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Post by Al Moritz on Jun 2, 2009 9:25:38 GMT
I guess this would include things like "matter-less life, energy based life or life forming in a complete mish-mash of different laws that wouldn't make sense at all in our universe but just do in this particular other universe" Yes, if you mean baseless science fiction includes all of the above, I am with you. Certainly. The quotes that you posted are funny. "On the cutting edge of the world of physics is Victor Stenger," Yeah, blahblah. I guess to some Stenger is their idol, because his fake arguments put them out of the misery to actually ponder the really hard questions. That sounds like the idea that the laws of nature could not be any other way. I have answered this elsewhere: Let's assume the die-hard folks are right who claim that the physical laws "could not be any other way", in the sense that the physical constants (and even initial conditions of the universe) are all tightly interrelated. The apparent fine-tuning of all the physical constants then would be, extremely unlikely as that might seem on the face of it, a direct consequence of a unified system based on general relativity and quantum mechanics.
But could it really not be any other way? The physical laws could simply be based on another unified system, which is not founded on general relativity and quantum mechanics. Any mathematically coherent structure, of which there are many, possibly an infinite number, could logically serve as template for physical laws. Thus, even if not necessarily within a framework combining general relativity and quantum mechanics, the laws of physics could, in fact, be any other way. This cannot be logically disputed. Logic here also sets a limit to what science might in the future discover. Even if it were to discover -- again, extremely unlikely -- that in the framework of general relativity and quantum mechanics all physical constants are necessarily so tightly interrelated that this accounts for all the apparent fine-tuning of the laws, it could never logically answer the question "why this framework and not any other"? Unless the fabric of nothing only allows for certain frameworks of physical laws to arise, but then "nothing" would have to have properties, which is philosophically and logically absurd. Nothing has no properties whatsoever -- nothing is, in fact, nothing. Thus, waiting for "a physical law to be discovered that allowed the apparent fine-tuning to be predicted", that way eliminating the need for a designer, is illogical and futile.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jun 2, 2009 9:37:46 GMT
Rubbish. What is his/her scientific evidence for an eternal omniverse?. The eternal omniverse is a metaphysical proposition which is probably untestable.
1. The universe is a contingent object which came into existence. If it came into existence out of a quantum vacuum then that is a contingent object too. God as understood in say, the 'Summa Theologia' of Aquinas is a non contingent object which terminates the infinite regress, i.e it is nonsensical to say where did God come from
2. God may exist in eternity, a timeless existence where categories of past, present, and future just do not apply.
3,4 and 5 are the sort of questions theologians love but they seem to be entirely irrelevant to the God vs Multiverse discussion
Infinity is a dangerous concept to float around. An infinity of universes is going to mean that everything that can exist does exist. We are going to run into paradoxes like Hilbert's hotel and the infinite time paradox. If you go down that road it becomes more likely that we are living in a simulated universe than a real one and reality falls into the melting pot.
You mean 'no evidence'. At the moment it looks like time is an emergent property of the universe which arose at the point of the Big Bang. Any attempt to push this further back is pure speculation.
This sounds like 'new age' nonsense. It doesn't change the fact that his/her eternal omniverse is going to be full of Gods, fairies and copies of the Loch Ness monster.
Don't know what this is referring to.
Actually I think there will be magic in this eternal omniverse since all the constants of nature are presumably allowed to vary. There will be universes which emerge by chance in which the laws of nature are teleological. We would see magic things like horses materialising and vanishing into nothingness since these are more likely than the constants of nature being fine tuned for the emergence of concious beings. Presumably some of these universes will have beings with magical powers by sheer weight of probability. If this is the case then the problem of magic is maximised in the eternal omniverse.
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Post by unkleE on Jun 2, 2009 12:09:34 GMT
Comments by various scientists on the probability that our current "fine-tuned" universe could have occurred by chance: Martin Rees (in Cosmic Coincidences by Gribbin & Rees): "If we modify the value of one of the fundamental constants, something invariably goes wrong, leading to a universe that is inhospitable to life as we know it ..... The conditions in our universe really do seem to be uniquely suitable for life forms like ourselves, and perhaps even for any form of organic complexity."Roger Penrose (The Emperor's New Mind) This now tells us how precise the Creator's aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.
