Big Bang

[chesters1]

By all accounts, everybody in a mental institution thinks that they are the only one that is right/sane and that everybody else is daft.

 

in the UK's version most inmates probably are

[yoxer]

"in the UK's version most inmates probably are"

 

indeed, true zen clowns, and the proof of this is try explaining quantum physics to them and they laugh at it. It amuses me loads that most resent the idea that theyre a clown

[chesters1]

its the tears that prove it :

 

Now if there's a smile on my face

It's only there trying to fool the public

But when it comes down to fooling you

Now honey that's quite a different subject

Edited November 30, 2009 by chesters1

[The Flying Tench]

Yes, same sort of thing - but you don't need to postulate the existence of alternate realities, you just need to postulate that if they did exist, their physical constants would also have to be internally consistent in order for any consciousness produced to be postulating anything at all!

 

To me, there is a circularity in the argument:

 

1. There is a force which wants there to be human consciousness

2. The existence of human consciousness requires the "fine tuning" of the universe

3. Because the force which wants there to be human consciousness has got what it wants, it must have been responsible for the fine tuning

4. Therefore, the existence of the fine tuning proves #1

 

If we instead consider human consciousness to be merely an emergent property of a reality with the defining parameters of this one, like stars and snowflakes and the tricarboxylic acid cycle and Aston Martins, and don't start from the belief that something wanted it to occur, then we do not need to assume that the 'something' intervened to make it occur.

 

Steve, the version of the argument above is indeed circular as it starts with what it wants to prove. The way I see the argument is:

 

1. There either is or isn't a god/ life force which in some sense 'wants' life to happen

2. The existence of life depends on the fine tuning of the universe

3. Assuming there is only one universe, the probability of the fine tuning happening by chance is very low indeed

4. which increases the likelihood of there being a god/life force compared with whatever likelihood you felt there was before you considered fine tuning

 

I'm sure a mathematician/philosopher would express it better, but i think that explains what I am trying to say. I haven't mentioned consciousness because, as I see it, that is a separate argument about whether matter and energy can bring consciousness about as a bi-product or whether consciousness is a rather different kind of thing.

 

J

[corydoras]

Steve, the version of the argument above is indeed circular as it starts with what it wants to prove. The way I see the argument is:

 

1. There either is or isn't a god/ life force which in some sense 'wants' life to happen

2. The existence of life depends on the fine tuning of the universe

3. Assuming there is only one universe, the probability of the fine tuning happening by chance is very low indeed

4. which increases the likelihood of there being a god/life force compared with whatever likelihood you felt there was before you considered fine tuning

 

I'm sure a mathematician/philosopher would express it better, but i think that explains what I am trying to say. I haven't mentioned consciousness because, as I see it, that is a separate argument about whether matter and energy can bring consciousness about as a bi-product or whether consciousness is a rather different kind of thing.

 

J

• 1) I agree with your first premise, either there is or isn't a god/life force.
  
• 2) Your points 2 & 3, as Porgie said in Porgie and Bess It ain't necessarily so.
  
• 3) Even if there is some supreme being that created the Universe and all life in it, by whatever means, how do you come to the conclusion that this must be the god of the Ibrahamic religion of the Jews, Christians and Moslems? How do you know it was not Shiva or Ra?
  

Edited December 1, 2009 by corydoras

[chesters1]

i'd plump for Ra it ticks all the boxes religion wise ,for those that need religion for some reason in their lives.

theres no need for purposeful fine tuning by some entity, if you get conditions for life near enough a few million times one will fire up at least.

life isnt a hard thing to accomplish in nature !the starting blocks can live in all but the most severe conditions so long as the basics "wants" are satisfied.

but ofcourse you dont mean life do you, you mean "man"

 

man is nothing more than an animal, it dreams up "god"(and the baggage that comes with it) to try to distance itself from the fact its nothing more than an animal

if god wanted to make something unique like us why did it use 99.9999999999% animal parts to do it theres nothing unique in our construction at all bar a few minute bits of DNA all of which is possible to be different naturally and evolutionary wise.

