Thoughts On Robin Collins and the Many Universe Generator

The number of sperm in an average ejaculation is 100 million (10^8). If your parents only ever had sex oonce (most conservative assumption), then there's a 1 in 10^8 chance of that sperm going on to produce you.But that's only the beginning! Your grandparents, unless they weren't human, also went through a similar process to produce your parents. The odds of those sperm comiing (excuse the pun) to produce you are now 10^24.But that's just the beginning! If we now consider your great grandparents. The odds become 1 in 10^56.Next generation: 1 in 10^120
next: 1 in 10^248
next: 1 in 10^504 !!So thats only six geberations in total. Imagine how many we'd get back if we went back 6000 years, when the world began (conservative estimate). I'm using very conservative estimates and I'm not even considering other pertinent factors such as the likelihood of a pair of parents actually meeting one another and falling in love. Conclusion: it is incredibly unlikely that you could ever exist and you are probably a figment of my imagination.Do you agree with the analysis above (the numbers might not be exact, but you get the picture)? If not, why not?PE

So you don't think the universe is fine-tuned for life? I must have misread you.As you were.PE

Oh ok then. I think I see what you're getting at - out of an infinite panoply of potential universes there is a non-zero probability that, as long as it was physically possible, a deity could exist. And we could, just could, be living in said universe. Have I understood?By the same argument, the invisible pink unicorn, cichlids the size of galaxies, a version of you with six arms and two heads may also exist as well. Is God therefore as probable as you having two heads?An interesting aside to this discussion is the idea that:- computers are getting more and more powerful
- one day, in the not too distant future, they may become so powerful they can actually simulate reality - so that a user would not recognise the difference between a computer-generated world and the real world (a bit like the Turing test applied to reality)
- as computers get yet more powerful, they are able to run millions, nay billions, of these simulations every second
- by an overwhelming probability therefore, you are not living in the "real world" but actually one of these computer generated simulationssee here for details.PEeta: forgot to add, what are your thoughts on the probability calculation of you existing I posted above. I take it you disagree with the conclusion?This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 10-10-2004 06:19 AM

This is what you write in your TO EVERYONE message:

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you assume that an inifinity of universes exists, and that therefore a universe capable of supporting life MUST exist just like someone MUST win the lottery even though the odds against it are astronomical, that still doesn't explain why the background of the entire universe just happened to be (using the inflationary model) an inflation field. If there was no inflation field, there'd be no us. If the laws of relativity didn't happen to interact the way they do in the presence of an inflation field, there'd be no us. If there wasn't a as-of-yet-undiscovered mechanism that took the energy of the inflation field and turned it into the kind of mass energy we see in out universe, there'd be no us. Is space didn't happen to consist of exactly 10 or 11 dimensions, no more no less, there'd be no us. If there wasn't a universal attractive force like gravity, there'd be no us. If the Pauli exclusion principle and the principle of quantization didn't act in conjunction with gravity to allow for the possibility of the emergence of complex matter, there'd be no us.

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My post about the possibility of you existing is directly relevant to this. Do you find the arguments in it persuasive?PE

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Why would I commit the fallacy of arguing from authority?
  —Crashfrog

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Crash, strictly speaking, using a reputable source isn't an example of the fallacy of arguing from authority.Page not found - Nizkor PE

So you're saying that nobody is a reputable source when it comes to whether or not there are meta-laws governing many universes? Personally, I'd still hold the view of a professional cosmologist above my own, but agree that, at present, its all piss and wind really.Sorry for interrupting - I hadn't realised that that was what you meant.PEThis message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 10-11-2004 04:14 PM

