Fine-tuning of the Universe for life

Fine-tuning of the Universe

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The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Life Just Got Finer

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/03/the_fine-tuning_1070091.html

Originally posted by RJHinds
Fine-tuning of the Universe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMpWcf4ee0

The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Life Just Got Finer

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/03/the_fine-tuning_1070091.html

So other universes don't have life then?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
So other universes don't have life then?

Other universes is theoretical. No evidence of any other universes exists.
We really do not know if any other universes exist.

The one we know about is peculiarly indeed exquisitely calibrated to allow life to exist. The calibration is beyond, I said BEYOND extraordinary.

And I don't think the term Anthropic Principle was coined by Christians.

Life is more or less fine tuned for the universe, not the other way around. And more or less, because there are vast expanses in the universe where life is not possible, many life forms have gone extinct or are under constant threat of immediate death and all life eventually dies.

Originally posted by sonship
The one we know about is peculiarly indeed exquisitely calibrated to allow life to exist. The calibration is beyond, I said BEYOND extraordinary.

We have gone over this before, yet you seem to suffer from amnesia.

So let me explain it again:
The universe is, in fact, peculiarly indeed exquisitely calibrated for my current existence. Think about all the prerequisites for my birth for example. If my parents hadn't bought a computer, I wouldn't be a programmer (and thus not who I am today). If my father hadn't decided to come to Africa, he would never have met my mother. If a certain asteroid had not collided with the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, us mammals would never have existed. The chain of co-incidences that lead to where I am now are mind-boggling.

In fact your last post changed me ever so subtly into what I am now. Change just one letter in your post, and I would have been a different person. Its BEYOND extraordinary. Its UNIQUE. It is in fact reality. It is the one specific configuration of the universe that exists at the current point in time that distinguishes this universe from all other possible universes. It is a trivial requirement for existence. If the universe were not fine tuned for my existence - right down to the position of every atom in my body - then I would not exist. My existence therefore is absolute undeniable proof that the universe is SUPREMELY EXTRAORDINARILY and UNIQUELY fine tuned for my existence EXACTLY as I am today.

Originally posted by twhitehead


So let me explain it again:
The universe is, in fact, peculiarly indeed exquisitely calibrated for my current existence. Think about all the prerequisites for my birth for example. If my parents hadn't bought a computer, I wouldn't be a programmer (and thus not who I am today). If my father hadn't decided to come to Africa, he would never have met my mo ...[text shortened]... rse is SUPREMELY EXTRAORDINARILY and UNIQUELY fine tuned for my existence EXACTLY as I am today.[/b]

[b]We have gone over this before, yet you seem to suffer from amnesia.

Repetition of your explanations don't cause me to agree with you.
Try them on some new poster maybe.

They boiled down to this: "Give me any reason for believing in God and I will offer at least a somewhat plausible alternative explanation."

I know that you can do that though.
I know, ad infinitum, you can always propose another way at looking at it that is non-theistic.

The laws and constants finely set in the creation of the universe convince me of deliberate intelligent calibration.

Sir Fredrick Holyle on the spontaneous generation of life:

No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for practical reasons that the whole observable universe is not large enoughto contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary tyewriters, and certainly not the waste of paper baskers required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material.
The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it ... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence." [Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, (New York : Simon & Shuster, 1984), p.148]

Originally posted by sonship
Repetition of your explanations don't cause me to agree with you.

You don't have to agree with me, but you seem to have forgotten - or ignored - the explanations.

They boiled down to this "Give me any reason for believing in God and I will offer at least a somewhat plausible alternative explanation."
No, they did not. Is that what you got from my explanation in this thread? Where did I mention God?

The laws and constants finely set in the creation of the universe convince me of deliberate intelligent calibration.
The problem is, as I point out, you are yet to show that the constants were finely set. All you have shown is that the constants if different, would result in a different universe.
If you claim the existence of the universe as it is, is proof that the constants were finely set to enable the universe as it is, then you MUST also accept that the existence of myself, is proof that the constants of the universe were finely set to enable my very specific existence. So if we follow your argument through, God not only made the universe for me, he also wanted me to be exactly as I am - atheist and all - and he even wanted me to make this post to you showing you the ridiculousness of your argument.

Originally posted by Great King Rat

Life is more or less fine tuned for the universe, not the other way around. And more or less, because there are vast expanses in the universe where life is not possible, many life forms have gone extinct or are under constant threat of immediate death and all life eventually dies.

