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Author Topic:   Can science say anything about a Creator God?
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 271 of 506 (695505)
04-06-2013 7:25 AM
Reply to: Message 259 by NoNukes
04-05-2013 2:41 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
NoNukes writes:
No, it assumes that there is only one in existence. In other words, our assumption is that before the big bang, many were possible. But we've had only one attempt and now there is only one. The other universes are now impossible according to the possibility we are exploring.
Yes. That's the hypothetical scenario I'm working on, and that of the creationists who make the fine tuning argument.
NoNukes writes:
What you are essentially arguing is that if we pick from a bag of 1,000,000 red marbles and one blue marble, we should not be the least bit surprised if we get a blue marble on only one pick.
No I'm not. I do not consider this universe to be special or a blue marble. I do not consider all the other potential universes to be identical.
NoNukes writes:
I'm suggesting otherwise.
You keep suggesting, whether you realise it or not, that there's something extraordinary about Mrs. Vivant winning the lottery. For you, the result is the special blue marble.
Try this. We take an ordinary 52 card deck. Look at the scenario I've quoted you describing above:......"it assumes that there is only one in existence. In other words, our assumption is that before the big bang, many were possible. But we've had only one attempt and now there is only one. The other universes are now impossible according to the possibility we are exploring.".
Just one universe. So, from our deck of cards we deal one ten card hand (representing one universe - the cards can represent ten cosmological constants if you like). What you and the creationists are doing is looking at that one hand, deciding it's special, and therefore claiming that its improbability (1 in 144,555,105,949,057,024) requires a special explanation.
You are assuming your conclusion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 259 by NoNukes, posted 04-05-2013 2:41 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 275 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 11:45 AM bluegenes has replied
 Message 279 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 2:02 PM bluegenes has not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 272 of 506 (695508)
04-06-2013 11:02 AM
Reply to: Message 234 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 11:10 PM