Hi Hangdawg,Interesting thread this. I'm guessing your logic goes something like:a) everything which is natural has a cause
b) therefore ALL that is natural had a cause
c) since by b) this cause cannot be natural, it must be something other - supernatural
d) we call this supernatural agent GodIs this a fair assessment of your reasoning?Personally, I'd say that there were problems with all the premises above (not necessarily insurmountable) and others are pointing this out to you, but I just wanted to highlight the logical error in going from (a) to (b).Whilst it may be true (quantum physics notwithstanding) that all the effects in the Universe have an antecedent, proximate cause, one cannot then apply this to the Universe as a whole without committing the fallacy of composition.If you follow the link, you'll see that the fallacy of composition occurs when we try to ascribe to the set the properties of the members of the set. Frustatingly for both sides of the argument, this doesn't mean that it is not true - just that one does not follow from another. The example I see quoted everywhere is:- all men have a mother
- therefore humanity has a motheror- all atoms are colourless
- therefore all objects made from atoms are colourless.to- all objects in the Universe have a cause
- therefore the Universe had a causeSo while we have some basis for describing how things in the Universe ought to behave, we've no justification for applying these rules to the Universe at large. We've no idea what properties Universes have - maybe they can bootstrap themselves into existence, when nothing in the Universes can?The reason this fallacy occurs when talking about the Universe, as I see it, is in the way the Universe is commonly described - "the set of all the things which exist".If this is how you define the Universe then I'd probably agree that each of the things in the Universe does have an immediate cause (again, ignore quantum), but the problem is that this definition of the Universe only includes the present tense, whatever that means, so cannot account for the Big Bang, as that no longer "exists" in the present.A better, and all encompassing definition of Universe is "the set of all the things that have existed, currently exist or will exist". This obviously includes the Big Bang. Its now much harder to see why this set should have a cause since it does not vary with time - indeed it doesn't really relate very well to anything we know in everyday life - and, much like the God concept - there is no sense of antecedence or proximity when describing this Universe. In the sense of eternal being time invariant, this set is just as eternal as God is purported to be, and less troublesome philosophically. Cause and effect simply need not apply.PEThis message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 10-13-2004 07:25 PM

I have some qualms about calling the Universe itself supernatural just because we simply do not know how it behaves. Under that reasoning, it seems to me, black holes would be supernatural. To me, this is a little bit like trying to cut a cake into halves when you can't see where the cake is. The two possibilities might as well be whether or not the Universal set has hair, or indeed likes cookies. The set may indeed have a personality but this is one of an infinite number of questions we could ask about it.Nothing I've said in this or my previous post makes it impossible for God to exist of course, nothing I could ever say could. My point here is just to argue that the idea of a God does not follow from all objects in the Universe having a cause(whereas cause and effect may very well follow from the existence of God).That said, I think you knew this and your argument is along the lines of 'think about it, if God were to exist, then He would be an elegant solution to the metaphysical problem of "why is there something rather than nothing?" ' - i.e we know that there MUST be something beyond our understanding out there, I have a personal and ongoing experience of something beyond our understanding - so is it not reasonable to assume that these two things are one and the same?This is a reasonable argument IMO, (many atheists might disagree with the notion that your personal experience is with God and not just your mind playing tricks, but this is a different argument). I find the idea of demonstrating God as the First Cause a bit of a red herring though.PEThis message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 10-14-2004 03:01 AM

That's a fair point - what I meant to say that for the theist who has no doubt that God exists, the question reads more like "Given God exists, why is there something else rather than nothing?" Ans: because God wanted it that way.Its only an elegant answer if you presuppose the existence of God in the first place, so could never be persuasive to an atheist.PE

Hi Sidelined, I agree - its not an explanation at all - more an affirmation of a pre-existing belief. But in a multiverse where all possibilities are actualised (the "just cuz" multiverse), then the probability of something godlike in a particular Universe existing must be 1.Now the probability of God existing for this Universe is pretty small, I'd say. But it may be that we are in that Universe which does have a godlike deity running the roost over it, because the people who are in that Universe where "God" presides would likely have much the same arguments as the arguments we're having on this thread. Kind of a bastardised anthropic argument.You're quite right that this is all complete supposition, and that this equally paves the way of galactic elves and the like and I'm not sure whether there's a good argument against them existing as well. Check out this link which gives a run down of the types of multiverses* being postulated amongst some physicists. At Level IV, the entire multiverse becomes a set of abstract mathematical structures. I've no idea what that means in practice (I'm not well read enough on the concept myself, but it seems to me the upshot of a Level IV multiverse is that there's a Universe where, say, Road Runner (of 'beep beep' fame), could actually exist!!)So yes, once you open the door to the "just cuz" goblin, you unleash a torrent of unwelcome possibilities into your house, without really any way of evaluating their relative likelihoods. Sure, Ockham's razor is a handy tool, but there's no reason for believing it must always hold - its just a glorified hunch really, (which has proven extremely successful in the past). Basically its a consequence of extending the argument: "the Universe exists because it could exist", to other things which could exist.PE* the first and last time I will ever be pluralising the word 'multiverse', I hope.This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 10-14-2004 06:54 PM