So you seem to be saying that what I was describing is actually the opposite of what is happening... Theologians are making God smaller (rather than bigger) in response to science. Is that correct?
Yes, except that it's not really in response to science. It's more that they see the God of traditional theism as coming from a flawed concept of what God should be in the first place - unchangeably perfect - whereas God as presented in the Bible is more dynamic and intimately concerned with his creatures.
My next question, is that when you say "modern theologians" are you talking about clergy or college professors? Almost all the theologians I studied under were atheists and so what you are describing makes sense from that perspective. In essence, they are doing what I suggested in my last post... asserting that prior notions of God were too abstract and redefining a smaller more accessible version of God. Is that correct?
I'm thinking of professorial types, certainly. Though many of them would be clergy too.
The first false statement on your behalf. Yes, the constants could have been very different and I have given evidence to back this up as I've posted a video by a renowned physicist who confirms said notion as the mathematical physical model of our universe would perfectly assimilate any different value of any constant.
Didn't explain why? He did. Any changes in any constants would simply comply with the physical model of the universe and the universe would carry on - albeit - having 0 life in it.
Well, that's not really an explanation. It's just an assertion. The best you can say is that alternative values for these constants would have been compatible
with the model of the universe that we've got. So we know of no particular reason that forces these constants to have the values they actually have. However, you can't conclude from that that these constants
could definitely have been different. This is because our model of the universe is not perfect. Indeed, it's clearly not perfect and not complete, because among other things, it can't explain why these constants have the values they do have! It may be that as our understanding increases and we refine our model, we will see that in fact there are reasons that force these constants to have certain values.
Of course we don't know that. I'm not asserting that the values couldn't have been different. I'm merely saying that you can't assert that they could. If you want to do so then you need to explain why, not merely cite someone else asserting that they could.
Here we go again with the "undermine" false statement. How does said physicist's personal theory (i.e conjecture) to explain the remarkable life-tuning of our universe to support life undermine the fact that the universe is fine-tuned (indisputable fact) or undermine the notion of God? It just makes no sense. Nothing is "undermining" anything unless 100% proven.
Your flawed logic baffles me.
Merely quoting somebody asserting said constants could have been anything is not enough for you? That somebody is a highly renowned physicists and was one of at least three physicists who independently discovered during or around 1970 that the Veneziano dual resonance model of strong interactions could be described by a quantum mechanical model of strings.
On what exact grounds would you doubt his assertion that the physical constants could have take on any random value? What relevant credentials do you hold when it comes to theoretical physics or understanding of the mechanics of our universe?
Therefore, and until you can explicitly provide proof the fact that the constants could not have taken on any random value, Susskind's assertion will stand valid.
It's not about appeal to authority. (If it is, I'll take my stand with Immanuel Kant,
the greatest philosopher of modern times, on the cosmological argument against
you). The mere fact that Susskind says something doesn't make it so. Personally I'm perfectly willing to suppose that Susskind is right about this - if he doesn't know, who does? - but I've not been told what Susskind's reasoning is behind it. Simply saying "Susskind says it" isn't enough.
You claim to be baffled by my "flawed logic", but there's nothing at all flawed about my logic. I'm just asking what the rationale is for saying you can
know that the constants could have had different values. Telling me that someone very clever thinks they could have done doesn't answer this question.
Moreover, however flawed my logic may be, your argument is downright inconsistent. You praise Susskind as "a highly renowned physicists and was one of at least three physicists who independently discovered during or around 1970 that the Veneziano dual resonance model of strong interactions could be described by a quantum mechanical model of strings" - and yet in the same breath you mock his arguments for the multiverse as "conjecture" and "nonsense". I don't understand how you can Appeal to Authority on one matter and reject the same Authority on another matter. To do that, you need to explain what his arguments are and why you agree with some of them and not with others (as I did with Aquinas, for example). Just saying "He's right about this because he's a genius" and "He's wrong about this because it's nonsense" isn't going to convince anyone.
