AMR wrote:
See above. The Weak Anthopic Principal (hereafter WAP) relies on the fact that while we may be living in an admittedly rare island of habitability, so long as a range of different parameters were at least theoretically possible, "well we just happen to be lucky", but as Martin Rees relates above that WAP argument goes out the window if ALL POSSIBLE UNIVERSES are similarly blessed.

I don’t think that you have clue as to what you are talking about, I certainly do not understand what you are talking about.. The weak anthropic principle is the simplest of them all and will never go out the window. All it says is that an observer could not exist in a universe where an observer cannot exist. Therefore observers exist only in universes where observers can exist. This is indisputably true. What is with this “All possible universes” rhetoric?

The weak anthropic principle relies on nothing other than logic, you should get another argument.

AMR wrote:
Again, if biogenic physical parameters were imposed on all possible universes the argument would be persuasive.

So what you are saying is that if the values of natural laws are tweakable then it means that this is evidence that our universe was tweaked by God. But if they are not tweakable in this or any other hypothetical universes then that is also evidence of God.

Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. But I can: If it was ever shown that the natural laws of this universe could have been different it only means that they could have been different, but they weren’t. It would provide no evidence for a dial twiddling god. On the other hand if it is ever shown that the natural laws of this universe could not have been different than what they are it dismisses automatically any twiddling god.

Want another blast from the anthropic repertoire? If this is the only universe then given that its natural laws are fixed, it follows that all natural laws are fixed, and cannot vary because there is no occasion for them to vary.

Did your god create just this universe or all possible universes? It seems to me that apologists like AMR get a bit lost in their pseudo-scientific arguments.

xrayzed wrote:

Thommo wrote:If this hypothesised "final theory" determines the constants in the same way that Euclidean Geometry determines pi, then the "fine tuning" problem is of no more mystery than that currently surrounding pi. You may notice that some people do marvel about the mystery of pi and there are interesting mathematical conjectures surrounding it's value, but it's not evidence for god(s).

Oh, but it is. It is.

Pi is the most basic of all the constants. Pi has to do with roundness. Many things in our universe are round or strive to attain roundness. From tree trunks to our plants and to man-made things. Pi is the most perfect shape. I suppose this is the reason that God chose pi to inscribe his signature, announcing that He exists.

http://artmusicdance.com/vaspi/proof.htm

How foolish of me not to see it. Thanks for correcting me...

Thommo wrote:

AMR wrote:In your analogy here the bag I take it is meant to represent the range of physical possibilities; but for sake of argument assume 99% of the universes in this cosmic "bag of possibilities" were of the 10-120 variety (like ours) and the hand of fate reaches into the cosmic bag of possibilities and unsurprisingly pulls out one of them. But you'd still be faced with the question why, of all the huge range of numeric values of the cosmological constant (10 quadrillion googol), those that were coincidentally hospitable for life and complexity happened to predominate. Who or what placed the possible universes in the cosmic bag in the first place?

No, you can't just make shit up and then point out it doesn't answer the question.

Can't I? I thought the way I ran with your analogy was rather clever. And I like the pensive Picards. But you didn't catch my error though: 10-120is actually 100 quintillion googol not merely 10 quadrillion googol, but what's 4 orders of magnitude when were dealing with 120?

If you knew what the physical possibilities were, you'd know this precisely BECAUSE you knew the constraining factors on them.

. . . It remains to be seen that there actually are any free parameters in a "theory of everything", or indeed that there actually is a "theory of everything" in the first place.

Before this is answered we cannot discuss the nature of physical parameters that are not known to exist.

This is precisely the error in your reasoning I was pointing out.

Actually I agree with you there may well not be a "theory of everything" out there to find, in which case physics will simply grow more and more arcane and speculative (and frankly unscientific) as we've seen over the past 20-30 years with string theory. And in fact even if (a version of) string (or M) theory is the final theory so much if it is completely untestable anyway. But you fail to define or appreciate an explanation behind any speculative "constraining factors". Why should any theoretical "constraining factors" on physical law just so happen to constrain the universe within biogenic boundaries?

AMR wrote:Einstein asked whether "God had any choice in the creation of the world.” . . . .

Thommo: Wibble.

Wibble? How old are you Thommo if you don't mind me asking? Or are you from England? I had to look that one up. And reindeer are already plural.

AMR wrote:Rees observes in a small book relating just six such physical parameters that shape our universe N, Ɛ, Ω, λ, Q, D:

"Perhaps some 'final theory' will give unique formulae for all of our six numbers. If it were to, then the other universes, even if they existed, would in essence be just replicas of ours, and the apparent 'tuning' would be no less a mystery than if our single universe were the whole of reality." -- Martin Rees Just Six Numbers (p.152)

Thommo: Indeed, I've read the book, and that quote, and the wider context of that page even supports with what I've said.

