Unrelated topics deserve their own thread. OP should try to prevent his own thread to become a kitchen sink. If God exists -- He would not just tell us who He is, He would walk among us, He would show and tell, not just tell others to tell. He would come to us, so we could be with Him.
I don't think I am being unfair. I think I'm asking Unicorn to play fair in whether he wants me to believe in the possibility of other universes. On the one hand the fine-tuned ness of this one is premised on the possibility of many others with different values for various constants. But then if one proposes that perhaps there are multiple universes and it just so happens that this is the one with the right settings for life ( and we're raising the question because we, life, did develop in this one), then suddenly no, multiple universes are a fanciful notion. Which is it?
So what if we can't see God or prove God? Doesn't mean He doesn't exist. I can't see heaven either am I right to dismiss it as nonsense? Why should we assume that we can see everything? Seems arrogant to me.
Unlike Unicorny with multiverses, I don't dismiss God merely because I can't see him.
Why do I not believe in God? I think the universe runs on physical laws that are at heart relatively simple. I think that interjecting some meddling Creator destroys the mathematical beauty of nature and value of simplicity in favor of some comforting untruths that deny us the humility of our unremarkableness. Belief in God is a lack of spirit, not an excess.
Who says math must be a conceptual entity? In the end I believe everything is mathematics. You ask how math evolved but you got it backwards, evolution itself is a form of mathematics, an algorithm. You call math a concept but in reality concepts are math. Time cannot be without mathematics.
So far, no problems. Well, the exact numbers you're using mught be wrong, but the general priciple that the constant needs to be very similar to what it is in order to result in the universe we live in is correct.
In other words, its value is fined tuned down to 1 part in 10^120. What is the probability of conjuring up a number accurate down to its 10^120 significant digit after the decimal marker?
This is where you fail. The answer to the question you ask is "we don't know. There simply is insufficient evidence to determine what the odds of it being the value it is are. We don't know the values the constant can hold. We don't know how likely it is to hold any of those values. The precision is not relevant to the chances of it being the value it is. What matters are the number of possible values it can hold and the individual chances of it holding each of those values. Neither of those things are known.
Go back and read the post of mine you quoted again. And at least make the slightest attempt to understand it, because you clearly have not.
Another example:
The gravitational constant is: 6.67384 × 10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2
Had this value been off by 1 mere part in 10^60, the universe would not permit life as we know it.
What's the probability of 6.67384 × 10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2 being fined tuned to 1 part in 10^60 by dumb luck?
Guess what? Yep, the answer to that question is, we don't know.
You should probably stop using the term "fine tuned", as we have no way of knowing how fine tuned it is - as with the probability, that depends entirely on the range of values the constants can hold. If the gravitational constant can only vary by +/-10^-70, then being accurate to 10^-60 is not highly tuned in any way shape or form.
He confirms that the value G could have been anything, and yet, it's fine-tuned in 1 part of 10^60 to permit the existence of life in the universe. I wonder if the ostriches dare to watch it.
Susskind spends the first half explaining how the various physical constants of the universe are balanced on a "knife edge" that allows life, and how, had they been very slightly different, life would have been impossible. That fits with your claims. However, what he clearly does not do is discuss the relative probability of the different possible values that these constants could have had.
Much more importantly, though, he spends the second half of the video explaining the multiverse hypothesis, and why there are (and I quote) "good theoretical reasons" to believe in this hypothesis. He explains that an unlooked-for consequence of string theory is that it predicts the possibility of the generation of a vast number of pocket universes with different physical laws.
In fact, Susskind is one of the leading proponents of the multiverse theory (although he doesn't call it that), and he has argued extensively that this theory disproves the fine-tuning argument for God's existence. He has written an entire book showing what the evidence is for the multiverse and why it makes any "intelligent design" hypothesis unnecessary, even in the face of fine-tuning. In his view, invoking any supernatural intelligence is downright unscientific.