Re: Some stuff about fine tuning.
designtheorist writes:
Second, I haven't read the paper yet and so I cannot comment on it directly. My guess is that the authors have left something out of their calculations.
Why guess that? It's been read by several others and passed the peer review process in Physical Review D. It's a pretty silly thing to guess without reading the paper.
Third, even if the paper is right regarding the universe as a whole, the planet still needs the weak interaction. Without the weak interaction, the planet would not have plate tectonics and I don't believe the planet could support large animal life.
Could you explain this point? In the paper above the Strong Force is adjusted to be capable of providing essential heating mechanisms which in our universe occur through the Weak Force.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 234 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 11:10 PM designtheorist has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 273 of 506 (695509)
04-06-2013 11:27 AM
Reply to: Message 269 by Omnivorous
04-06-2013 1:50 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
How rare is life? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else does, either. But assuming that the appearance of life is a natural process, and that the same physics apply universally, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe it hasn't happened elsewhere: if only one planet per galaxy gives rise to life, how many planets is that? Could 100-200 billion planets with life constitute rarity?
I'm convinced that life exists elsewhere other than on earth and other than in this solar system. But that idea is completely unrelated to the idea of life existing in a universe where suns or even nuclear fusion is impossible.
And whether or not you agree that those potential universes (and others) are more common than universes in which life can exist, those relative probabilities are the parameters of the this particular discussion between blue and I.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 269 by Omnivorous, posted 04-06-2013 1:50 AM Omnivorous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 277 by Omnivorous, posted 04-06-2013 1:42 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 274 of 506 (695510)
04-06-2013 11:31 AM
Reply to: Message 270 by Tangle
04-06-2013 3:26 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
And that is why the Derran Brown film is instructive - his ten heads in a single take feels like magic because we know that the odds of him achieving it on the first throw are tiny.
Yes. But your statement of why was wrong. The probability of him achieving ten heads on any given throw is exactly the same. I don't care how many times he did it and failed, there is no higher probability probability that the next time will be successful. However the probability of achieving the feat at least once in thousands of throws is significant.
I'm not sure how your point relates to an error in my argument.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 270 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 3:26 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 276 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 12:03 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 275 of 506 (695513)
04-06-2013 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 271 by bluegenes
04-06-2013 7:25 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
No I'm not. I do not consider this universe to be special or a blue marble. I do not consider all the other potential universes to be identical.
Well then chose infinite colors other than blue for all of those other universes. And blue for the set of all (not just this universe) life bearing universes. That would still not change the proportion of blue to non-blue marbles.
We can group the universes in any way we choose, and evaluate probabilities based on those groupings. I elect to group them as life supporting vs non-life supporting universes for the purpose of this discussion, and have postulated that parameters leading to life supporting universes are extremely rare. You don't reject my postulate. That acceptance (for the point of argument) is reasonable because it is the basis for the discussion.
You are instead telling me that such a grouping makes no sense, but you are not telling me why other than that you don't like it, or that I am making life special. But for this discussion, life is not special, it is merely the point of the discussion. Life is only as special in the sense that a three on a million sided die is special.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by bluegenes, posted 04-06-2013 7:25 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 286 by bluegenes, posted 04-07-2013 6:57 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 276 of 506 (695515)
04-06-2013 12:03 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by NoNukes
04-06-2013 11:31 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
NoNukes writes:
The probability of him achieving ten heads on any given throw is exactly the same. I don't care how many times he did it and failed, there is no higher probability probability that the next time will be successful. However the probability of achieving the feat at least once in thousands of throws is significant.
Well of course I understand that and totally agree - that's simple statistics but it's not what I'm trying to get at. You said this earlier:
I'm saying that a rare occurrence simply demands an explanation.
You can't say that something happens only rarely then demand an explanation other than chance if the long odd chance comes up. (We are assuming independent probabilities here - pulling a ball from a bag.)
The Darren Brown trick is the creationist position - all they see is the first toss of the coins and all 10 coming up heads and think that it must be a miracle.
They know the odds but don't know that he's been throwing those coins for 10 hours.
Maybe the universe has been throwing "coins" for a near infinite time - we couldn't know. And there are other explanations.
Having said that, I still think it's the creationist's best argument and so far I don't find the solutions particularly persuasive.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 11:31 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 1:56 PM Tangle has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 277 of 506 (695523)
04-06-2013 1:42 PM
Reply to: Message 273 by NoNukes
04-06-2013 11:27 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
NoNukes writes:
And whether or not you agree that those potential universes (and others) are more common than universes in which life can exist, those relative probabilities are the parameters of the this particular discussion between blue and I.
Ah.
Well, then, carry on.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 273 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 11:27 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 278 of 506 (695524)
04-06-2013 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 276 by Tangle
04-06-2013 12:03 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
Well of course I understand that and totally agree
Except that you said something completely different.
You can't say that something happens only rarely then demand an explanation other than chance if the long odd chance comes up.
I think I can if the odds against are sufficiently long,
The Darren Brown trick is the creationist position - all they see is the first toss of the coins and all 10 coming up heads and think that it must be a miracle.
Yes, and that illusion/trick is totally non-analogous to a situation where there is truly only a single attempt.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 276 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 12:03 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 280 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 2:17 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 279 of 506 (695527)
04-06-2013 2:02 PM
Reply to: Message 271 by bluegenes
04-06-2013 7:25 AM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
What you and the creationists are doing is looking at that one hand, deciding it's special, and therefore claiming that its improbability (1 in 144,555,105,949,057,024) requires a special explanation.
No I'm not. I am not considering this universe as special. I'm grouping all of the universes together which produce life and comparing that to the population of all universes. I don't particularly care about the particular example we have.
You are attempting to distinguish the problem from the one of the rare blue marble. But there is no distinction.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by bluegenes, posted 04-06-2013 7:25 AM bluegenes has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 280 of 506 (695528)
04-06-2013 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 278 by NoNukes
04-06-2013 1:56 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
NoNukes writes:
Except that you said something completely different.
Well no, you just misunderstood what I was trying to say. This is what I said and how you replied
For example, to get back to trivial statistics, inorder to know whether the 3 sixes that have just turned up on the 3 dice is an occasion for excitement we need to know how many times the dice have been thrown.
That's got to be wrong. The result of the throw that just turned up is unrelated to anything that happened in the past. But if just turned up means throwing until you get something you like and then quitting, you are describing something different.
Obviously, it's true that three sixes can turn up on any throw with an equal chance and equally obviously, if you only have one throw, it's unlikely that it's going to happen and anyone would bet against it.
Whether I am excited about seeing three 6s though, is a different situation. If I'd watched someone for an hour trying to roll three 6s, then saw it happen I wouldn't be surprised, if it turned up first time I would.
Yes, and that illusion/trick is totally non-analogous to a situation where there is truly only a single attempt.
Correct. My suggestion is that there's no reason to believe that there was only one roll of the dice/toss of the coins.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 1:56 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 281 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 2:50 PM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 281 of 506 (695529)
04-06-2013 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by Tangle
04-06-2013 2:17 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
inorder to know whether the 3 sixes that have just turned up on the 3 dice is an occasion for excitement we need to know how many times the dice have been thrown.
What this would have to mean to be correct is "whether the 3 sixes that just turned up on the dice 'on film' is an occasion for excitement" because without that modification or understanding, your statement is wrong.
Correct. My suggestion is that there's no reason to believe that there was only one roll of the dice/toss of the coins.
True. But that means your remark is completely unrelated to the discussion I was having with bluejeans. I agree that having multiple universes or any other kind of multi-roll scenario makes my point moot.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 280 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 2:17 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 282 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 3:22 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 282 of 506 (695530)
04-06-2013 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 281 by NoNukes
04-06-2013 2:50 PM