 

right thats the need for a greater being wanted but then comes the control part (modern gods are no different to old pagan gods ) do bad (bad in the eyes of religious leaders) and you will be punished (different forms for different cultures ) so its control of the masses by the few with a multi billion £ (insert money type here) industry thrown in.

religious is the oldest scam there is and all the time gullible people need to avoid the fact they are animals (cleverish ones i'l admit if being clever is clever) it will carry on scamming and giving power to the few over the many

Edited December 1, 2009 by chesters1

[Steve Walker]

Steve, the version of the argument above is indeed circular as it starts with what it wants to prove. The way I see the argument is:

 

1. There either is or isn't a god/ life force which in some sense 'wants' life to happen

2. The existence of life depends on the fine tuning of the universe

3. Assuming there is only one universe, the probability of the fine tuning happening by chance is very low indeed

4. which increases the likelihood of there being a god/life force compared with whatever likelihood you felt there was before you considered fine tuning

 

I'm sure a mathematician/philosopher would express it better, but i think that explains what I am trying to say. I haven't mentioned consciousness because, as I see it, that is a separate argument about whether matter and energy can bring consciousness about as a bi-product or whether consciousness is a rather different kind of thing.

 

Hmm, yes, but to my mind the circularity comes from the assumption that this particular outcome is preferable to the other possible outcomes - which seems to presuppose the existence of one who prefers.

 

I think that if you could prove the existence of a god and that this reality is its preferred one (or if you accept it on faith), you would have some circumstantial evidence that it has been fiddling with the levers, so to speak, but I don't think that it works the other way round. So I can see how fine tuning tells someone who believes something about the nature of God (though perhaps something about omnipotence and benevolence that is already theological orthodoxy?), but as a non-believer I don't find it convinces me that it is more likely that there is a god.

 

The other thing that bothers me about it is that we seem to be looking at it as if the two constants are independent random variables which could have landed at any value at all and came out at the required numbers by chance - I don't know enough about cosmology to know what determines those values or what the set of possible values is.

[GlennB]

The way I see the argument is:

 

1. There either is or isn't a god/ life force which in some sense 'wants' life to happen

...

 

John - assuming that 'god' created the universe :

 

Where did god come from?

Where was god at the moment of creation (given that there was no universe yet)?

 

Banal questions, I know, but they highlight a point that I find important. Philosophers have argued over this for thousands of years. Leibnitz postulated a 'necessary being' (god) to make sense of it. Others were happy to see the universe itself as the 'necessary being'. Russell said " . . . The universe is just there, and that's all."

 

'God' just adds a layer of complexity, as far as I can see.

 

p.s. where did that one in 10^60 in your o/p come from ? Not saying it isn't right, but I can't find a reference.

[ColinW]

1) you do now.

 

Do I?

I'd be very interested to hear what an electron is. Of course I don't want to be told that it's a Fermion with a charge of -1, a spin of a 1/2 and a rest mass of 0.511MeV. That's like trying to say a car is something that is blue, does 30mpg and weighs a ton. Doesn't really explain what a car is, does it?

As I said I know how an electron behaves. I know quite a lot about its properties. I don't, however, have a clue what one is.

[Leon Roskilly]

Something important to remember about the 'fine tuning' theory is that for most of its long history (both passed and yet to come) life has been/will be possible for only a relatively brief period of the universe's total time of existence.

 

And the time that mankind exists/will exist during even during that brief period of time when any life is possible will be relatively momentarily.

 

http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/timeline/index.html

 

 

(Click on the various epochs for the detail - fascinating stuff happening that life will not be able to be around to experience in the trillion upon trillion upon trillion.......years ahead!)

 

The universe's usual state(s) are hostile to any form of life.

 

So, the universe obviously doesn't exist to make us possible!

Edited December 1, 2009 by Leon Roskilly