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Thats the problem with the atheist worldview , its meaningless and void of purpose, religion is probably worse in some regards too.
I prefer to stay in the area between. Its neither black or white but grey.
This is an interesting video, but I disagree with the core concept that the people who made the video are trying to present. (They are saying the only logical explanation is Intelligent Design.)
First of all, I agree with Richard Dawkins when he points out that an Intelligent Designer is not really an explanation. All it does is push the mystery back a step. If you can accept "God" as a premise, then you can just as easily accept "brute fact fine-tuning" as a premise, or 10^120 universe in the multiverse. In either case explanation simply dead-ends in a fundamental mystery. Even if God exists, we'd probably need something like fine-tuning or 10^120 universes to explain God's existence, so God becomes a pointless middleman in the explanatory process - a violation of Occam's Razor.
But I would argue that the notion of "random chance" is a misguided foundation of explanation. I think it is far more likely that Reality is fundamentally chaotic in nature, which means that there are probably "attractors" in the fundamental mathematical description of Reality. Instead of pure randomness, we have a mega-structured sort of randomness in which some types of systems are vastly more probable than others. In other words, instead of purely random "fine-tuning" of the cosmological constant, it is probably the case that this value for the constant is the "bottom of a deep well" in terms of a chaotic cosmological landscape (so to speak).
But there is one other critical piece of the puzzle: Some qualitative or "proto-qualitative" aspect of Reality are fundamental. Every theory is logically required to sit on a foundation of fundamental ("brute fact") premises that cannot, even in principle, be further explained (otherwise they would not be fundamental after all). We need something like a "dual-aspect physicalism" such that Reality is fundamentally both quantitative and qualitative. To bring this full circle: The fundamentally qualitative aspects determine the characteristics of the "Chaotic Landscape" (i.e., the "hills and valleys") that determine some things to be more probable than others.
Bottom line: Give that Reality is fundamentally Qualitative (or proto-qualitative) and Chaotic: If we hypothesize that the qualitative aspects influence the Chaotic Landscape, then universes in which experiences more or less like ours occur become virtually certain, rather than highly improbable.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-09-2017 at 07:49 AM..
This is an interesting video, but I disagree with the core concept that the people who made the video are trying to present. (They are saying the only logical explanation is Intelligent Design.)
First of all, I agree with Richard Dawkins when he points out that an Intelligent Designer is not really an explanation. All it does is push the mystery back a step. If you can accept "God" as a premise, then you can just as easily accept "brute fact fine-tuning" as a premise, or 10^120 universe in the multiverse. In either case explanation simply dead-ends in a fundamental mystery. Even if God exists, we'd probably need something like fine-tuning or 10^120 universes to explain God's existence, so God becomes a pointless middleman in the explanatory process - a violation of Occam's Razor.
But I would argue that the notion of "random chance" is a misguided foundation of explanation. I think it is far more likely that Reality is fundamentally chaotic in nature, which means that there are probably "attractors" in the fundamental mathematical description of Reality. Instead of pure randomness, we have a mega-structured sort of randomness in which some types of systems are vastly more probable than others. In other words, instead of purely random "fine-tuning" of the cosmological constant, it is probably the case that this value for the constant is the "bottom of a deep well" in terms of a chaotic cosmological landscape (so to speak).
But there is one other critical piece of the puzzle: Some qualitative or "proto-qualitative" aspect of Reality are fundamental. Every theory is logically required to sit on a foundation of fundamental ("brute fact") premises that cannot, even in principle, be further explained (otherwise they would not be fundamental after all). We need something like a "dual-aspect physicalism" such that Reality is fundamentally both quantitative and qualitative. To bring this full circle: The fundamentally qualitative aspects determine the characteristics of the "Chaotic Landscape" (i.e., the "hills and valleys") that determine some things to be more probable than others.
Bottom line: Give that Reality is fundamentally Qualitative (or proto-qualitative) and Chaotic: If we hypothesize that the qualitative aspects influence the Chaotic Landscape, then universes in which experiences more or less like ours occur become virtually certain, rather than highly improbable.
Yes. A baby, within a given world, is a physical system with an inherently probabilistic "trajectory" within the context of that world. A chromosome is not likely to pop into existence from nothingness by pure random chance, but in the context of an evolutionary biological system, chromosomes are "a dime a dozen" so to speak. The baby might or might not reach adulthood, and its nature, upon arrival at adulthood, also contains many variables. But the key point is that there is a lot more at work here than just pure randomness.