Wider context? Are you accusing me of quoting Rees out of context? Here's the whole paragraph:

If there are indeed many universes, the next question that arises is: How much variety do they display? The answer again depends on the character of the physical laws at a deeper and more unified level than we yet understand. Perhaps some 'final theory' will give unique formulae for all of our six numbers. If it were to, then the other universes, even if they existed, would in essence be just replicas of ours, and the apparent 'tuning' would be no less a mystery than if our single universe were the whole of reality. We'd still be perplexed that a set of numbers imprinted in the extreme conditions of the Big Bang happened to lie in the narrow range that allowed such interesting consequences ten billion years later. (Rees p. 152)

If there is something on page 152 of that book (or anywhere in that book) that agrees with your argument I can't find it. You're going to have to quote from it yourself.

Thommo: If this hypothesised "final theory" determines the constants in the same way that Euclidean Geometry determines pi, then the "fine tuning" problem is of no more mystery than that currently surrounding pi. You may notice that some people do marvel about the mystery of pi and there are interesting mathematical conjectures surrounding it's value, but it's not evidence for god(s).

xrayzed: Oh, but it is. It is.
Pi is the most basic of all the constants. Pi has to do with roundness. Many things in our universe are round or strive to attain roundness. From tree trunks to our plants and to man-made things. Pi is the most perfect shape. I suppose this is the reason that God chose pi to inscribe his signature, announcing that He exists.

http://artmusicdance.com/vaspi/proof.htm

The late Carl Sagan's novel Contact was actually quite good (the Jody Foster movie was OK). In a great twist at the end the ratio pi is found to contain hidden messages within its infinite digit sequence, perhaps the greatest proof of God for a skeptic:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)
"Ellie" Arroway, a life long religious skeptic, finds herself asking the world to take a leap of faith and believe what she and the others say happened to them. But one of the only people who is willing to do so is a minister/ love interest introduced early in the book.
In a kind of postscript, Ellie, acting upon a suggestion by the senders of the message, works on a program which computes the digits of π to record lengths and in different bases. Very, very far from the decimal point (1020) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1s and 0s in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle.
The extraterrestrials suggest that this is an artist's signature, woven into the very fabric of space-time. It is another message, one from the universe's creator. Yet the extraterrestrials are just as ignorant to its meaning as Ellie, as it could be still some sort of a statistical anomaly. . . . A line in the book suggests that the image is a foretaste of deeper marvels hidden even further within Pi. This new pursuit becomes analogous to SETI; it is another search for meaningful signals in apparent noise. This idea, among other plot points, was omitted from the film version.

AMR wrote: . . . you didn't catch my error though: 10-120 is actually 100 quintillion googol not merely 10 quadrillion googol,

[/quote]
Needless to say 10-120 is actually to the right of the decimal point which according to the period naming conventions listed here would be 100 quintillion googolminex (I googled "googolth" which turns out to be "the first search engine specialized on dark, gothic, industrial, fetish or alternative topics." Or extrapolated to the right of the decimal in conventional period names would be something called a novemtrigintillionth (10-120).

Oldskeptic:
. . . I certainly do not understand what you are talking about.. The weak anthropic principle is the simplest of them all and will never go out the window. All it says is that an observer could not exist in a universe where an observer cannot exist. Therefore observers exist only in universes where observers can exist. This is indisputably true.

The WAP is used by atheist apologists to counter fine tuning from design arguments. As in "of course the universe should be fine tuned for our existence, it couldn't have been any other way since we are here!" The fact that our universe is fine-tuned is indisputable (you may argue fine-tuning does not imply a tuner if a range of alternate possibilities exists). Logically, a follow up question may be: why should that be so? The WAP's answer is that, from the meta-view, chance had to favor some corner of existence,it happens to be ours. If ours is the only universe or other universes are also similarly biogenic then, as Rees points out above, the mystery of fine tuning remains throughout all reality. This is what motivates so much physics on unobservable theoretical multiverses.

E.g. Dimensionless constants, cosmology and other dark matters Max Tegmark (MIT), Anthony Aguirre (UCSC), Martin J Rees (Cambridge), Frank Wilczek (MIT)

So why do we observe these 31 parameters to have the particular values . . ? Interest in that question has grown with the gradual realization that some of these parameters appear fine-tuned for life, in the sense that small relative changes to their values would result in dramatic qualitative changes that could preclude intelligent life, and hence the very possibility of reflective observation. . . . there are four common responses to this realization:

1. Fluke: Any apparent fine-tuning is a fluke and is best ignored.
2. Multiverse: These parameters vary across an ensemble of physically realized and (for all practical purposes) parallel universes, and we find ourselves in one where life is possible.
3. Design: Our universe is somehow created or simulated with parameters chosen to allow life.
4. Fecundity: There is no fine-tuning, because intelligent life of some form will emerge under extremely varied circumstances.

Most scientific opinion can be collectively grouped into 1,2, or 4 above. Pick one and explain why. That should be an interesting topic of debate.

Oldskeptic: What is with this “All possible universes” rhetoric?

Max Tegmark along with Rees has authored a number of famous scientific papers on classes of possible universes. Tegmark has actually developed a taxonomy of possible other universes. See Parallel Universes Max Tegmark in Science and Ultimate Reality: From Quantum to Cosmos, honoring John Wheeler’s 90th birthday, J.D. Barrow, P.C.W. Davies, & C.L. Harper eds., Cambridge University Press (2003)

Oldskeptic:
So what you are saying is that if the values of natural laws are tweakable then it means that this is evidence that our universe was tweaked by God. But if they are not tweakable in this or any other hypothetical universes then that is also evidence of God.

Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.

That's not my argument, I guess you havn't been paying attention: if the values are "tweakable" the multi-verse WAP arguemnt is at least plausible; if not, all would-be multiverses are also bounded by biogenic parameters. Why should physical law then happen to overlap exactly upon the narrow delimitations demanded by life and intelligence.

Oldskeptic:
. . . . But I can: If it was ever shown that the natural laws of this universe could have been different it only means that they could have been different, but they weren’t. . . . On the other hand if it is ever shown that the natural laws of this universe could not have been different than what they are it dismisses automatically any twiddling god.

Again if ours is shown to be the only universe you'd be left to explain the immense improbabilities of existence; and this is the position of the vast majority of the international theoretical physics community (or perhaps my original assessment of your attitude was correct: "why even ask?").

AMR wrote:

Oldskeptic:
. . . I certainly do not understand what you are talking about.. The weak anthropic principle is the simplest of them all and will never go out the window. All it says is that an observer could not exist in a universe where an observer cannot exist. Therefore observers exist only in universes where observers can exist. This is indisputably true.

The WAP is used by atheist apologists to counter fine tuning from design arguments.

Wrong. Since you misunderstand the Weak Anthropic Principle, everything you say following this misunderstanding is going to be distorted by your misunderstanding.

<snip>

Oldskeptic:
So what you are saying is that if the values of natural laws are tweakable then it means that this is evidence that our universe was tweaked by God. But if they are not tweakable in this or any other hypothetical universes then that is also evidence of God.

Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.

That's not my argument, I guess you havn't been paying attention: if the values are "tweakable" the multi-verse WAP arguemnt is at least plausible; if not, all would-be multiverses are also bounded by biogenic parameters. Why should physical law then happen to overlap exactly upon the narrow delimitations demanded by life and intelligence.

Yes, which is exactly where the Weak Anthropic Principle comes in. Because, if physical law did not happen to allow the evolution of life and intelligence, then we would not be here to be able to ask the question:

Merriam-Webster wrote:"Weak Anthropic Principle ...conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist.".

Oldskeptic:
. . . . But I can: If it was ever shown that the natural laws of this universe could have been different it only means that they could have been different, but they weren’t. . . . On the other hand if it is ever shown that the natural laws of this universe could not have been different than what they are it dismisses automatically any twiddling god.

Again if ours is shown to be the only universe you'd be left to explain the immense improbabilities of existence; and this is the position of the vast majority of the international theoretical physics community (or perhaps my original assessment of your attitude was correct: "why even ask?").

Because faithheads want to twist science into supporting their idea that god must necessarily exist. That's why they ask "why". Why do you ask ?

hotshoe wrote:

Why do you ask ?

Because I'm curious.

AMR wrote:
The WAP is used by atheist apologists to counter fine tuning from design arguments. As in "of course the universe should be fine tuned for our existence, it couldn't have been any other way since we are here!"

No, that is not it at all. There is no need for even mentioning fine-tuning, let alone assume that it is. The shortest way to express the weak anthropic principle is, “We are here because we can be.” There is no reason to think that the universe was created for us to evolve in anymore than to think that mudpots and hot sulfur springs in Yellowstone National Park were created for Thermophlic bacteria to evolve in.

I read something a few years ago about a microorganism that existed in only one small place on earth. It was behind an ancient pub in Brittan where men had been going out to to take a piss for centuries, this microorganism thrived on uric acid and ammonia, actually metabolized them.

This is may be only an interesting story, but it brings up the question regarding the weak anthropic principle: Where else would you expect to find a microorganism that feeds on piss and its byproduct than in an ancient pool of piss that is replenished regularly?

You could carry on this fine-tuning fiasco of an argument involving probabilities from here. What are the chances that malt and barley would evolve and then be domesticated? What are the chances that malt and barley would be combined with yeast and H2O? What are the chances that this mixture would be let to stand long enough to ferment and create beer?

What where the chances that Rome would conquer Brittan and bring beer with the invasion and beer would become the beverage of choice in pubs?

What are the chances that someone built a pub in that exact spot? What are the chances that one particular wall in the back of the pub became the pissing place?

Astonishingly! The exact same place that they found the microorganism that lives on piss?

Oh my God! The odds are too fucking astronomical for all of these things to happen by accident. There must be a god fine-tuning piss spots just so a piss eating microorganism could eat piss.

AMR wrote:
The fact that our universe is fine-tuned is indisputable (you may argue fine-tuning does not imply a tuner if a range of alternate possibilities exists).

If it is indisputable then why are so many people disputing it, or unconvinced? I’m not talking about just us “atheist apologists” that take on “Faith.” I mean physicists and cosmologists.

But there is a difference between when you mention fine-tuning and physicist or cosmologist does. By fine-tuning you mean God did the fine tuning, end of discussion. But when a physicist or cosmologist addresses fine-tuning it is as a question that has nothing to do with “God.”

AMR wrote:
Logically, a follow up question may be: why should that be so? The WAP's answer is that, from the meta-view, chance had to favor some corner of existence,it happens to be ours.