This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in the ordinary denary notation: it would be '1' followed by 10^123 successive '0's! Even if we were to write a '0' on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the universe - and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure - we would fall far short of writing down the figure needed........ But why was the big bang so precisely organised ..... ?Leonard Susskind (The Cosmic Landscape): "To make the first 119 decimal places of the vacuum energy zero is most certainly no accident."Lee Smolin ("Life of the Cosmos"): "Perhaps before going further we should ask just how probable is it that a universe created by randomly choosing the parameters will contain stars. Given what we have already said, it is simple to estimate this probability. For those readers who are interested, in the arithmetic is in the notes. The answer, in round numbers, comes to about one chance in 10^229."Victor Stenger ( Intelligent Design): "I have made some estimates of the probability that a chance distribution of physical constants can produce a universe with properties sufficient that some form of life would have likely had sufficient time to evolve. In this study, I randomly varied the constants of physics (I assume the same laws of physics as exist in our universe, since I know no other) over a range of ten orders of magnitude around their existing values. For each resulting "toy" universe, I computed various quantities such as the size of atoms and the lifetimes of stars. I found that almost all combinations of physical constants lead to universes, albeit strange ones, that would live long enough for some type of complexity to form. ..... Note that in well over half the universes, stars live at least a billion years."All the others give small probabilities approaching zero (their answers differ, but they are estimating different things), while Stenger says something approaching 50%. I don't know much about the science, but with Stenger differing so much from Penrose, Rees, Susskind and Smolin, who is it reasonable to believe? (Admittedly Stenger's model had a limited number of parameters, but he puts it forward as part of his argument so it is reasonable to judge him on that.) I think that short review shows Stenger is not credible on this matter.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jun 2, 2009 12:26:15 GMT
All the others give small probabilities approaching zero (their answers differ, but they are estimating different things), while Stenger says something approaching 50%. I don't know much about the science, but with Stenger differing so much from Penrose, Rees, Susskind and Smolin, who is it reasonable to believe? (Admittedly Stenger's model had a limited number of parameters, but he puts it forward as part of his argument so it is reasonable to judge him on that.) I think that short review shows Stenger is not credible on this matter. It's essentially an 'argument from ignorance' In one of his papers Stenger says: 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.That is essentially his argument. We cannot claim that the universe is fine tuned for life since we do not know for sure whether these other universes could host life. As Al has shown, this claim is bunk.
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Post by jamierobertson on Jun 2, 2009 20:30:13 GMT
Hilbert's hotel?
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Post by knowingthomas on Jun 2, 2009 23:01:27 GMT
I just looked it up on wiki:
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jun 4, 2009 19:53:27 GMT
Some interesting points from Prof Russell Stannard which Nicolas Beale posted on Starcourse a while back: www.starcourse.org/i . Quantum Fluctuations occur in space and time. So the idea that the Big Bang arose spontaneously out of a Quantum Fluctuation cannot fully explain the origin of the Universe - it would merely be an hypothesis that this 'universe' arose out of another unknowable Universe. Positing an additional unknowable universe is almost as much an act of intellectual desperation as positing an infinite number of other unknowable Universes.
iii. Not only does life depend on Carbon and higher elements being formed in 1st Generation stars, it also depends on these ingredients being ejected by supernovae. How does a massive Implosion cause an Explosion? Why doesn't it all disappear down a Black Hole? It's because of Neutrinos, which hardly interact with anything at all, so that you'd have to fire thousands through the earth for one to have a 50:50 chance of hitting anything. So Life depends, in addition, on having Neutrinos with just the right miniscule cross-sections.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2009 22:45:10 GMT
Further, your summary doesn't include the negative evidence, for example, the problem of evil. I think this is a big issue, both logically and emotionally, and if I ever stopped believing, I reckon this would be why. Plantinga put the logical problem of evil to sleep in the seventies. William Rowe, who began with the evidential problem of evil, agrees that the Free Will Defense is successful in establishing that there is no logical inconsistency between God's attributes and existence of evil. The evidential argument still stands, although I have a feeling it's bloodied now. Plantinga again, in his last part of the Warrant trilogy Warranted Christian Belief, addresses Rowe's latest formulation of the argument. In a footnote he lists several papers from other philosopher and concludes: "One hopes this these pieces will put the final quietus to the "I can't see what reason God could have for p; therefore, probably God doesn't have a good reason for p form of argument (But of course they won't)." If this is true I can't confirm, as I don't have access to the relevant literature, Plantinga's Warrant trilogy included. But I do know that this issues has been debated to death in analytic philosophy of religion and it's showing no end. Personally, I don't see the evidential problem of evil as a great obstacle to theistic belief. The formulations that I've read all border on argument from ignorance or appeal to emotion. I understand the line of the argument, but when I give my emotions a back seat and analyze the world around me, the evil doesn't weaken my faith but deepens the mystery what God is and shows how humans cannot fully understand him. I don't know why God made such a world, but I think he has his reasons. And Christ's suffering on he cross demonstrates it's not because he doesn't love us. Of course these people come in varieties because they all are products of different knowledge and experience. Don't presume these people are well informed in various topics and came to different conclusions than you. How many of them are knowledgeable in philosophy of religion or NT studies, for instance? I wouldn't be surprised if Hawkins or Weinberg are Jesus mythicists. They're all experts in their field which directly doesn't touch upon existence of God, and how much they know outside of it as laypersons, only they can give you an answer. It all comes down on the individual and what his interests are. Okay, I'll stop rambling now.