So I'm a bit puzzled that you choose to cite a "renowned professor of physics" who doesn't merely argue in great depth against your own argument elsewhere, but who undermines it in the very video that you post. Because you've said consistently throughout this thread that the multiverse hypothesis has absolutely nothing to recommend it other than a desperate attempt to dodge the intelligent design hypothesis - and that's precisely what he shows, in that video, to be untrue.
Moderator Action: Also, I've split off the entirely unrelated argument about near-death experiences to here.
(...) In his book, Programming the Universe, Lloyd contends that the universe itself is one big quantum computer producing what we see around us, and ourselves, as it runs a cosmic program. According to Lloyd, once we understand the laws of physics completely, we will be able to use small-scale quantum computing to understand the universe completely as well. (...)
glancing back over this thread, I would question that the Universe is actually fine tuned for life. As just a causal look around the local area reveals that all the planets seen from Earth are not suitable for life in the least, and most of the Universe outside of Earth would be very hostile to life as we know it. There might be other planets where life would be possible, but at this time it is only wishful thinking because we just do not know.
so if we are talking probabilities it dose seem like we struck the jackpot, because out of the millions of planets we are on the one where it is just the right size and just the right distance from the star to make it possible for life to exist
maybe God did have something to do with it but it would have been long after the big bang and as our star is a second or third generation star and we ourselves are made from dead stars an awful lot went on before life popped up on our little lonely blue planet
but it is so easy to look at the night sky see the milky way with it's 200,000,000,000 stars and say we are so important the whole universe was designed just for us...
let alone the billions of other galaxies and ALL we know is that life happens to be here
The very basis of his argument was that universe is fine tuned. And design is the most simple explanation for that fact, if you don't have atheistic prejudice.
Really? You've brought atheism into this again, as if you're so scared of the concept that God might not exist, you have to call anyone doubts Unicorny's arguments an atheist. Unicorny likes throwing around the phrase 'unprovable, unobservable, and unscientific', as if it bolsters his argument, but even setting aside the distressing lack of understanding of probability, blithely equating a 'fine-tuned' universe with God, with absolutely no attempt to even begin to justify that leap of logic is, as he says, 'unprovable, unobservable, and unscientific'.
We're 250 posts into the thread and even if Unicorny is absolutely right about a fine-tuned universe, that does not in any way prove God's existence, which people like William Lane Craig and other Christian apologists are desperate to do. Unbelievable as this may be, there is zero evidence to suggest a binary option, i.e. Big Bang or God and there is just as much to suggest that God is the only possible cause of a fine-tuned universe. Obviously, that's what an Abrahamist would be expected to believe, by simple dint of God being the first cause of the Abrahamist universe, but if Unicorny must insist on proof, such a conclusion is "unprovable, unobservable, and unscientific".
Also if there was a creator of all life (god), why would such a creator choose a tiny insignificant planet like Earth to place that life on? And why wouldn't he put any other life within our observable distance of the universe?
If one talks design, then one must conclude that the Universe is fine-tuned to not only deceive us regarding its nature, but also is finely tuned to disprove the Abrahamic faiths. Both faiths end up being variants of the Milgram experiment, but instead fool people into giving their moral approval for evils instead of performing the evils ourselves.
Striving for moral perfection (though an in-the-end impossible task) is sorely prevented if one is unwilling to shuck the philosophical errors once they've been found. And there is an onus to hunt out and find those moral errors. But the Abrahamics refuse to do this, and instead coddle and justify evils and errors.