Well since I disagree with your premise that it is indisputable that the universe is fine-tuned I don’t have much to say here. Except that the weak anthropic principle has no answer pertaining to any meta-view. Only one simple explanation to counter fine-tuning: No thing could exist where it cannot exist. Therefore things exist where they can exist. This is indisputably true, fine-tuning is not.

AMR wrote:
If ours is the only universe or other universes are also similarly biogenic then, as Rees points out above, the mystery of fine tuning remains throughout all reality. This is what motivates so much physics on unobservable theoretical multiverses.

If there is only this universe or there are more and it turns out that they all have the same parameters then question is answered. Mystery might remain for those not ready or willing to believe it, but that is nothing new.

AMR wrote:
Most scientific opinion can be collectively grouped into 1,2, or 4 above. Pick one and explain why. That should be an interesting topic of debate.

I choose #5: The appearance of, as in the illusion of, the possible fine-tuning for life is just that. It is what some want to see.

AMR wrote:

Max Tegmark along with Rees has authored a number of famous scientific papers on classes of possible universes. Tegmark has actually developed a taxonomy of possible other universes. See Parallel Universes Max Tegmark in Science and Ultimate Reality: From Quantum to Cosmos, honoring John Wheeler’s 90th birthday, J.D. Barrow, P.C.W. Davies, & C.L. Harper eds., Cambridge University Press (2003)

I don’t care how many people write about hypothetical universes, we are dealing with this one are we not? I get annoyed enough when anyone goes off about other universes as if they exist or we could ever know whether they exist or not, and trying to argue one way or the other about fine-tuning and “God..”

What the fuck is your point? I can’t figure it out any longer. You are just al over the place. Is there any chance that you understand your own argument enough that you could condense it down from the nebulous cloud of assertions and links that it has become?

Oldskeptic:wrote:
So what you are saying is that if the values of natural laws are tweakable then it means that this is evidence that our universe was tweaked by God. But if they are not tweakable in this or any other hypothetical universes then that is also evidence of God.

Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.

AMR wrote:
That's not my argument, I guess you havn't been paying attention: if the values are "tweakable" the multi-verse WAP arguemnt is at least plausible; if not, all would-be multiverses are also bounded by biogenic parameters.

I was paying plenty of attention, a sufficient amount to detect that you have backed off from an apologetic argument that you asserted but cannot support.

And you are scrambling here: Whether cosmic values are “tweakable” or not has nothing to do with the weak anthropic principle. Tweaked or not we would still only be able to exist in a place where it is possible for us to exist in.

AMR wrote:
Why should physical law then happen to overlap exactly upon the narrow delimitations demanded by life and intelligence.

Your not paying attention. The question is the other way around: Why does life and intelligence fit into a narrow strip of possible environments? The explanation is - Because they can.

AMR wrote:
Again if ours is shown to be the only universe you'd be left to explain the immense improbabilities of existence;

How so? We exist therefore our existence is not at all improbable. It is a fact.

AMR wrote:
and this is the position of the vast majority of the international theoretical physics community.

I like the term “Vast Majority” it conjures up such feelings of inclusiveness. Your problem though is that there is no vast majority that thinks that a single universe model indicates immense improbabilities.

AMR wrote:
(or perhaps my original assessment of your attitude was correct: "why even ask?").

What original assessment was that? My original assessment of you was that you are just another Christian/creationists apologist, and you have done nothing to dissuade me from that opinion, Yet I deal with your inane assertions and pseudo scientific interpretations with something akin to patience.

Oldskeptic wrote:

AMR wrote:
The WAP is used by atheist apologists to counter fine tuning from design arguments. As in "of course the universe should be fine tuned for our existence, it couldn't have been any other way since we are here!"

No, that is not it at all. There is no need for even mentioning fine-tuning, let alone assume that it is. The shortest way to express the weak anthropic principle is, “We are here because we can be.” There is no reason to think that the universe was created for us to evolve in anymore than to think that mudpots and hot sulfur springs in Yellowstone National Park were created for Thermophlic bacteria to evolve in.

I read something a few years ago about a microorganism that existed in only on small place on earth. It was behind an ancient pub in Brittan where men had been going out to to take a piss for centuries, this microorganism thrived on uric acid and ammonia, actually metabolized them.

This is may be only an interesting story, but it brings up the question regarding the weak anthropic principle: Where else would you expect to find a microorganism that feeds on piss and its byproduct than in an ancient pool of piss that is replenished regularly?

You could carry on this fine-tuning fiasco of an argument involving probabilities from here. What are the chances that malt and barley would evolve and then be domesticated? What are the chances that malt and barley would be combined with yeast and H2O? What are the chances that this mixture would be let to stand long enough to ferment and create beer?

What where the chances that Rome would conquer Brittan and bring beer with the invasion and beer would become the beverage of choice in pubs?

What are the chances that someone built a pub in that exact spot? What are the chances that one particular wall in the back of the pub became the pissing place?

Astonishingly! The exact same place that they found the microorganism that lives on piss?

Oh my God! The odds are too fucking astronomical for all of these things to happen by accident. There must be a god fine-tuning piss spots just so a piss eating microorganism could eat piss.

