Intelligent Design

no concept of how a universe is supposed to be...

well, if all we know of is our universe, and it's safe to say that it is the great all, then isn't what it is exactly how it is supposed to be?

isn't that the best way to define things?

 

Well, if it is the great all. But then, if it is, we still have no point of comparison. The universe runs how it runs, but to assume that it's particularly well-made doesn't make sense, since we have no idea what a shitty knock-off rushjob universe would be like. It's kinda like saying that one specimen of an animal is large without having ever seen another; for all we know, it could be the runt of the litter.

Well yes. It just doesn't lend any weight to the idea that the universe has been designed, one way or the other.

 

a good universe or a shitty universe or a mediocre universe....

it's all relative. those terms mean nothing unless you have something else to compare it to. so if the universe is all there is, then it just is. it isn't good or shitty, because there is nothing else to compare it to.

 

which is exactly the point that we can't tell that the universe is fine tuned. We can though, tell that certain animals aren't fine tuned, they aren't perfectly designed, they're flawed, and so it is very likely that they've occurred through natural selection, rather than blueprints.

 

I think the OP meant that the universe is fine tuned for US. or at least, the earth is.

we are able to thrive, and life here is abundant. life is pretty delicate, and requires a lot of things to be perfect. i mean I see what he is getting at. I dont hold it as the end all proof of God, but it's interesting to think about.

 

That's assuming we're meant to be here at all. I'm considering the possibility that we're a mistake that's damn lucky to live in a skanky lab owned by a slattern.

My theory, and Darwin's kinda, is the universe isn't fine-tuned to us; we're fine-tuned to it. It only seems to have been built for us because, if it wasn't suited to us, we wouldn't have survived. Same data, just viewed from the other side.

 

Greetings,

But that’s just the thing, you don’t need to know what other universes would or could look like in order to know that :

1. Life requires that the universe be pretty much exactly as it is
2. That the universe could have, and in all probability should have been different (For example, the initial force that got the universe in motion could have been just a tad bit weaker, or just a tad bit stronger. In either case, life would not have been possible).

All I’m saying is that we got two ways in which we could look at our improbable circumstances:

1. It was chance; we just got lucky
2. The universe was actually "made" to be just as it is by an intelligent designer.

The second to me seems to be far more probable than the first, and it appears to be evidenced from the vary nature of the universe itself. Now that’s my take, but that really isn’t the point of this thread. What I’m just curious about is why the second isn’t even looked at as an option. Why are people more willing and eager to posit odd theories about multiple/infinite universes, than they are to even look into (2)? What’s the big deal with (2)?

 

we are fine tuned to it, meaning that some form of life that WAS able to survive in the conditions presented would exist, regardless of what tunings.

if that was the case though, then why dont we see biospheres on planets other than our own, each with individual life forms that are fine-tuned to the conditions presented to them?

 

But suppose you are right in saying that an Intelligent designer would, in some way, be hard to explain. So what? You don't throw out hypotheses just because certain aspects of it would be hard to explain. There are plenty of things in science that cannot be explained.

 

In either case, you're still speaking of intentionality, which implies intelligence of some sort.

 

Some of you seem to be advancing the following argument:

-- While T exemplifies properties of design, T does not exemplify properties of a T that I would have designed. Therefore T is not designed.

But there is huge leap from premise to conclusion here. Just because some thing doesn't look like something you would have designed, doesn't mean it wasn't designed.

I think that some of you are proceeding from the following assumption:

-- For any x, x is designed if and only if x exemplifies properties that would also be present had I designed x. (where "I" just refers to the person advancing the argument.)

Clearly, though, this isn’t a good definition.I'm sure there are plenty of designed, man-made things in the world that were designed differently than how YOU would have designed them. (Cars, boats, computers, etc. ) But this doesn’t imply that they weren’t designed (and in fact they were designed). Also, this is too subjective of a definition.

