Originally posted by sonshipI wrote a typo. The correction is below - what I meant to say.[b]For the universe - hell, even for the rest of our solar system - whether earth exists or not in a healthy state or not is of no importance.
I don't agree with that at all.
This attitude, I think, reflects a kind of modern [b]dispair with human life. And this kind of attitude of despair I spoke to in my thread If No God - Wh ...[text shortened]...
We care for the health of our planet because we are a part of it. [/quote]
There you GO !!
We may assume non living things will continue business as usual. But we [do] live to meaningfully manage that little corner of the material creation that we occupy.
Originally posted by twhiteheadYea, I think we both know that you come here with an attitude that your next post will make your reasoning clear. You seem always on the verge of getting down to saying something really significant as you lead on with pretended patience.
I think we both know that this is nothing more than an attempt to sidetrack the discussion and avoid answering the important questions.
You know what? The "next" post which brings your thoughts all together for clarity never comes. Its just a game - "follow me carefully and you'll see"
Its a waiting for your truth side to come out.
I don't think you have a truth side to finally come out.
Originally posted by sonshipBig talk from someone who refuses to answer simple straight forward questions and tries to side track the discussion at every turn.
Its a waiting for your truth side to come out.
I don't think you have a truth side to [b]finally come out.[/b]
Thats now 9 posts you've made over the course of 24 hours, and you have not yet addressed GKRs posting - which I might add was motivated by your invitation to do so.
The argument has been put forward by several different posters since then in different words, in case you don't understand GKR or me.
So, lets see your truth side - simply give honest answers to the questions you were asked.
I have not once in this thread refused to answer a question you have put to me.
Originally posted by sonshipMe: If he thinks living things should not be regarded over non-living things it is not obvious to meIf he thinks living things should not be regarded over non-living things it is not obvious to me. Wolfgang59
He did say life was of no vital importance.
.
You: He did say life was of no vital importance
??????? How stupid are you? How are those sentences related?
The rest of your post is similarly retarded.
Get an education P L E A S E
Originally posted by wolfgang59More ad homs ?
Me: If he thinks living things should not be regarded over non-living things it is not obvious to me
You: He did say life was of no vital importance
??????? How stupid are you? How are those sentences related?
The rest of your post is similarly retarded.
Get an education [b]P L E A S E[/b]
Now, finally thats really impressive from you wolfgang59.
Originally posted by twhiteheadI saw your Zen "truth" reasoning about tossing a die.
Big talk from someone who refuses to answer simple straight forward questions and tries to side track the discussion at every turn.
Thats now 9 posts you've made over the course of 24 hours, and you have not yet addressed GKRs posting - which I might add was motivated by your invitation to do so.
The argument has been put forward by several different ...[text shortened]... you were asked.
I have not once in this thread refused to answer a question you have put to me.
Throw a die. It lands at six. Now that its sitting on 6 its probability of being 6 is 1.
Can you also sit in the lotus position ?
1 edit
Originally posted by sonshipSo, you still won't answer the questions?
I saw your Zen "truth" reasoning about tossing a die.
Throw a die. It lands at six. Now that its sitting on 6 its probability of being 6 is 1.
Can you also sit in the lotus position ?
Do you even have a 'truth side'?
In case you missed it in the middle of your attempts to sidetrack the thread here it is again:
.... be clear about your stance on GKRs basic argument.
Do you, or do you not agree that he has a case if life is not part of the equation?
Does your argument claim that any result from a long sequence of die throws indicates the existence of an intelligent creator?
2 edits
Originally posted by SwissGambit
To sum up,
*** WHY THE FINE-TUNING / EX-ANTE PROBABILITY ARGUMENT SUCKS ***
1. It is not surprising to get a 1 in 1 billion result if you get to play the game 1 billion times (in fact, it's almost certain that you will get it).
2. The argument is applied after the fact; we are all here; life exists. Probability = 100%
3. We are never given a probab ...[text shortened]... nt creator of the Universe. We need that to compare the likelihood of the alternate explanation.
3. We are never given a probability calculation for the spontaneous existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, highly intelligent creator of the Universe. We need that to compare the likelihood of the alternate explanation.
I never saw one either yet.
However, I think God is necessary. If anything exists God must exist.
That is the way I come to see this.
Look at your PC.
One of four things should be the case:
1.) The PC is an illusion.
2.) The PC created itself
3.) The PC is eternal
4.) The PC owes its existence to something or someone else.
Number 4 is what I would go with.
Now in the case of all time, space, matter, motion, energy, and the whole universe the possbilities are similar:
1.) Either the universe is an illusion
2.) Or the universe created itself
3.) Or the universe is eternal and has always been in existence
4.) Or the universe owes its existence to something or someone else.
In the case of the universe I take 4.
And this something or someone else, in this case, must be eternal an uncreated.
Furthermore, it did not HAVE to bring the universe into existence. But the universe, not being eternal, is here. So a deciding WILL must have been involved. And that would make the creator of the universe a Being living and immensely powerful.