Appeal to ignorance. Many theoretical physicists have already calculated the odds of the constants perfectly falling to their presupposed values to permit life in the universe. Whether or not all possible constants exhibit equal probability of change, their range of possible values, is an exercise in futility.
Cosmologist and mathematician Roger Penrose once attempted to calculate the probability that chance allowed the initial state of the universe and its entropy to be exactly 'right' to allow it to still exist now. His answer was 1 chance in 10^10^123, a probability so small as to effectively be zero. Other have come up with similar very large numbers, rendering the notion of said constants falling to life-permitting values essentially zero by chance.
You accuse me of Appeal to Ignorance, but your reply is just Appeal to Authority. I asked before: how did Penrose calculate this? What's his evidence? What's his argument? Just saying "Penrose says" isn't an answer. You haven't given us any reason at all to think that Penrose is actually right.
What you say here is also inconsistent with your own argument. You say "Whether or not all possible constants exhibit equal probability of change, their range of possible values, is an exercise in futility." Yes, you're probably right about this. How can we possibly know? But
your argument presupposes that we can answer this question, i.e. that they
do all exhibit equal probability of change. If we don't know this to be the case (or at least have good reason to suppose that it's the case) then your argument cannot get off the ground. So your very argument presupposes that answering this question
isn't an exercise in futility.
Now you may argue yet again that "we don't know" - but here's my question to you again: on what ground do you have doubt the above probabilities, What relevant credentials do you hold when it comes to theoretical physics or understanding of the mechanics of our universe?
What, nearly throwing a mug of coffee over Paul Davies doesn't count as a qualification? Well, my answer to this is: I doubt these probabilities because I haven't been given any positive reason whatsoever to think they're true. I can just as easily say back to you: on what ground do you doubt that the actual values of the constants are the only possible ones?
Now note here that our positions are not equivalent. I'm not saying that the actual values of the constants
are the only possible ones. I'm not saying that they're most probable ones. I'm not making any assertions at all about the nature of the case. I'm simply saying that we don't know which, if any, of these assertions is true. You, by contrast, are committed to the view that there's a huge range of possible values and they're all equally probable (or, at least, that the actual values were very very improbable). So you're the one making a
definite claim about their probability. For your argument to work, you need that definite claim to be substantiated as true, or at least to show that it's very probably true. For me to undermine your argument, I need only to cast reasonable doubt over that claim. Your problem is that you haven't given any positive reasons to believe this claim other than saying that Roger Penrose believes it too.
Yes. There's something very special about the constants falling on a knife's edge to allow life to exist in our universe. Well, being on a knife's edge does not really do it justice - balancing a billion pencils all simultaneously positioned upright on their sharpened points on a smooth glass surface with no vertical supports does not even come close to describing an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.
Why do you think cosmologists and physics alike have purposed a multitude of different theories to explain the fine-tuning fact? The fine-tuning of our universe is a remarkable feat and very special.
What's so special about having life in our universe? None other the fact that it's been handpicked to be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it. It's no coincidence.
I simply don't see an answer to my objection here, or even an acknowledgement of what it is. Your penultimate sentence literally makes no sense to me.
Why do I think cosmologists and physicists have proposed various theories to explain fine-tuning? Why, because they're not philosophers, of course, and they're not very good at metaphysics! Now I
do have some small expertise in that field.
The problem is that your whole argument rests on the assertion that a life-permitting universe is intrinsically more special, more important, and therefore more in need of explanation than a non-life-permitting universe would be. But as I said, you haven't given any reason to think this. You've given reasons to think that a life-permitting universe is very
different from a non-life-permitting one, but that's not the same. For all we know, had the various constants been different, the universe could have had all kinds of weird phenomena in it that are impossible as things actually are. What makes life special and those alternative phenomena not special?
No time to address the rest (and I'm sure there's would be no point in doing so) if you insistently refuse to acknowledge the basics above.
Fair enough, but you must at least admit that quoting Kant in support of the cosmological argument was a little bit silly, mustn't you?
. Especially compared to spooning ice cream. Or at least it is the least selfish form of physical protest against reality that pain is mostly uninvited while pleasure requires dedicated effort.
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