I do not to believe in super-natural phenomena, not believing in god, is one of them.
The best argument theists have put forward IMO is that if the value of a couple of physical constants would be just slightly off, our universe (and more specifically 'life') would not exist. I think that claim is true.
Putting a god behind the fine-tuning knob to fiddle with the values is hardly solving the problem. Of course we don't derive our values from religion :-) !
Multiverse sounds too much like exegetical acrobatics to me... Are we waiting for a unifying theory in physics? Or do you think the anthropic principle is good enough to account for it?
Any thoughts?
Thank you.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Fine tuning constant arguments tend to depend on many assumptions. The most important (IMO) is the premise that these c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶s̶ parameters are independent of each other (English: the argument depends on the belief that changing one number does not change any others).
I see no reason to accept that premise; in fact there are hints that some of them converge (a reference to your suggestion of a unifying theory).
If those constants are dependent, that greatly increases the probabilities (probabilities do not need to be multiplied anymore). Besides the unifying theory, it could also be the case that some of those constants are more comparable to Pi or e (natural log base), i.e. a number derived from reasoning rather than observation. We just do not know the reasoning yet.
If it isn't the way it is we wouldn't be discussing alternatives.
It is all just the way it is. True enough, but numbing my curiousity.
One thing you have to remember about those fundamental parameters. No matter how they ended as they are, everything we see now would still come to be as it is, just with different fundamental parameters.
The Absolutist bullshit about those parameters being intelligently tuned, is just that, a huge pile of horse hoowhee.
rmfr
I don't think so. If one or more of such constants (maybe parameters) would have deviated only slightly from the values we now measure/calculate, we would not exist. I agree with you that postulating some intelligence fine-tuning those constants does not help, because that intelligence needs to be explained just as well.
@Adragonist
I NEVER said we humans would exist. I said the universe would have still achieved a state similar to what exists now, just fundamentally different.
rmfr
Well, you implied it. You said: "everything we see now would still come to be as it is". I can see humans now!
How do you mean 'similar' and 'fundamentally different'?
A quote is very acceptable. Twisting his words using "implied" is dishonest.
"How do you mean 'similar' and 'fundamentally different'?"
You can't understand that?
Accusing me of dishonesty is not called for.
Yes I can imagine things that are 'similar and fundamentally different', but I do not know what is meant ; that's why I asked.
Open the other eye, so you can JUDGE better David.
@Adragonist
Okay. Let's try it this way. The fundamental parameters are all of different values. The universe would still be able to achieve a state similar to the state we see. But because the fundamental parameters (what some call the cosmological constants) are of different values, the universe is still fundamentally different. In other words, instead of Earth, there is Avadun. Instead of ugly bags of mostly water, there may be ugly bags of mostly ammonia.
However, David is correct on the "twisting his words using "implied" is dishonest." To say I "implied" anything is changing my words and is dishonest. I wrote exactly what I meant. You changed it.
rmfr
I'm disappointed in seeing you -arakish- and David Killens jumping into conclusions about my honesty. You may have your doubts, but expressing them like this is just being very rude.
I'm not a native speaker of English (I live in Spain). I just looked up what 'to imply' means in order to find out whether I wrongly used that verb.
imply: suggest as a logical consequence
You (arakish) wrote: "everything we see now would still come to be as it is".
I wrote that you implied humans would exist.
Perfectly logical to me. No twisting of words at all. It is apparently not what you meant, fair enough. But that is more caused by your unfortunate choice of words, than my wrong reasoning and definitely NOT my dishonesty!
I think the two of you owe me an apology.
I am not a physicist. I am an atheist because I don't believe the believers. I don't have to be a genius to know that people don't rise from the dead, do not fly around on horses, human virgins do not get pregnant, mental illness is not cured by casting schizophrenia into pigs, disease is not cured by magical incantations, the earth is older than 6000 years, my daughters progenitor was not molded from a mans rib! Why would "fine tuning" be a worry for me in my daily life?
You don't need to worry. I'm just curious what people have come up with to explain such an improbable coincidence.
@,adragonist: Trust me! I am not worried. Love the profile name by the way.
Thank you Chimp3.
The term atheist is as silly as my profile name. If only I had thought of 'aspagettimonsterist'.
@adragonist
"You don't need to worry. I'm just curious what people have come up with to explain such an improbable coincidence."
Improbable coincidence? What odds? Some numbers, please.
1.0 e-666
How do you get those odds from a test group of 1?
Why does it have 2 sig figs (why not 1 or 3 or 50)?
The accuracy of the exponent is of more consequence.
OK great, but then why make up sig figs? Skeptic alarm at 90%
How are you measuring improbability here? In fact how do you know it is improbable at all? Since we only have one universe, comparisons are impossible, so how do you know the physical structure of the universe is improbable?
@arakish: Absolutist bullshit about those parameters being intelligently tuned
I laugh at the ones who try tell you that the chances of the universe or life occurring spontaneously are one in 213 godzillion or some such. They seem to pluck these fantastical numbers out of their arses to make their silly arguments look more scientific.
I like the weak anthropic principle. If the universe wasn't just so, we wouldn't be here talking about it.
@Algebe
Yeah, I always laugh at those huginormous numbers also. And to answer their question:
"What are the chances everything would align perfectly to produce life?"
My answer: Once.
rmfr
I also doubt those infinitesimal small numbers, but I think there is more to it than theists clinging to their last straw.
"If the universe wasn't so...". True, but don't you want to know why the universe is so?
@Adragonist
No. I do not really care why it is so. I only care that it is so. Might be hard to understand, but this is a huge difference.
Why should I care to know why it is so? As far as I am concerned, it is the way it is and that is all that matters.
I do find it interesting that the universe settled into what it is. But I do not truly care why.
Is it not awe inspiring enough to know the universe has come to be what it is?
rmfr
Being an adragonist, I don't use the word 'awe': a kind of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder. Sounds too dragonist for me ;-)!
Finding out why things come to be, can take away the fear component of the awe. Science does exactly this. Human knowledge of how and why is very very inspiring too.
@adragonist
I prefer this definition of AWE
"an emotion variously combining respect, astonishment, admiration, that is inspired by the wonders of nature."
rmfr
I want to know how you calculate the probability of an outcome with only 1 example to test? I am still waiting for an answer.
Pages