It is true that life seems extraordinarily precious throughout the vast vault of the known universe. This does not persuade me that no fine tuning for its arrival happened though.

Stephen Jay Gould described humans as "a glorious accident" of evolution. The sixty trillion contingent events needed for creation of Homo sapians moves the "accident" into an absurd level of improbability.

If cosmologist estimate the earth's age to be 4.55 billion years old, to accomplish those 60 trillion contingent events would require the accomplishing of about 36 necessary events per day, each for 4.55 billion years. That's just to get Homo sapiens.

This is not to speak of the 36 daily events must have had to happen
1.) at the right place
2.) at the right time
3.) in the right sequence

And we would have to also add the astronomical number of "accidents" necessary to form probably tens or hundreds of thousands of separate ecosystems.

This is like the odds of a person getting hit by lightening at the precise moment he won the Powerball lottery while dying in a crashing airplane that got struck by a meteor.

You don't have to agree with me, but you seem to have forgotten - or ignored - the explanations.

If I forgot it is because they are so ineffective.

No, they did not. Is that what you got from my explanation in this thread? Where did I mention God?

Atheism is what you are usually arguing for.

The problem is, as I point out, you are yet to show that the constants were finely set.

That may be true that I have not been too specific yet. When I do gives specifics, I expect you to still remain skeptical.

All you have shown is that the constants if different, would result in a different universe. If you claim the existence of the universe as it is, is proof that the constants were finely set to enable the universe as it is,

Where did I mention the word "proof" ?

Good evidence exists that we are on the right track to believe in deliberate calibration for life, is my view.

then you MUST also accept that the existence of myself, is proof that the constants of the universe were finely set to enable my very specific existence.

I do think you are special.

So if we follow your argument through, God not only made the universe for me, he also wanted me to be exactly as I am - atheist and all - and he even wanted me to make this post to you showing you the ridiculousness of your argument.

So what is the problem with that last paragraph ?
Can I say you mentioned or implied God now that you have used the word "atheist" ?

What you seem to be attempting to do is the twist the fine tuning argument around against me as a argument against free will. Free will is not my concern at the moment.

Originally posted by sonship
If I forgot it is because they are so ineffective.

Or because you chose not to hear.

Atheism is what you are usually arguing for.
How is that relevant? Try to listen to what I say, not what you think I would have said if you made it up.

That may be true that I have not been too specific yet. When I do gives specifics, I expect you to still remain skeptical.
Until you are specific, you can't base an argument on it. Speculating about my skepticism in the event that you get specific wont change that.

Where did I mention the word "proof" ?
It seems you didn't. Nevertheless, you were 'convinced'. You should therefore be 'convinced' by my argument even if you don't take it as proof.

Good evidence exists that we are on the right track to believe in deliberate calibration for life, is my view.
If this good evidence exists, and you are privy to it, don't keep it to yourself.

I do think you are special.
Not what I said.

So what is the problem with that last paragraph ?
I am pointing out the logical conclusion of your argument. Do you accept then that the universe is finely tuned so as to ensure that I write this post? Do you accept that it was planned out billions of years ago that I write this post?

What you seem to be attempting to do is the twist the fine tuning argument around against me as a argument against free will.
I said nothing about free will. Once again, you are attempting mind reading and failing miserably. Read what I write, and not what you think I would have written.

Originally posted by sonship
Other universes is theoretical. No evidence of any other universes exists.
We really do not know if any other universes exist.

The one we know about is peculiarly indeed exquisitely calibrated to allow life to exist. The calibration is beyond, I said BEYOND extraordinary.

And I don't think the term Anthropic Principle was coined by Christians.

There actually is some evidence of other universes. The CBR shows hints of our universe, when it was much younger, may have had a bump from an external universe like two soap bubbles colliding and bouncing off.

They see definite signs of this in the background radiation:

http://www.livescience.com/15530-multiverse-universe-eternal-inflation-test.html

And of course your cognitive dissonance will not be able to absorb such information. Too bad for you.

Nobody is saying this is the smoking gun of the presence of other universes. It is just a hint that things may be more than we think.

For instance, our universe is not infinite in size, maybe 50ish billion light years across and expanding but even at that enormous size, it is not infinite and other universes could possibly exist side by side of ours and maybe we will see evidence for more collisions on such a cosmic scale it boggles the mind.