Re: Fine tuning is a prediction of naturalism.
NoNukes writes:
True. But that means your remark is completely unrelated to the discussion I was having with bluejeans. I agree that having multiple universes or any other kind of multi-roll scenario makes my point moot.
So that leaves us with the element of surprise and what to do with it when we experience it.
If we have only one dice roll and astronomically high odds of a given outcome, but that outcome happens, what are we supposed to make of it?
If we accept that chance is simply chance and the improbable outcome happens, we are surpised - because it was highly unlikely - but are we entitled to go looking for supernatural explanations?
Logically the answer is no, because we're dealing with probability. But our experience tells us to be very suspicious.
On the other hand, experience also tells us that no supernatural event has ever been shown to occur so it's more probable that we don't know enough about the situation to put probabilities on this stuff.
Needs more work.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 281 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 2:50 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 283 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 4:33 PM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 283 of 506 (695531)
04-06-2013 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 282 by Tangle
04-06-2013 3:22 PM


No I'm not a creationist...
If we accept that chance is simply chance and the improbable outcome happens, we are surpised - because it was highly unlikely - but are we entitled to go looking for supernatural explanations?
No, we are never entitled or even urged to look for supernatural explanations if we are to be scientists. Because despite what designtheorist says to the contrary, he is ultimately asking us when we will give up empirical based science and just say God. Well, when do you stop looking for your keys and start considering the possibility of poltergeist key eaters? Isn't the answer clearly never?
And perhaps that is the answer to the question posed by this thread. But we can still consider whether there might be natural explanations other than @#$5 happens. That too is part of science.
In fact, we don't really know enough right now to say whether a universe with life is both surprising and inexplicable using solely natural processes and explanations. Fine tuning might ultimately be a prediction of naturalism. We can either end the discussion at that point or we can offer potential explanations.
After all, we cannot answer questions like: Why should we view the 'fundamental' constants as being settable to any value we choose? How many of them are 'fundamental' and 'independent' if they are settable? Without being able to answer those questions, how can we even accept the idea that every combination of constants is equally probable and thus rare or plentiful compared to other combinations.
ABE:
At any rate, we seem to have closed the gap between our positions considerably.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 282 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 3:22 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 284 by Tangle, posted 04-06-2013 6:04 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 284 of 506 (695532)
04-06-2013 6:04 PM
Reply to: Message 283 by NoNukes
04-06-2013 4:33 PM


Re: No I'm not a creationist...
noNukes writes:
At any rate, we seem to have closed the gap between our positions considerably
Agreed.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 283 by NoNukes, posted 04-06-2013 4:33 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 163 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 285 of 506 (695542)
04-07-2013 5:03 AM
Reply to: Message 198 by designtheorist
04-04-2013 1:26 AM


Re: Hi Blue Jay
Come on, Blue Jay! I spelled it out for you in crayon. I wrote with increasing detail how one may approach the null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis regarding fine-tuning.
Please provide some evidence to allow us to reject the H0 that there is no designer.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by designtheorist, posted 04-04-2013 1:26 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
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