There's a lot of mental effort being expended in 'not getting' simple principles of probability (which is understandable, it's just a waste). The meta-cognition should kick in "I'm just not getting something". And, philosophically, it would be much easier to realize that the multiverse hypothesis has way fewer assumptions and is simpler than the God hypothesis
Much more importantly, though, he spends the second half of the video explaining the
In fact, Susskind is one of the leading proponents of the multiverse theory (although he
So I'm a bit puzzled that you choose to cite a "renowned professor of physics" who doesn't merely argue in great depth against your own argument elsewhere, but who undermines it in the very video that you post. Because you've said consistently throughout this thread that the multiverse hypothesis has absolutely nothing to recommend it other than a
desperate attempt to dodge the intelligent design hypothesis - and that's precisely what he shows, in that video, to be untrue
I've watched the video. Susskind re-affirms the notion that the universe is fine-tuned on a very sharp knife's edge in order to permit life - which refutes random claims on this thread that the universe isn't fine-tuned or the fact that there is nothing remarkable about it - hilarious claims.
Then he goes on and debunks the notion that a constant such as G could only have been G, as he states G could have really been anything; there's no reason that gravity could not have been a 100 times stronger - and therefore, abolishing all life on the universe.
Finally, he states that since the evidence of fine-tuning has been established, an explanation is required, and such fine-tuning can be attributed to:
1) God
2) Luck/Accident
3) Multiverse nonsense
He goes and divulges in his theory of multiverse as I guess that's his line of work, much like a priest would have divulged into God, the afterlife, etc. The multiverse is unprovable, unobservable, and therefore, unscientific. It's no more than fiction.
The video simply re-affirmed the premise of the argument, and that's what Susskind did. The theory stuff, is just baseless speculation.
Just want to cheer you up...
Intellect just like senses isnt the ultimate way to reveal the fullness of reality. What do you think? Or is the opposite unshakably obvious to you?
Just want to cheer you up...
Intellect just like senses isnt the ultimate way to reveal the fullness of reality. What do you think? Or is the opposite unshakably obvious to you?
Agreed. Materialistis are vehemently reliant on their senses and will dismiss anything that cannot be detected by them - a funny notion since their senses cannot detect radiation and yet, you'll be dead if exposed to it.
There are things that neither said limited senses or humanly conjured up instruments will ever detect.
He goes and divulges in his theory of multiverse as I guess that's his line of work, much like a priest would have divulged into God, the afterlife, etc. The multiverse is unprovable, unobservable, and therefore, unscientific. It's no more than fiction.
Other the whole bolding of theory, as if you're a creationist disputing evolution (just as badly, I might add), you do realise that you could replace a couple of nouns in your quote and have someone dismissing the existence of God just as handily? Your argument is now as cognitively dissonant as very many creationist 'debates' out there.
Yeah. It's a good video. I'd suggest you watch it again, Mr Corny. And this time pay attention to everything Susskind says.
Still, what are the chances of you doing that? More or less than 1 in the value of the cosmological constant?
Especially as you seem to pay little to no attention to what anybody is saying to you here.
There's yet another possibility that Susskind doesn't seem to mention (though he half does), and that is that a completely new theory of everything will eventually emerge in which the cosmological constant (if it's still needed in the new theory - it may not be) turns out to be inevitably and avoidable what it is.
Let's not forget that physics has yet to come up with any theory of everything, so far.
So, is it such a surprise that an incomplete theory might come up with a rather remarkable thing like the cosmological constant?
All we can reasonably conclude, with Susskind, is that we simply don't know why. At the moment. And we may never know. I don't see how "It was God wot done it" helps in any way. Unless, I suppose, it makes you happy to say so. I don't understand why it should, though.
Ugh, yes, according to some multiverse theories, the gravitational constant is highly variable between different zones. But, this would then merely trigger the Anthropic Principle.
Again, evidence of precision is not evidence of low-probability. You have no mechanism to declare that our current constants are 'low probability'.
When I say "flipping 18 heads in a row is low probability", I can say that because I can say "well, each toss was roughly a 50% chance of getting a tails". We know how the coin generates the result we see.
You (yes, you) don't have any way to say "well, the gravitational constant could have been different". We don't know how the gravitational constant was generated!
And, as an aside, I blame the YEC movement for this infection of Islam with nonsense. These are all tired, old arguments that have been ported over and dusted off to fool another billion people.
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