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Post by unkleE on Jun 7, 2009 1:53:36 GMT
G'day Matko, welcome to this forum. I hope you stick around.
It is very interesting to have an analytic philosopher and linguist on the forum - even if you describe yourself as "wannabe" and "aspiring", I'm sure we'll gain from your being here.
I (and I'm sure others) would be interested to hear a bit more about you. Are you currently studying? I presume Serbo-Croat is your first language? In which case, may I say your English is way better than my Serbo-Croat! : )
Re the problem of evil, yes I understand that Plantinga has shown that there is no logical impediment to believing in God even though there is much evil in the world. But none of the main arguments for or against God's existence can be proved or disproved. So with all of them, it is a matter of probabilities or what is most reasonable (I think that's what the "evidential argument" means?), and I still feel somewhat disturbed that God would allow so much evil to have occurred.
In the end, the argument (for me) goes like this. We cannot (dis)prove God's existence, but what fits best with the world as we know it? If I am willing to say that I wouldn't think a finely tuned universe would either exist forever or spring into being out of nothing, then I think I have to also honestly say that I would think God could have thought of a way to achieve his objectives without so much potential for evil. Both are judgments on my part, no more.
Now once I believe in the God revealed by Jesus, I am willing to trust that he has in fact always done the best thing, but that is a statement of faith, not of understanding. But if others can find these matters less troubling, I wouldn't want to create problems for them!
Thanks for your comments.
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Post by Al Moritz on Jun 7, 2009 11:09:05 GMT
Hi Matko, welcome to the forum. My wife Josipa is Croatian, from Bugojno, Bosinia (I met her in Austria). I haven't been to Zagreb, but I love Dubrovnik. We live in the U.S. Personally, I don't see the evidential problem of evil as a great obstacle to theistic belief. The formulations that I've read all border on argument from ignorance or appeal to emotion. I understand the line of the argument, but when I give my emotions a back seat and analyze the world around me, the evil doesn't weaken my faith but deepens the mystery what God is and shows how humans cannot fully understand him. I feel the same way, but I understand how a non-believer might find it an obstacle. I agree, but as Unklee pointed out, this is more of a statement of faith than of understanding. Yes, Rees and Davies may be somewhat knowledgeable of philosophy, but I have strong doubts about the other agnostics and atheists on the list. Ellis definitely knows his philosophy, but might I say that this is not surprising, given that he is a Christian? Intellectual believer-scientists are forced to know about philosophy in order to defend their views to themselves and others, whereas atheists and agnostics can snugly hide behind "science" without a lot of further thinking.
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Post by unkleE on Jun 7, 2009 13:58:32 GMT
Al. Totally off-topic but Dubrovnik, Split, Ljubljana and Mostar are four places I would really love to visit, but I'm not sure I ever will, so I envy you.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jun 8, 2009 9:49:20 GMT
I think it was Isaiah Berlin who told a story about a department during the Second World War in which many leaks were occurring, potentially putting at risk the lives of Allied servicemen. The response of the department head was to sack all his staff. This was a big deal in those days because once you were fired on this pretext, it was impossible to get a career elsewhere in the civil service. The point of the story is that the department head did the right thing, the best thing for all concerned and yet his decision ruined the lives of a large group of people. I think this is the way most moral decisions operate, not so much in black and white but in shades of grey. I think its also true that the greater the power one has, the greater the effect of ones decisions for both good and evil; hence the right thing to do at one level will manifest itself as apparent evil at another level. For example, it is sometimes the right thing to do to fight a just war, but this will inevitably mean inflicting pain and suffering.
How would this work when applied to the universe as a whole?. In my view there are two outstanding features of the human condition that need explaining, the first is that our knowledge of nature suggests that real moral choice should not exist, yet it certainly appears to. In fact, far from being an accidental by-product, the emergence of intelligent freedom appears to be written into the seemingly impersonal laws of nature which govern the cosmos. The second is that morality appears to be a real feature of the world. Certainly our moral faculties are selected for by evolution but the moral drama we live out in our daily lives appears to be far larger than this, for example, why is self-renunciation for the sake of the other humankind's highest goal?.
