Crushing The Fine-Tuned Argument

that's not really a question is it ? but , yes , some theists are long-winded and those sort are
not participating here . who are you talking to ?

 

Asmo, this isn't an argument about "who is less annoying / abrasive". I don't care that you think I sound like a fundamentalist. When it comes to reason, evidence, and leading an honest life, I am a fundamentalist. I am also a fundamentalist about improving the lot of mankind. This is a non-issue for me.

Tikoo, I'm talking to you. You said i don't understand magic and asked if I need help. I'm saying "magic" = "god"

 

This is a very clarifying post, for yourself I hope. To me it is so evident that you are (or at least make yourself sound like) the exact same kind of fundamentalist that you so dislike and find damaging to mankind. You too sound in above quote like the exact same person as an dogmatic evangelist. Now, I am not saying what you think is wrong (that's something I care little about, i feel more strong about everyone being entitled to their own thinking), and I'm also not saying you can't say that stuff. But if you think you are improving the lot of mankind by being and acting in the same way that most atheists and antitheists seemingly so despise in their religious fellow humans....

You probably say that because you don't believe in both and have a hard time taking these concepts seriously. So it is easy to oversimplify what they can mean to others and mix them up. No worries, I am just guessing here
Anyway, they obviously are different concepts (not that they can't be easily intertwined when people speculate about them!). Sometimes looking at the dictionary's definitions can already point you in the right direction. They are not the same and I don't see why a person who does not believe in either anyway would proclaim with certainty they are.

 

I don't think vigilantes necessarily improve the lot of mankind. I think understanding does that for every individual which leads me to the semantic claim you make here.

Magic is an attempt to understand, experience and influence the world using among other things symbols, actions, gestures and language. Science is practical magic with it's periodic table, (symbols,) it's method, (ritual,) it's actions as you take a pill to treat a symptom and it's language of math. No matter how fine tuned an argument is it is still an argument and as such does not even contend with the truth that knowledge is being shared but contends only against other arguments.

The miraculous is a different kind of apprehension and speaks to phenomena like the power of ones own narrative to influence the way we perceive the world, the hypnotic power of our own invocations. The way we manage our lives by virtue of abstraction.

 

i'm pretty sure its just ego to imagine "crushing" anything, whether its something i agree with, disagree with, or anywhere in between or somewhere else entirely.

 

A good engineer would equip his intelligent sentient creatures with humidistats so that, ya know, they can stop sweating at a certain relative humidity when at that point it's actually counterintuitive; but no.

Don't ever think a system has no room for improvement, in most cases you just haven't analyzed it yet with enough scrutiny. Heat of evaporation: I guess god must have at least though about it, but not hard enough.

 

And eyes in the back of their heads?

 

The worst of it is sleeping 1/3 of the day, being completely non-functional and vulnerable to predators. But I guess when you don't have modern technology the energy obtained from hunting/gathering at night would be less than the energy spent.

The CPU in my machine is on average asleep about 98% of the time, but is always fully functional. It can quickly wake up in a matter of nanoseconds to serve an interrupt request, whether that be hitting a key on my keyboard or some other action from hardware or otherwise; after running the interrupt handler the CPU immediately goes back into power saving mode (otherwise your CPU would always be pegged at 100% load; the kernel would have to run a "busy-waiting loop" which would draw a lot of power and might even over-heat the chip if you didn't have adequate cooling")

Or we could just run the computer for 10 minutes or so until it gets too hot, and then it has to shut down, completely inoperable for another 10 minutes while it cools off. I know one way is more "optimal" than the other though.

