Originally posted by sonhouseOther...universes?
Agree 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 oth ...[text shortened]... e speak and others are on the end game of their universe. I think time is just another variable.
I don't think we're there yet. IIRC, multiple universes are fashionable because they make certain equations turn out nicely.
Originally posted by sonshipI was discussing your analogy. Now you switch back to reality
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.
(which you do not necessarily know my position on). Why
cannot you stick to a single point to discuss? I teach ADD and ADHD
students with better focus than you.
What do you want to debate???????????????
START a new thread AND stick to the point.
I (and others) will respect your point of view BUT will not respect your inability to stick to a single discussion or illogical argument from false premise.
Originally posted by sonshipOK, so have we established that you do not think that a merely improbable outcome is enough to think intelligent design? Does this apply whatever the size of the lottery and however small the odds?
That is right. For Ms. Whoever, winning the Powerball should not cause her to think it was rigged for her to win.
If so, we can discard about half your posts in this thread as irrelevant - or worse, arguing for something you don't believe anyway.
But what Barrow's example is trying to explain is not the mere existence of a dot, but the existence of blue dots.
This is the argument that we are special.
My first objection which you have never addressed, is that 'life' is not defined by Barrow. I had earlier asked you to define life, and the best you could come up with was 'exactly as it is in the universe we see now'. If we take this definition, then Barrow would be wrong, there would be exactly 1 red dot and the rest would be blue - because there would be no other universes with life exactly as we see it now.
The problem then is that you are essentially back to the situation where you are claiming we are special because we exist, or in the lottery analogy, nobody else has the same lottery ticket as you, so you think you are special. But you have already conceded that that argument is not valid.
So you are going to have to come up with some other definition of 'life' before you can call on Barrows argument.
I believe Barrow didn't think it through.
Originally posted by sonshipBut there aren't billions and billions of red balls and one green ball. There are only billions and billions of red balls. But what happens next is that you let one of those red balls drop, paint it green and then say "Look at this special ball, what was the chance of it dropping? Clearly there must be intelligence at work."
[quote] 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 ...[text shortened]... the life permitting universe should NOT be expressing any particular novelty at the coincidence.
Originally posted by Great King RatPainting the ball green requires some intelligence, doesn't it?
But there aren't billions and billions of red balls and one green ball. There are only billions and billions of red balls. But what happens next is that you let one of those red balls drop, paint it green and then say "Look at this special ball, what was the chance of it dropping? Clearly there must be intelligence at work."
Originally posted by wolfgang59Overall point of this thread is that the Fine Tuning of the constants and values in the creation event are good evidence for theistic belief.
I was discussing your analogy. Now you switch back to reality
(which you do not necessarily know my position on). Why
cannot you stick to a single point to discuss? I teach ADD and ADHD
students with better focus than you.
What do you want to debate???????????????
START a new thread AND stick to the point.
I (and others) will respect your po ...[text shortened]... respect your inability to stick to a single discussion or illogical argument from false premise.
I'm happy that you are proud of your credentials and like to recommend further education and all that. But coming back again to a conversation over many days may at times be confusing.
Anyway, the main point, Fine-tuning of the Universe for Life as evidence for God on a Spirituality Forum, I think has been presented reasonably successfully.
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Originally posted by Great King Rat
But there aren't billions and billions of red balls and one green ball. There are only billions and billions of red balls. But what happens next is that you let one of those red balls drop, paint it green and then say "Look at this special ball, what was the chance of it dropping? Clearly there must be intelligence at work."
But there aren't billions and billions of red balls and one green ball. There are only billions and billions of red balls. But what happens next is that you let one of those red balls drop, paint it green and then say "Look at this special ball, what was the chance of it dropping? Clearly there must be intelligence at work."
If you mean there are not billions of billions of Big Bangs or billions of billions of universes, you are probably right, I think.
The billions of life prohibiting scenarios is arrived at by observing the tuned constants and quantities that exist AND with assumed attitude of indifference, pretend that these values could have arbitrarily been different.
Do you see ? We're saying "Here are the values governing the Big Bang. Let's tweak here and there and there and here under the assumption that the values COULD have arbitrarily been OTHER than what they are.
It is in this that we discover that our life permitting universe did not have the same probability to come about as any other universe. The actual range of values for a life permitting universe (ie. green ball), are exceedingly narrow.
Some thoughtful people contemplating this say it demands some explanation or at least is a notable coincidence. It has been said that it appears that the universe knew we were coming.
Originally posted by sonshipPeople tried to tell you why it sucked, but you refused to listen. But hey, call it 'successful' if it makes you feel good.
Overall point of this thread is that the [b] Fine Tuning of the constants and values in the creation event are good evidence for theistic belief.
I'm happy that you are proud of your credentials and like to recommend further education and all that. But coming back again to a conversation over many days may at times be confusing.
Anyway, ...[text shortened]... [/b] for God on a Spirituality Forum, I think has been presented reasonably successfully.[/b]
Originally posted by sonshipI think has been presented reasonably successfully.