AMR wrote:
The fact that our universe is fine-tuned is indisputable (you may argue fine-tuning does not imply a tuner if a range of alternate possibilities exists).

If it is indisputable then why are so many people disputing it, or unconvinced? I’m not talking about just us “atheist apologists” that take on “Faith.” I mean physicists and cosmologists.

But there is a difference between when you mention fine-tuning and physicist or cosmologist does. By fine-tuning you mean God did the fine tuning, end of discussion. But when a physicist or cosmologist addresses fine-tuning it is as a question that has nothing to do with “God.”

AMR wrote:
Logically, a follow up question may be: why should that be so? The WAP's answer is that, from the meta-view, chance had to favor some corner of existence,it happens to be ours.

Well since I disagree with your premise that it is indisputable that the universe is fine-tuned I don’t have much to say here. Except that the weak anthropic principle has no answer pertaining to any meta-view. Only one simple explanation to counter fine-tuning: No thing could exist where it cannot exist. Therefore things exist where they can exist. This is indisputably true, fine-tuning is not.

AMR wrote:
If ours is the only universe or other universes are also similarly biogenic then, as Rees points out above, the mystery of fine tuning remains throughout all reality. This is what motivates so much physics on unobservable theoretical multiverses.

If there is only this universe or there are more and it turns out that they all have the same parameters then question is answered. Mystery might remain for those not ready or willing to believe it, but that is nothing new.

AMR wrote:
Most scientific opinion can be collectively grouped into 1,2, or 4 above. Pick one and explain why. That should be an interesting topic of debate.

I choose #5: The appearance of, as in the illusion of, the possible fine-tuning for life is just that. It is what some want to see.

AMR wrote:

Max Tegmark along with Rees has authored a number of famous scientific papers on classes of possible universes. Tegmark has actually developed a taxonomy of possible other universes. See Parallel Universes Max Tegmark in Science and Ultimate Reality: From Quantum to Cosmos, honoring John Wheeler’s 90th birthday, J.D. Barrow, P.C.W. Davies, & C.L. Harper eds., Cambridge University Press (2003)

I don’t care how many people write about hypothetical universes, we are dealing with this one are we not? I get annoyed enough when anyone goes off about other universes as if they exist or we could ever know whether they exist or not, and trying to argue one way or the other about fine-tuning and “God..”

What the fuck is your point? I can’t figure it out any longer. You are just al over the place. Is there any chance that you understand your own argument enough that you could condense it down from the nebulous cloud of assertions and links that it has become?

Oldskeptic:wrote:
So what you are saying is that if the values of natural laws are tweakable then it means that this is evidence that our universe was tweaked by God. But if they are not tweakable in this or any other hypothetical universes then that is also evidence of God.

Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.

AMR wrote:
That's not my argument, I guess you havn't been paying attention: if the values are "tweakable" the multi-verse WAP arguemnt is at least plausible; if not, all would-be multiverses are also bounded by biogenic parameters.

I was paying plenty of attention, a sufficient amount to detect that you have backed off from an apologetic argument that you asserted but cannot support.

And you are scrambling here: Whether cosmic values are “tweakable” or not has nothing to do with the weak anthropic principle. Tweaked or not we would still only be able to exist in a place where it is possible for us to exist in.

AMR wrote:
Why should physical law then happen to overlap exactly upon the narrow delimitations demanded by life and intelligence.

Your not paying attention. The question is the other way around: Why does life and intelligence fit into a narrow strip of possible environments? The explanation is - Because they can.

AMR wrote:
Again if ours is shown to be the only universe you'd be left to explain the immense improbabilities of existence;

How so? We exist therefore our existence is not at all improbable. It is a fact.

AMR wrote:
and this is the position of the vast majority of the international theoretical physics community.

I like the term “Vast Majority” it conjures up such feelings of inclusiveness. Your problem though is that there is no vast majority that thinks that a single universe model indicates immense improbabilities.

AMR wrote:
(or perhaps my original assessment of your attitude was correct: "why even ask?").

What original assessment was that? My original assessment of you was that you are just another Christian/creationists apologist, and you have done nothing to dissuade me from that opinion, Yet I deal with your inane assertions and pseudo scientific interpretations with something akin to patience.

With something akin to patience, and with logic and clear writing, thanks

AMR wrote:The fact that our universe is fine-tuned is indisputable (you may argue fine-tuning does not imply a tuner if a range of alternate possibilities exists).

It depends what you mean by fine-tuned. As most of the universe is positively hostile to life, unless your definition of fine-tuned is "there is 00.000000000000000000000001% of it that won't kill you instantly" the universe is anything but "fine-tuned".

If you simply mean "the universe is capable of supporting life" as opposed to "the universe is optimised for supporting life", the fine-tuning argument is even shakier. Victor Stenger points out in Is The Univerese Fine-Tuned For Us? that it is by no means clear that life would be impossible in a universe with different values to the four fundamental constants:

I have made a modest attempt to obtain some feeling for what a universe with different constants would be like. Press and Lightman (1983) have shown that the physical properties of matter, from the dimensions of atoms to the order of magnitude of the lengths of the day and year, can be estimated from the values of just four fundamental constants (this analysis is slightly different from Carr and Rees [1979 ])...