 

After all this, the fine tuning argument doesn't appear to be scratched or even dented, much less "crushed". The major arguments put forward seem to be contained in the two videos. The first video begins with some sleight of hand: the matter-of-fact assertion that "Multiverse and top-down cosmology are on the way to deal with this little fine-tuning boy who keeps crying wold." Last I looked, "top-down cosmology" and M-theory were simply mathematical equations on the blackboards of Hawking, Hertog Hartle and their disciples. So far, there is no more empirical support for them than there is for Genesis. So the claim that these theories are "on the way" to anything is just wishful thinking, bravado, or as they say in theology, "faith". The main argument of the first video seems to be that fine tuning is a sign of limitation because it involves constraints. Logicians might notice that this doesn't deny fine tuning but just complains that there should be no need for it. This seems to be a variation of the old paradox meant to throw theists for a loop: Can God make a rock He cannot lift?" The idea is that omnipotence, which is supposed to be a property of God, would require God to be able to lift anything, but by making a rock even He couldn't lift, He'd no longer be omnipotent. Theologians like Diogenes Allen think that God is not omnipotent, just all mighty, which is different. But in any event, most theologians agree with Hartshorne that God can, and does, set limits on His ability to do things, and that as long as He wants to set those limits, there is no inconsistency with omnipotence. The question posed in the video is essentially, why do we need laws of physics? Why can't every second of every day be a miracle in which a capricious deity makes arbitrary decisions without constraints. Then the order that many of us admire about our universe would disappear. “The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.” Thus spoke Richard Dawkins. Without the laws of physics, science would be out the window, we probably wouldn't be here, and if we were, we'd be experiencing on-going chaos. The laws might be different for those multiple universes theorists posit, if they exist, but if there were no laws at all they probably wouldn't last long. A random universe would probably either be chaotic or boring. Why does God prefer an orderly but dynamic universe? I dunno. Ask Him. The integrated complexity of our universe is something that we shouldn't take for granted.

Physicist Paul Davies tells us that:"certain structures, such as solar type stars, depend for their characteristic features on widely improbable numerical accidents that combine together fundamental constants from distinct branches of physics. And when one goes to study cosmology- the overall structure and evolution of the universe-incredulity mounts. Recent discoveries about the primeval cosmos oblige us to accept that the expanding universe has been set up in its motion with a cooperation of astonishing precision". But the second video tends to dismiss such observations by explaining how a single event like a given leaf in the forest being in a particular place at is astronomically improbable but can happen. It's pretty improbable that a particular Power Ball ticket purchaser is going to win, but somebody will--which is how people get suckered into buying the the tickets. Gambling casinos and insurance companies, not to mention the science establishment, are predicated on the principles of statistical probabilities, and although they are wrong in individual cases, by and large they come out ahead. As a betting man, I go by the odds, as does science. If the multiverse theory is correct, all bets are off, since the odds of a seemingly improbable happening might seem different if there are a gazillion chances. But so far, that hasn't been established.

 

Take your life as it has occurred thus far as a sequence of events . What is the probability of every event in your life producing the outcome that is has (the favorable outcome): approaching infinitesimal?

This sounds like the job for an "infinite improbability drive"; but lives are a common thing so obviously very improbable things happen all the time.

Edit: let the upper limit l be the length for the sequence . Events in the sequence that are certain, i.e P(E) = 1 are no issue; one or more impossible events, i.e. events where P(E) = 0 in the sequence however, and the entire sequence is impossible. Obviously, the sequence of the events in our lives do not contain impossible events, otherwise our life would not be possible, the as l becomes larger the probability of the entire sequence tends to zero it would seem, e.g. the longer you live the lower your chances of living another day.

 

Is that something you like to rub in, irq?
Your last sentence there?
I never rubbed that in to anyone.

 

I don't need it rubbed in, thinking about the math kinda does the trick on its own :/

 

You are not going anywhere anytime soon that you know of, right?
If not, don't think about it.
Think about what is good and makes you happy.
Easier said than done, sometimes, I know... Having been smacked with some one I loved dieing ever since I was 4 years old....never shaded from that reality.... My dad getting cancer when I was 14 from being a chemist and being a cancer survivor for quite some time.... That always hanging over head, though.... Up until 1 year ago today when I lost champ pug, who I loved so much and had him 13 years....always thinking what or who next, As it has been frequent in my life, but I am still happily living most days.

 

I wanna live forever moonglow.

 

A really unusual day would be one in which nothing unusual happens. Nevertheless, we're statistically better off betting on the usual instead of the unusual. In his entertaining book The Improbability Principle British statistician David J. Hand argues that we should expect a miracle roughly once every month.

