd have met a woman to marry elsewhere. Had he not have the two kids he had, he'd have others.The principle of quantization ISN'T a variable. Either it exists, or it doesn't. And Collins' argument is that these invariable physical laws all work together to pre-destin the creation of man.In any of these "background" laws of nature didn't exist, it wouldn't have given birth to a different TYPE of life........like your brother would have married a different TYPE of woman and had different TYPES of kids........there'd be no life AT ALL.

Why on earth would a theorectical metaphysical force need any less of an explanation than the physical universe?>>Because any metaphysical force is, by definition, impossible to explain by means of physics.

On the other hand, 100% of the universes we've observed are capable of life, and 0% of the universes we've observed are incapable of it.>>Which is exactly why it's analogous to the geological f-18s.

Why not? These things have been the case in every universe we've ever observed.>>Once again, this doesn't weaken Collins' argument any more than if f-18s were the only structure geology could produce.