I believe then God brought the universe into being with a deciding act of will.
In the case of a PC the creator could be temporary an owe its existence to something else. But with the case of the whole universe, I believe that the Creator is necessarily uncreated and eternal - the greatest conceivable being.
Maybe that helps your probability matter. I don't know. But I think God is necessary given universe. Let me say then that the probability of God is 100%.
"But which God spoken of by people ?"
That is the next question, I think.
9 edits
Originally posted by vistesd
This is what I think GKR’s underlying argument is—
I just looked up the Powerball on the lottery: the jackpot is now $400 million. The odds of winning the jackpot are listed as 1 in 175,223,510.
The last time the jackpot was won was May 2013, when it was worth $ 590 million. That person (from Florida) might have felt very special—but s/he was just one in roughly 175 million. She happened to hit. Sooner or later, someone else will hit, too.
Whether or not there is “fine tuning”, the fact that things turned out the way they did (as opposed to some other way—some other winning number) is not evidence of that, any more than the fact that that person won the jackpot is evidence that the lottery was fine-tuned (“rigged” ) to come up with that number.
That is right. For Ms. Whoever, winning the Powerball should not cause her to think it was rigged for her to win.
Now a few people have brought up examples like this and somehow I doubt that they are equivalent to what the scientists who express astonishment at the Fine Tuning are saying.
I therefore proposed an example or two, not originated by me, which express the matter of probability.
One concerned an example proposed by a John Barrow:
Take a sheet of paper and place upon it a red dot. The dot represents our universe. Now alter slightly one or more of the finely tuned constants and physical quantities which have been enumerated in the lists contributed to this thread. As a result of tampering slightly with the constants and quantities place on the paper another dot in proximity to the one red dot. That additional dot represents another universe. If that new dot with its tampered with values represents a life-prohibiting universe make is blue. If it represents a life-permitting universe make it red. Repeat the procedure as many times as is needed to fill up all spaces on the paper. Barrow says that you will end up with a paper overwhelmingly solid blue with only a few pin pricks of red.
Some people say that the existence of ANY universe is equally improbable and yet some universe must exist. Some argue that the fine tuning of the universe is like a lottery in which any individual's winning is fantastically and equally improbable but which some individual had to win. They argue that just as such a lottery winner should not conclude that the lottery was rigged just for his winning, so we should not conclude that there is a cosmic Fine Tuner who rigged our universe just because it exists.
But what Barrow's example is trying to explain is not the mere existence of a dot, but the existence of blue dots. That is the experiment is not meant to explain the existence of the universe but the existence of a life permitting universe.
It is not being asked why dots exists but why our RED dot exists.
The red dot means a life permitting universe.
So a proper lottery analogy for the fine tuning of the universe would be as follows -
A single green ball is placed in a gigantic container mixed with a billion, billion, billion black balls. A random selection is performed from the collection that activates ONE ball to come down a chute. It is overwhelmingly probable that when a selection is made a black ball will roll down the chute rather than a green ball.
One pull and the green ball in the midst of a billion, billion, billion black balls come down the chute.
In the same way, it may be true that the existence of any particular universe is equally improbable. However, it is astronomically more probable that whichever universe exists, it would be a life prohibiting one rather than a life-permitting one.
If GKR wants to make his point with either of these two examples, that might help me to see why he thinks the scientists who have expressed the notoriety of the life permitting universe should NOT be expressing any particular novelty at the coincidence.
Originally posted by sonshipCrap analogy.
Look at your PC.
One of four things should be the case:
1.) The PC is an illusion.
2.) The PC created itself
3.) The PC is eternal
4.) The PC owes its existence to something or someone else.
Firstly it could be more than one of those options;
for instance an illusion created by someone (1 & 4) or
an illusion that will last forever (1 & 3)
Secondly it could be none of your options
in other words it could be
real,
not self-created
transitory,
not owe its existence to anything
a bit like homo sapiens
When putting up an argument like this you
should have some basic logic and set-theory behind you.
Nice try, do better nect time.
1 edit
Originally posted by sonshipTrouble is, I have built PC's. I know my species can build millions of them, and millions of other similarly sophisticated devices. It is very easy to conclude that the PC owes its existence to something or someone else, because I have seen that happen dozens of times.3. We are never given a probability calculation for the spontaneous existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, highly intelligent creator of the Universe. We need that to compare the likelihood of the alternate explanation.
I never saw one either yet.
However, I think God is necessary. If anything exists God must exist.
That is the ...[text shortened]... od is 100%.
"But which God spoken of by people ?"
That is the next question, I think.
With Universes, not so much. None of us knows the normal means of making universes.
I'm not even sure you have listed all of the possibilities for the Universe. What about 5) - the Universe began as a Singularity, and will end with a Hot Death? Maybe that is 'eternal' in the sense that Time began at the Big Bang, and will end (if truly no more events happen) at the Hot Death, and fits 3), but I'll leave that debate to the Cosmologists.