 

How convenient. Thiests kind of have to make excuses to continue believing don't they. All the long winded irreverent tangents and excuses don't impress me. The fact that one earth year is around 365.242181 days does not impress me. Did God do that on purpose? Did he want Christians to have to cut ten days out of 1582 to correct the date for easter? I might believe in God if a year was EXACTLY 365 days, that would be rather impressive. I would be impressed if Pi was a rational number...

I challenge you to post the best 'creationist fine tune' video you can find that is HONEST and LOGICAL and we'll see if it comes close to the HONESTY and LOGIC of skeptic videos. Anyone reading this, go watch videos from both sides and truly ask yourself what side is consistently honest and rational and what side deceptive and irrational.

 

My problem with that is that most video presentations on both sides of the subject are propaganda, much like the ones you've been posting.
Here are a couple you might try out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMpWcf4ee0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Svn3_mIc30

For examples of fine tuning, here are a dozen to ponder:

1. A change as small as one part in 1040 in the four force strengths would make life as we know it impossible

2. If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form.

3. If the strong nuclear force had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler)

5. If gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.)

6. If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and life would not be possible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 )

7. If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons. (Leslie, 1988, p. 299.)

8. If Epsilon (ε) , measuring the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang.

9.The cosmological constant, Lambda, λ, is on the order of 10−122. If it were larger, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.

10. According to Rees, if the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity were significantly smaller than the present 1036, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.

11.Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.

12. Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.

Do these prove a designer universe? I don't think so, but something to think about.

 

^ Every single example you listed is an example of the probability fallacy explained in the OP video [correction: post#8]. There could be an infinite number of universes, we are not in one of the countless zillions that may not have worked out for life. We are in a universe that happened to manage to generate life, on the fragile skin of a wet dirtball wobbling around a fireball. Life on earth is an orgy of imperfection and suffering. This leaves me with only two logical options; there is no God, or God is an evil sadistic bastard.

 

or possibly god or gods, (or godlike beings who could probably care less about being worshiped either) simply had little or nothing to do with the process.

also imperfection doesn't have to cause suffering. hatred of logic generally does though, however otherwise well intended.
and personally i don't believe hatred of logic is the will of any god, which is of course one more reason i don't believe christianity,
or any of the other dominant belief systems, entirely has the slightest idea what its talking about.

really the one good thing about belief systems, is when they encourage people to want to not hurt each other,
which again, when they encourage hating logic, even i think mostly inadvertently, of course self defeats what i see as their whole purpose,
and the intention of those who first actually created them.

 

But that's just it. There "could be an infinite number of universes". But so far, we only know of one: our own. The others are equations on the mathematicians' chalk boards, but have thus far no empirical validation. There is a finite probability that all the molecules of oxygen will cluster at one side of the room, leaving us gasping for breath. But if something so unlikely happened, it would be reasonable to look for other explanations before writing it off as a fluke. So to invoke the "probability fallacy" of the OP is itself the fallacy of wishful thinking. I don't rule out multiple universes, but they are, at this point, a matter of faith.These matters are discussed at length on the You tube presentations I provided. As for your logical options, there are two others that I think deserve some consideration: that "God" is less "omnipotent" and anthropomorphic than we suppose, and that there is some as yet undiscovered principle that accounts for the astonishing regularities in the universe, much as Darwin accounted for the diversity of life. That there are so many regularities that are intelligible suggests a coherent order but using words like "intelligence" is simply the best analogy we have to describe what might account for it. In the language of AI, intelligence entails a system that can perceive its environment and take actions to order it in a way that achieves some goal or purpose. Perfection, omnipotence, omniscience, etc., might simply be the projections of our own limited intellects.The creative force or entity responsible for ordering the universe might be pursuing a course of action that we can't really comprehend, much as my dog can't comprehend why I get upset when he shits on the rug. Calling it "sadistic" without understanding the purpose seems unproductive: it is what it is. But I, like many others, happen to be impressed by the beauty and symmetry of it all, and think that it really is "a great big wonderful world we live in." Alternatively, it's possible that complexity theory and the auto-catalytic, self-ordering processes studied by scientists like Stuart Kaufman might shed additional light on the subject. So far, however, these don't seem to have progressed much beyond computer simulations and hand waving.