I find that long-lived stars that could make life more likely will occur over a wide range of these parameters. For example, if we take the electron and proton masses to be equal to their values in our universe, an electromagnetic force strength having any value greater than its value in our universe will give a stellar lifetime of more than 680 million years. The strong interaction strength does not enter into this calculation. If we had an electron mass 100,000 times lower, the proton mass could be as much as 1,000 times lower to achieve the same minimum stellar lifetime. This is hardly fine-tuning.

I do not dispute that life as we know it would not exist if any one of several of the constants of physics were just slightly different. Additionally, I cannot prove that some other form of life is feasible with a different set of constants. But anyone who insists that our form of life is the only one conceivable is making a claim based on no evidence and no theory.

Hotshoe wrote:
With something akin to patience, and with logic and clear writing, thanks.

It is an ongoing churning process, and you and I are just cogs in the machinery.

Never the less thanks for the compliment. Cheers to you to.

Oldskeptic: I choose #5: The appearance of, as in the illusion of, the possible fine-tuning for life is just that. It is what some want to see. . . . Yet I deal with your inane assertions and pseudo scientific interpretations with something akin to patience.

How magnanimous if you . From what I take from your line of argument it may classify as "Cosmic Theory #1"; actually your position seems somewhere between Fluke & Fecundity . . . but if you're going to get all pissy about it I see no reason to continue this increasingly repetitive debate.

xrayzed: Yeah I read Stenger's paper which is cited often because he's one of a few physicists who explicitly take that position (yet even he concedes he cannot propose some other form of life -- or intelligence -- feasible with a different set of constants); if you or anyone on this thread or anyone out there who may happen upon it from an internet search say "anthropic AND googolminex AND piss" perhaps a unique hit) know of any additional scientific papers that critique cosmic fine tuning in a professional manner please include links to them in any additional posts you may be interested in submitting.

Oldskeptic: PS: BTW, if you could, include some citation for this unique pub micro organism I'd like to read the primary source.

AMR wrote:xrayzed: Yeah I read Stenger's paper which is cited often because he's one of a few physicists who explicitly take that position (yet even he concedes he cannot propose some other form of life -- or intelligence -- feasible with a different set of constants); if you or anyone on this thread or anyone out there who may happen upon it from an internet search say "anthropic AND googolminex AND piss" perhaps a unique hit) know of any additional scientific papers that critique cosmic fine tuning in a professional manner please include links to them in any additional posts you may be interested in submitting.

How many papers do you need to see before you stop considering handwaving a refutation?

xrayzed wrote:
How many papers do you need to see before you stop considering handwaving a refutation?

What do you mean? Urban dictionary: "Attempting to get past a moment when a difficult explanation is required." I'm certainly not the one who's "handwaving" here I'm all about seeking difficult explanations. But if you simply don't have anything further in the way of sources I guess that speaks for itself. What I'll call the WAP-Fluke argument is thin on both citations and rational critical thinking skills and is boring to debate -- this site is supposed to be a forum for rational discussion not puerile straw man arguments. For example the obvious flaws in Oldskeptics' English urine screed above (immediately reposted by hotshoe in its entirety for some reason) 1. there is no mystery to the origin or adaptations of micro organisms 2. micro organisms are not self-aware 3. In fact I tend to be skeptical of the whole premise that a unique species evolved in said environment. Bacteria and micro-flora and fauna live almost everywhere within Earth's biosphere there would be nothing special or noteworthy about a particular colony living outside a pub; and the idea that it has been evolving for centuries in that particular location is absurd.

xrayzed wrote:

AMR wrote:The fact that our universe is fine-tuned is indisputable (you may argue fine-tuning does not imply a tuner if a range of alternate possibilities exists).

It depends what you mean by fine-tuned. As most of the universe is positively hostile to life, unless your definition of fine-tuned is "there is 00.000000000000000000000001% of it that won't kill you instantly" the universe is anything but "fine-tuned".

If you simply mean "the universe is capable of supporting life" as opposed to "the universe is optimised for supporting life", the fine-tuning argument is even shakier. Victor Stenger points out in Is The Univerese Fine-Tuned For Us? that it is by no means clear that life would be impossible in a universe with different values to the four fundamental constants:

Even if the universe is hostile to life outside the earth, with trillions of planets non life permitting, that does not mean, the universe is not finely tuned to life for us.

http://www.reasons.org/design/solar-sys ... h-apr-2004

Maximum possible number of life support bodies in universe ≈ 1022

Thus, less than 1 chance in 10282(million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astrono ... e-t249.htm

The very hugeness of our Universe, which seems at first to signify how unimportant we are in the cosmic scheme, is actually entailed by our existence! This is not to say that there couldn't have been a smaller universe, only that we could not have existed in it.

the solar / earth system is also amazingly finely tuned to host life, so to advocate chance as reasonable explanation makes simply no sense.

AMR wrote:

xrayzed wrote:
How many papers do you need to see before you stop considering handwaving a refutation?