If multiple universes exists, we may already be crunching into another one but don't know it yet. Or not. All this is speculation at this point but there is that evidence that shows something going on in the cosmic background radiation we can now study in details of less than one part in 1 millionth of a degree Kelvin. The first probe was able to see the CBR at about one part in a hundred thousand. The present probes are getting ten times the resolution of the first probes. They look for tiny variations in the temperature of the background which shows up a lot of the physics going on in the making of our universe.

That first probe was the COBE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Background_Explorer

The second one was WMAP:


http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The newest one up there now: Planck probe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_(spacecraft)

Refining by a factor of 3 the data from WMAP.

This data tells us how much normal matter there is in the universe vs how much dark matter and so forth. It gives fundamental information about our universe and how it got here.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Fine-tuning of the Universe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMpWcf4ee0

The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Life Just Got Finer

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/03/the_fine-tuning_1070091.html

I am going to try to avoid excessive linking to other sites in this thread.

Originally posted by sonship

[b]Life is more or less fine tuned for the universe, not the other way around. And more or less, because there are vast expanses in the universe where life is not possible, many life forms have gone extinct or are under constant threat of immediate death and all life eventually dies.

It is true that life seems extraordinarily preciou ...[text shortened]... ent he won the Powerball lottery while dying in a crashing airplane that got struck by a meteor.[/b]

Unless this evolution is guided (read pushed and pulled, this way then that way) by the hand of God. Then, even astronomical odds become commonplace. Plus, God has all the time in the world.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Or because you chose not to hear.

[b]Atheism is what you are usually arguing for.
How is that relevant? Try to listen to what I say, not what you think I would have said if you made it up.

That may be true that I have not been too specific yet. When I do gives specifics, I expect you to still remain skeptical.
Until you are specific, yo ...[text shortened]... write this post? Do you accept that it was planned out billions of years ago that I write this post?

What you seem to be attempting to do is the twist the fine tuning argument around against me as a argument against free will.
I said nothing about free will. Once again, you are attempting mind reading and failing miserably. Read what I write, and not what you think I would have written.[/b]

That's right. You did not mention the phrase "free will." But when I consider the final conclusion of your line of reasoning:

So if we follow your argument through, God not only made the universe for me, he also wanted me to be exactly as I am - atheist and all - and he even wanted me to make this post to you showing you the ridiculousness of your argument.

It appears to be a rationale - that the universe is fine tuned to argue for atheism. Very clever. First rule of Atheism - Always be very clever.


Like you get frustrated with having to repeat to me, I have somewhat of a similar sense with you. Your posts, as I have said before, demonstrate that you can be very clever.

I find reasoning the way you do as a kind of abuse of my own mind. Employing the kind of cleverness you employ makes me feel like I am abusing my intellectual facility. Apparently you think it is well worth it to reason in the manner you do. I don't share that sense.

Rather I find your way of reasoning even in that last chain of rationals to be a distortion of my mentality. Sorry. It feels very unhealthy.

I think thinking in the line of reasoning you think in damages something of my humanity. It is almost on the verge of some kind of self inflicted mental illness.

I think you think any price is worth the effort to deny the existence of God. I honestly do not share that sentiment. At some point the "sport" of cleverly arising at alternative explanations is not worth it to me.

Originally posted by sonship

[b]Life is more or less fine tuned for the universe, not the other way around. And more or less, because there are vast expanses in the universe where life is not possible, many life forms have gone extinct or are under constant threat of immediate death and all life eventually dies.

It is true that life seems extraordinarily preciou ...[text shortened]... ent he won the Powerball lottery while dying in a crashing airplane that got struck by a meteor.[/b]

So what if a trillion things had to happen for us to arrive?? That only matters if we were the goal. Suppose in the far future we have the ability to study from afar a region of space where a giant gascloud exists. We know that stars and planets will be formed in that gascloud. Suppose we study that particular region for billions of years - and by study I mean no more than pointing a camera at that region and let it record what happens - and after those billions of years we playback the tape at a high speed to see what's happened. Only if beforehand we predict exactly which lifeforms will appear, does the chance of those lifeforms appearing become relevant. If we see that in that region, billions of lightyears away from use, also human beings just like us come into existence we might scratch our heads in bewilderment and ask "Well, what are the odds?" Waiting for a random lifeform to appear and then scream "Creator!" when whatever appears, is meaningless.

We were never the goal to begin with and we are not special. Why don't you get that??