 

Most likely because we can't see that far. It's a near certainty that with the number of galaxies, solar systems and planets in the universe, there are other life forms in various stages. Isn't their meant to be one of Saturns moons that could hold primitive life (or the chemical compounds needed to form primitive life)

 

A) there is absolutly no way to know if that is true or not.

B) but the point he made is rather than the universe being fine-tuned for us to inhabit it, we are fine-tuned to it because of the universe we inhabit.

the universe existed, and we just naturally arouse based on our surroundings. what I think he was trying to get it, is that no matter what sort of tunings or variables the universe ended up with, life WOULD have occured in some form.

what I was saying, is that we were able to rise up like that based on our surroundings, hell, why aren't there any other inhabited planets in our very own solar system.

 

And, more to the point, any life that didn't fit around this universe's laws/"fine-tuning" wouldn't have survived long enough for us to encounter them. That's the thing: we've evolved within the universe's laws, not the other way around. So the universe's laws aren't perfect for us; we just happened to be a species that evolved that was able to survive them. We're not even perfect really - we die loads, but breed too much. Doesn't sound perfect at all.

 

that depends on what you think perfect means.

 

Mainly because we're, quite probably, in the optimum place in our solar system for life, hence the fact that there is life here. We don't know for certain that life doesn't exist in some form elsewhere in our solar system. But the chances of life forming anywhere are microscopic. We don't realise that because we live on a very inhabited planet. Still though, as SC said, we aren't perfectly suited for this planet. We require clothes to survive in many places, we develop cancers (and skin cancer from excess exposure to the sun), fetuses can develop outside of the womb.

 

I dont see how the need of clothes is problematic in the context of discussing perfection.

in some of the more un-inhabitable parts of the world...yes clothes are required to survive. at the same time, we also possess the ability to create that which we need. it's totally natural.

I dont see it as being any different than something an animal would do in the wild to sustain it's own survival.

and then, of course the thing with the sun. anything in excess is bad, even water, which is the essence of life. the key to life is moderation.

 

Well we're alive. That's relatively perfect. We're more perfect than, say, a beast whose bones are too dense for it to move within our planet's gravity, or so fragile that they're crushed instantly.

Someone said earlier that life is bound to appear. I don't quite agree with that. I think it's more that, again, it seems that way because, until recently we've not had a point of comparison. We've now seen Mars, and seen tiny fledgling life, long fossilised, which suggests that actually life might not be so inevitable. Certainly life that flourishes as it does on Earth isn't. It will not be until we find a planet that is comparable to our own that we'll have any real evidence; it may be that, anywhere a planet like Earth exists, there is life. It may also be that we're just a happy accident. Most likely it'll be somewhere in between.

The thing about evolution that people forget is, a lot of animals die. We're not evolving towards a purpose, or mutating according to some will. Huge numbers of species simply don't make it; they evolved in the wrong direction, or at the wrong time, and so they died. Why? Because the physical laws of the universe were stacked against them.

This is getting a little abstract, of course, but my point is that it only seems to have fitted together so neatly to us because we're looking back on it. With the (dis)advantage of hindsight, human evolution seems inevitable, but looking at it from the other end, it was littered with the dead.

So, to me anyway, it follows that our physical laws may seem fine-tuned to ensure our survival, but in truth, we just got really really lucky, and those who didn't get so lucky aren't around to tell us so.

 

We've only developed the ability to make our own clothes through unnatural means. Hunting of animals large enough to wear the skin of requires tools which we developed for example. The difference between the sun and excess water is that we make the decision not to have too much water, whereas the sun is always there, we can escape to the shade, but had the planet and universe been designed specifically for our needs then we would have the ability to withstand the levels of UV light.

Another point is that, if the world was designed for us (as humans), why are there so many members of the Homo genus that have become extinct over time? Did the designer simply not create the world right for them, but it turned out that the world was somehow designed for us? Seems more like trial and error rather than design if that's the case.

 

what do you mean through unnatural means?