What do you mean? Urban dictionary: "Attempting to get past a moment when a difficult explanation is required." I'm certainly not the one who's "handwaving" here I'm all about seeking difficult explanations.

But if you simply don't have anything further in the way of sources I guess that speaks for itself.

What's the point in providing further sources when you don't understand the ones you've already got ?

What I'll call the WAP-Fluke argument is thin on both citations and rational critical thinking skills and is boring to debate -- this site is supposed to be a forum for rational discussion not puerile straw man arguments. For example the obvious flaws in Oldskeptics' English urine screed above (immediately reposted by hotshoe in its entirety for some reason)

Believe it or not, this is not all about you

1. there is no mystery to the origin or adaptations of micro organisms

right, just like there is no mystery about the WAP fact that, where observers exist, conditions must exist which allow those observers. See, no mystery.

2. micro organisms are not self-aware 3. In fact I tend to be skeptical of the whole premise that a unique species evolved in said environment. Bacteria and micro-flora and fauna live almost everywhere within Earth's biosphere there would be nothing special or noteworthy about a particular colony living outside a pub; and the idea that it has been evolving for centuries in that particular location is absurd.

Yep, I told you there's no point in providing you further sources when you can't even get the point of a simple little story like this pub colony one.

Jireh wrote:

xrayzed wrote:

AMR wrote:The fact that our universe is fine-tuned is indisputable (you may argue fine-tuning does not imply a tuner if a range of alternate possibilities exists).

It depends what you mean by fine-tuned. As most of the universe is positively hostile to life, unless your definition of fine-tuned is "there is 00.000000000000000000000001% of it that won't kill you instantly" the universe is anything but "fine-tuned".

If you simply mean "the universe is capable of supporting life" as opposed to "the universe is optimised for supporting life", the fine-tuning argument is even shakier. Victor Stenger points out in Is The Univerese Fine-Tuned For Us? that it is by no means clear that life would be impossible in a universe with different values to the four fundamental constants:

Even if the universe is hostile to life outside the earth, with trillions of planets non life permitting, that does not mean, the universe is not finely tuned to life for us.

http://www.reasons.org/design/solar-sys ... h-apr-2004

Maximum possible number of life support bodies in universe ≈ 1022

Thus, less than 1 chance in 10282(million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astrono ... e-t249.htm

The very hugeness of our Universe, which seems at first to signify how unimportant we are in the cosmic scheme, is actually entailed by our existence! This is not to say that there couldn't have been a smaller universe, only that we could not have existed in it.

the solar / earth system is also amazingly finely tuned to host life, so to advocate chance as reasonable explanation makes simply no sense.

Fixed the exponents for ya.

Next time, use the "sup" button to get your superscripts correct.

As for the actual calculations, do you believe them or are you posting them here for us to laugh at. ? GIGO on a truly giant scale. Hugh Ross' reasons to believe are well known as among the most stupid of all religious apologists on our planet - probably in the whole universe.

Fucking idiot.

AMR wrote:

xrayzed wrote:
How many papers do you need to see before you stop considering handwaving a refutation?

What do you mean? Urban dictionary: "Attempting to get past a moment when a difficult explanation is required." I'm certainly not the one who's "handwaving" here I'm all about seeking difficult explanations.

So you've refuted Stenger's argument? I seem to have missed this. Perhaps you could point me towards your refutation.

But if you simply don't have anything further in the way of sources I guess that speaks for itself.

And what peer-reviewed papers do you have that show that life would be impossible if any of the constants were changed?

AMR wrote:

Thommo wrote:

AMR wrote:In your analogy here the bag I take it is meant to represent the range of physical possibilities; but for sake of argument assume 99% of the universes in this cosmic "bag of possibilities" were of the 10-120 variety (like ours) and the hand of fate reaches into the cosmic bag of possibilities and unsurprisingly pulls out one of them. But you'd still be faced with the question why, of all the huge range of numeric values of the cosmological constant (10 quadrillion googol), those that were coincidentally hospitable for life and complexity happened to predominate. Who or what placed the possible universes in the cosmic bag in the first place?

No, you can't just make shit up and then point out it doesn't answer the question.

Can't I? I thought the way I ran with your analogy was rather clever. And I like the pensive Picards. But you didn't catch my error though: 10-120is actually 100 quintillion googol not merely 10 quadrillion googol, but what's 4 orders of magnitude when were dealing with 120?

I'm sorry, I chose not to nitpick on this offtopic point to stay on topic.

And you're right, you technically can just make shit up and pretend it supports your position. It doesn't though, because you're just making shit up.

The actual scenarios you should consider are the ones that your argument hinges upon not occuring:- one of the two suggested by Lord Rees in the passage you quoted and the following one I quote later in this post. Considering some ill thought out and fictitious scenario of your own invention doesn't address the issue at all.

AMR wrote:

If you knew what the physical possibilities were, you'd know this precisely BECAUSE you knew the constraining factors on them.

. . . It remains to be seen that there actually are any free parameters in a "theory of everything", or indeed that there actually is a "theory of everything" in the first place.

Before this is answered we cannot discuss the nature of physical parameters that are not known to exist.

This is precisely the error in your reasoning I was pointing out.