Overall point of this thread is that the [b] Fine Tuning of the constants and values in the creation event are good evidence for theistic belief.
I'm happy that you are proud of your credentials and like to recommend further education and all that. But coming back again to a conversation over many days may at times be confusing.
Anyway, ...[text shortened]... [/b] for God on a Spirituality Forum, I think has been presented reasonably successfully.[/b]
LOL.
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Originally posted by SwissGambit
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.
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.
Yes, my son builds PCs too.
It is easy to conclude something or someone else built it because it is a many time event - #1, and we have seen it done by people - #2.
The creation of the universe is not a repeatable event as far as our observations are concerned. And we certainly didn't witness it coming into being any more than we witnessed our own birth.
What would be the reason for assuming that something or Someone bigger than you and I [DIDN'T] act as the creator? Just because we don't LIKE that such a entity should exist, is not enough for some of us.
If we get a signal from space amounting to the multiplication tables sent forwards and backwards and forwards again, we know of no one out there who could do that. That should not prejudice us to jump to the conclusion no one could.
You may say "I don't like space aliens." But if an intelligent signal comes we have to open to that possibility.
You may say "I don't like Supreme Beings." But what are you going to do with the evidence ?
Again, SOME of the notable features of this tuning to permit higher life:
a tuned strong nuclear force constant
if larger: no hydrogen would form; atomic nuclei for most life-essential elements would be unstable; thus, no life chemistry
if smaller: no elements heavier than hydrogen would form: again, no life chemistry
a tuned weak nuclear force constant
if larger: too much hydrogen would convert to helium in big bang; hence, stars would convert too much matter into heavy elements making life chemistry impossible
if smaller: too little helium would be produced from big bang; hence, stars would convert too little matter into heavy elements making life chemistry impossible
a tuned gravitational force constant
if larger: stars would be too hot and would burn too rapidly and too unevenly for life chemistry
if smaller: stars would be too cool to ignite nuclear fusion; thus, many of the elements needed for life chemistry would never form
a tuned electromagnetic force constant
if greater: chemical bonding would be disrupted; elements more massive than boron would be unstable to fission
if lesser: chemical bonding would be insufficient for life chemistry
a tuned ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant
if larger: all stars would be at least 40% more massive than the sun; hence, stellar burning would be too brief and too uneven for life support
if smaller: all stars would be at least 20% less massive than the sun, thus incapable of producing heavy elements
a tuned ratio of electron to proton mass
if larger: chemical bonding would be insufficient for life chemistry
if smaller: same as above
a tuned ratio of number of protons to number of electrons
if larger: electromagnetism would dominate gravity, preventing galaxy, star, and planet formation
if smaller: same as above
a tuned expansion rate of the universe
if larger: no galaxies would form
if smaller: universe would collapse, even before stars formed
a tuned entropy level of the universe
if larger: stars would not form within proto-galaxies
if smaller: no proto-galaxies would form
a tuned mass density of the universe
if larger: overabundance of deuterium from big bang would cause stars to burn rapidly, too rapidly for life to form
if smaller: insufficient helium from big bang would result in a shortage of heavy elements
a tuned velocity of light
if faster: stars would be too luminous for life support if slower: stars would be insufficiently luminous for life support
a tuned age of the universe
if older: no solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would exist in the right (for life) part of the galaxy
if younger: solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would not yet have formed
With Universes, not so much. None of us knows the normal means of making universes.
Assuming that no being has that know-how is prejudicial. Maybe we need to check our pride if that bias governs our thinking on this.
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 think all things left unattended, it will end in a hot death or a cold death.
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.
We theists have thought about all those problems.
My answer is that as much as it may kill us to admit it, our human language is simply limited to express what it would mean for a transcendent all powerful Mind and Will to cause TIME to come into existence.
I sympathize with your puzzlement. But we may just have to face the fact that if we knew everything then we would be that Supreme Being.
I believe that this God did not intend to leave us out in the dark. Quite the contrary. Over all that God created He said "Let Us make man in Our image and according to Our likeness, AND LET THEM HAVE DOMINION ..."
What I read in the Good Book is that God delights that over all His incomprehensible creation He desires man to be His deputy authority, that is in loving coordination with Himself.
I don't think we should resent Him or blame Him if His eternal power and infinite intelligence is beyond our finite minds to fully comprehend.
I don't know how my son makes those PCs completely. I don't rob him of the enjoyment of his status to be able to do so.
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Originally posted by SwissGambitActually, it is more than just string theory equations now. There is evidence for a collision or two with our universe, anomalies in the CMB, rings in the data that should not be there and is presented as evidence another universe may have collided with ours early on in our local clock time.
Other...universes?
I don't think we're there yet. IIRC, multiple universes are fashionable because they make certain equations turn out nicely.
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/did-our-universe-collide-with-another-when-it-was-380000-years-old/
Of course that may not be the only explanation but it is one that fits what they see.