I get the impression that the proponent of the 'evidential argument from evil' wants a 'Walt Disney' universe. In this universe no-one gets ill. Gusts of wind blow to rescue people whenever they falls off a cliff, all animals are herbivores etc, etc (In fact in one of Stenger's books he argues that if God existed nuns would be immortal!). The problem with this universe is that it is essentially a celestial dictatorship which violates human freedom at every turn. People are not presented with serious choices and there is no scope for development. Furthermore the Walt Disney universe is a static creation which isn't allowed any scope for freedom or creativity. What we live in is an evolutionary universe in which our world has developed by small incremental steps, not a world that has fallen from a previous utopian state but one that has emerged bit by bit from the struggles of it's inhabitants and creation is ongoing. I think a world that has it's own independence and integrity is better than a toy world in which everything is subject to strict control despite the inevitable price. Our universe appears to be 'about' something; it is one in which choices matter and good and evil remain locked in a harsh struggle through the generations. But it is from the struggle against moral and natural evil that our greatest achievements emerge and we gradually gain the knowledge and resources to improve our condition. Our world aspires to be 'better' but has to battle against it's limitations to be able to get there. I think it is this ultimately this which is the 'plotline' of life; that we have been gifted an 'unfinished' world which it is our responsibility to mould in the creator's image.
However that does seem to me to be unsatisfactory, it would be scant consolation to anyone whose child is dying of cancer; but if its true that there is an afterlife then that changes our view of life dramatically. If that's the case then we have to look at things 'backwards'. So, for example, during the black death 30-60% of Europe's population died a gruesome death but were ultimately taken into eternal life. If that's so then we only see half the story from our vantage point. Hence I think ultimately 'evil' is a mystery, that is one can dimly see a way to the resolution and sketch out the reasons why certain features of our moral landscape exist but remain ultimately perplexed.
"Where were you, Job when all these things were taking place? The angels were there, but you were not. Could you run the universe and mete out justice if I turned it all over to you?"
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2009 17:43:16 GMT
Hi, unklee. G'day Matko, welcome to this forum. I hope you stick around. It is very interesting to have an analytic philosopher and linguist on the forum - even if you describe yourself as "wannabe" and "aspiring", I'm sure we'll gain from your being here. I (and I'm sure others) would be interested to hear a bit more about you. Are you currently studying? I'm currently an undergraduate in linguistics and philosophy, but as my university is in the heart of continental Europe and my department during Yugoslavia was the home of the marxist school Praxis, the analytic tradition is almost nonexistent. I'm mostly self-taught in analytic philosophy which as itself isn't hard to do, but my finances hinder me to buy any title I want, and what I get is coming at a snail's pace. The second irritating thing is the fact that, in a sense, I 'm studying philosophy twice. What I get at my university is useless hodgepodge and because of the official study and the obligations that come with it, I can't devote so much time I want for studying what actually interests me. A positive thing is that one of my professors got his MA and PhD at Oxford and is lecturing a course in philosophy of mind. That's practically, next to a logic seminary, the only official taste of analytic philosophy I have. While I'm flattered that you're describing me already be as a philosopher and a linguist, I'm far from that. I would like to contribute as much as I can because I like this site, but don't expect anything big. I'm still a beginner. My language is Croatian. Serbo-Croat is a political construction during the communist regime in Yugoslavia to coerce Croats and Serbs into one ethnic and cultural group and to diminish nationalistic tensions. The evidential argument goes like this: It is one thing for p to be logically consistent with q and another thing entirely for p to make it likely that q is false. So too, showing that existence of all evils in the world is logically consistent with God's existence does not mean that the existence of evil doesn't make it unlikely that God exists. The evidential argument maintains that the evils in the world do make the existence of God unlikely. What you just wrote is a cumulative case for God's existence. Swinburne attempts that in his The Existence of God. When we weigh in all the arguments, according to Swinburne the meter is favoring the theistic side. Unklee, while a cannot barge into your personal relationship with God as this is something between you and him, you shouldn't think that good responses to the evidential argument from evil haven't been made. Keep your faith in God, there's no reason to abandon it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2009 17:51:29 GMT
Hi Matko, welcome to the forum. My wife Josipa is Croatian, from Bugojno, Bosinia (I met her in Austria). I haven't been to Zagreb, but I love Dubrovnik. We live in the U.S. Hi Almoritz. I'm happy for you and Josipa! Did she teach you any Croatian? In my opinion, the problem of evil is better for justifying atheism then refuting theism. I didn't say it was anything else. If they started to think they would become christians.
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Post by Al Moritz on Jun 17, 2009 0:27:05 GMT
Hi Almoritz. I'm happy for you and Josipa! Did she teach you any Croatian? Well, I can count to 10 ;D Seriously, I have tried, but at age 32 (when I met my wife, which is quite some time ago) I found it much harder to learn a new language than when I was younger.
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