Actually I agree with you there may well not be a "theory of everything" out there to find, in which case physics will simply grow more and more arcane and speculative (and frankly unscientific) as we've seen over the past 20-30 years with string theory. And in fact even if (a version of) string (or M) theory is the final theory so much if it is completely untestable anyway. But you fail to define or appreciate an explanation behind any speculative "constraining factors". Why should any theoretical "constraining factors" on physical law just so happen to constrain the universe within biogenic boundaries?

Who knows, it was your idle speculation, not mine.

I was the one pointing out we don't know what will be found.

AMR wrote:

AMR wrote:Einstein asked whether "God had any choice in the creation of the world.” . . . .

Thommo: Wibble.

Wibble? How old are you Thommo if you don't mind me asking? Or are you from England? I had to look that one up. And reindeer are already plural.

I'm 29 and I'm from England. How old are you?

You're wibbling again, not that it would fucking matter if I had spelled reindeer wrong but both reindeer and reindeers are recognised plurals (word spellchecker and dictionary.com both have them listed as valid, as does the concise OED), but really if you're going to be so needlessly pedantic at least have a correct point to make.

Please try and stay on track, this is now your 3rd response to that one point I made and you've only just barely acknowledged the point I made in between your nitpicking now.

Style is less important than substance.

AMR wrote:

AMR wrote:Rees observes in a small book relating just six such physical parameters that shape our universe N, Ɛ, Ω, λ, Q, D:

"Perhaps some 'final theory' will give unique formulae for all of our six numbers. If it were to, then the other universes, even if they existed, would in essence be just replicas of ours, and the apparent 'tuning' would be no less a mystery than if our single universe were the whole of reality." -- Martin Rees Just Six Numbers (p.152)

Thommo: Indeed, I've read the book, and that quote, and the wider context of that page even supports with what I've said.

Wider context? Are you accusing me of quoting Rees out of context? Here's the whole paragraph:

If there are indeed many universes, the next question that arises is: How much variety do they display? The answer again depends on the character of the physical laws at a deeper and more unified level than we yet understand. Perhaps some 'final theory' will give unique formulae for all of our six numbers. If it were to, then the other universes, even if they existed, would in essence be just replicas of ours, and the apparent 'tuning' would be no less a mystery than if our single universe were the whole of reality. We'd still be perplexed that a set of numbers imprinted in the extreme conditions of the Big Bang happened to lie in the narrow range that allowed such interesting consequences ten billion years later. (Rees p. 152)

If there is something on page 152 of that book (or anywhere in that book) that agrees with your argument I can't find it. You're going to have to quote from it yourself.

Right, and that supports what I said. You'll note that he isn't suggesting this is support for god, he suggests that "we'd still be perplexed" with such an explanation, this is a primer for his exposition of what he finds the most intuitively plausible possibility that he comes to in the following passage. You'll note that it's conditional (he doesn't know whether or not such formulae exist) and he even labels it "apparent 'tuning'" with inverted commas in place so people don't confuse the label with literal language.

You'll notice the next section explains Lord Rees's personal inclination/suspicion on what will be found (and it's nothing like the creationist myth):

"But there's another possibility. The underlying laws that apply throughout the multiverse may turn out to be more permissive. Each universe may evolve in a distinctive way, being characterized by a different set of numbers from those that are so crucial in moulding our own universe. We are used to explaining contingencies here on Earth (why there is a particular mountain, for instance), and even features in space (the shape of a nebula, the pattern of the galaxies), as 'accidents of history'. We can't explain such things any more deeply, although we don't doubt that they are the outcome of some underlying laws. By extension, the strength of the forces and the masses of elementary particles (as well as Ω, Q and λ) could be secondary outcomes of the final theory (maybe a version of superstring theory) that governs the entire multiverse."

AMR wrote:The late Carl Sagan's novel Contact was actually quite good (the Jody Foster movie was OK). In a great twist at the end the ratio pi is found to contain hidden messages within its infinite digit sequence, perhaps the greatest proof of God for a skeptic:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)
"Ellie" Arroway, a life long religious skeptic, finds herself asking the world to take a leap of faith and believe what she and the others say happened to them. But one of the only people who is willing to do so is a minister/ love interest introduced early in the book.
In a kind of postscript, Ellie, acting upon a suggestion by the senders of the message, works on a program which computes the digits of π to record lengths and in different bases. Very, very far from the decimal point (1020) and in base 11, it finds that a special pattern does exist when the numbers stop varying randomly and start producing 1s and 0s in a very long string. The string's length is the product of 11 prime numbers. The 1s and 0s when organized as a square of specific dimensions form a rasterized circle.
The extraterrestrials suggest that this is an artist's signature, woven into the very fabric of space-time. It is another message, one from the universe's creator. Yet the extraterrestrials are just as ignorant to its meaning as Ellie, as it could be still some sort of a statistical anomaly. . . . A line in the book suggests that the image is a foretaste of deeper marvels hidden even further within Pi. This new pursuit becomes analogous to SETI; it is another search for meaningful signals in apparent noise. This idea, among other plot points, was omitted from the film version.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the only reasonable answer is to point out that this is fiction and has no bearing on reality.