I really don't see how anyone or anything can 'bring' the Universe into being if there is no Time yet. 'Bring' needs something to happen to make the Universe. Nothing can happen at all before the beginning of Time.
4 edits
Originally posted by wolfgang59
Firstly it could be more than one of those options;
That certainly allows you to remain ambiguous about what you believe is the case. I want to move from an ambiguous position which seems to hope for an escape hatch somewhere.
I've thought on the matter and decided to take a position.
Maybe you prefer to leave it up in the air forever.
for instance an illusion created by someone (1 & 4)
Do you think the universe is an illusion created by someone ?
Yes?
No?
You don't know?
Well I vote for probably not an illusions created by someone for everyone.
Not the WHOLE thing, certainly.
I don't think the whole universe is an illusion. I think there may be some illusions within it. But I have ruled out that the entire universe is an illusion.
If it is an illusion to me then I must be real or else I would not be able to have an illusion to begin with.
You and I are conversing about it, as well as millions of other people who apparenty see the same thing that you and I see and are discussing here. So my vote is that though illusions exist when people do not claim to observe the same thing, the unanimity with which we all agree the world is out there, persuades me that probably the universe is not a mass illusion.
That is not to say that some illusions do not occasionally occur within it.
Probably it is substantially real.
Then you say it could be created by someone to be an everlasting illusion.
I don't believe that a Creator set up an eternal illusion. Because I think the Creator of the whole universe is a being for whom a greater being cannot be imagined. And a being which reveals truth, I think, is greater than a being who intends to present an illusion for eternity.
Someone said "No lie can live forever." So my opinion is that a eternal Creator would be greater if He was a ultimate Being of truth rather than an ultimate Being of deception.
In the case of the universe I think it must be the creation of a Being for whom a greater cannot be imagined. And I think a truth and reality manifesting Creator Being is greater than an unreality, illusion manifesting Being.
However, there is one caveat. It well could be that we cannot observe the entire universe on a micro and macro level forever. That means that our perception of it is partial and may be eternally partial. But that I do not count as an illusion. I count that as not perceiving the entire universe as it really is.
or
an illusion that will last forever (1 & 3)
The third option I listed was that the universe created itself. This is incoherent. For something to create itself would mean that it existed before it existed. And that is incoherent.
Even God could not do that.
So for the universe to have created itself would mean that it had to exist in order to bring itself into existence. I rule that absurdity out.
Secondly it could be none of your options
in other words it could be
real,
not self-created
That is one of the options real verses illusion or not real.
transitory,
not owe its existence to anything
a bit like homo sapiens
I think that every effect has a cause. And to not believe that would destroy the enterprise of scientific study. So saying the universe does not owe its existence to anything is:
1.) against the principle of doing science.
2.) against the mainstream current opinion that the universe of space, time, matter, energy had a beginning.
I believe that a Creator who is ever existing and owe His existing to nothing else does exist. But that Person is beyond the ability of science to measure and detect. Something other than scientific method has to be used to substantiate the reality of that Person.
And I am suprised that you would insinuate that homo sapien had no cause because I thought you were an evolutionist. And most of the evolutionists I know trace homo sapien back to something else giving rise to the arrival of homo sapien.
Your last proposal is evolution unfriendly and scientific method unfriendly.
Aren't you suppose to be upholding these two things ?
When putting up an argument like this you
should have some basic logic and set-theory behind you.
Nice try, do better nect time.
You can take a hundred courses. But sooner or latter you have to have the guts to decide what you think is the case. I think your evasion displays cowardice.
Anyway, you have the reasons why your combo 1 & 4 and your other proposals including combo 1 & 3 I have already ruled out.
The Creator of the universe is a transcendent and powerful Being for whom a greater cannot possibly be imagined. This Being is eternal, self existing, always was, always will be, and is the ground for the coming into existence of all other things.
There ARE other abstract things perhaps outside the universe which could be candidates. But I rule things like laws or other abstract things like numbers out because the don't DO any thing by volition. They do not have a WILL to decide to DO something.
But God for whom no greater Being could be imagined, would have a WILL to decide to perform, to do, to bring about, to cause to BE.
Originally posted by SwissGambitAgree with that, except for the term 'time'. I think it is a matter of there being different 'time flows' going on simultaneously in different universes so when the BB happened, LOCAL time started and we are a few billion years into our local time clock. That means other universes are way behind us relatively speaking, according to THEIR time clock, and others have just started as we speak and others are on the end game of their universe. I think time is just another variable.
Trouble is, I have built PC's. I know my species can build millions of them, and millions of other similarly sophisticated devices. It is very easy to conclude that the PC owes its existence to something or someone else, because I have seen that happen dozens of times.
With Universes, not so much. None of us knows the normal means of making universes. ...[text shortened]... omething to happen to make the Universe. Nothing can happen at all before the beginning of Time.