Along similar lines: The birth of a universe in the context of an infinite evolving qualitative multiverse is the birth of a physical system with a trajectory that will probably lead to the evolution of conscious creatures. The cosmological constant, in the context of Reality as a Multiverse is probably like a chromosome - i.e., highly improbable if pure chance were the only factor, but far more probable if the Multiverse is intrinsically qualitative, and if this fundamentally qualitative nature gives shape to the cosmological "chaotic landscape" - making a landscape that is "consciousness-friendly" more probable than it would be by pure chance.
And if Reality is FAPP infinite, then the probability of life and consciousness somewhere in the vastness of Reality reaches virtual certainty.
None of this removes the ultimately shocking mystery that confronts the philosophical mind, namely, the mystery of "Why is there something rather than nothing?" And even given the fact that things exists, there is the mystery of why "me." This ultimate mystery is not a problem to be rationally solved but, rather, an aesthetic flourish of Reality to be simply appreciated for what it is. But I think part of this appreciation is the realization that "I" was always already basically inevitable, because the "I" is a universal component that stands at the core of each and every instance of Reality realizing its own conscious potential.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-09-2017 at 02:20 PM..
This is an interesting video, but I disagree with the core concept that the people who made the video are trying to present. (They are saying the only logical explanation is Intelligent Design.)
First of all, I agree with Richard Dawkins when he points out that an Intelligent Designer is not really an explanation. All it does is push the mystery back a step. If you can accept "God" as a premise, then you can just as easily accept "brute fact fine-tuning" as a premise, or 10^120 universe in the multiverse. In either case explanation simply dead-ends in a fundamental mystery. Even if God exists, we'd probably need something like fine-tuning or 10^120 universes to explain God's existence, so God becomes a pointless middleman in the explanatory process - a violation of Occam's Razor.
But I would argue that the notion of "random chance" is a misguided foundation of explanation. I think it is far more likely that Reality is fundamentally chaotic in nature, which means that there are probably "attractors" in the fundamental mathematical description of Reality. Instead of pure randomness, we have a mega-structured sort of randomness in which some types of systems are vastly more probable than others. In other words, instead of purely random "fine-tuning" of the cosmological constant, it is probably the case that this value for the constant is the "bottom of a deep well" in terms of a chaotic cosmological landscape (so to speak).
But there is one other critical piece of the puzzle: Some qualitative or "proto-qualitative" aspect of Reality are fundamental. Every theory is logically required to sit on a foundation of fundamental ("brute fact") premises that cannot, even in principle, be further explained (otherwise they would not be fundamental after all). We need something like a "dual-aspect physicalism" such that Reality is fundamentally both quantitative and qualitative. To bring this full circle: The fundamentally qualitative aspects determine the characteristics of the "Chaotic Landscape" (i.e., the "hills and valleys") that determine some things to be more probable than others.
Bottom line: Give that Reality is fundamentally Qualitative (or proto-qualitative) and Chaotic: If we hypothesize that the qualitative aspects influence the Chaotic Landscape, then universes in which experiences more or less like ours occur become virtually certain, rather than highly improbable.
In philosophy you don't need an explanation for the explanation just because you find it unappealing, it is what it is. The fact that we cannot wrap our minds around God is just... our problem.
There is nothing in the laws of physics that require the cosmological constants be the way they are.
Most physicists accept the element of design, Dawkins agrees after talking to many physicists. He agrees with John Leslie that posing the anthropic explanation is an empty answer. Its like winning 1000 lotteries and believing it was just luck. No, someone fiddled with the draw, obviously.
Invoking a multiverse to explain away the appearance of design, without proof, is a gross violation of Occams. The simple explanation is an intelligent designer.
No, it is not. As then question arises who created designer, or designed it. Where was designer before creation? What exactly was designer doing before creation? What kind of omni everything designer gets tired of some work in six days? Why perfect designer created imperfect world? And questions like this will go on and on and on.
Simple explanation is simple. There is no beginning and no end. Everything is. Accept it as a FACT and stop masturbating your minds trying to show whose one is smarter. Maybe better start working on having 1000 wins in a row in a lottery. that is more realistic than figuring reality.
As of making Dawkins a god of ultimate wisdom....
Newton, Darwin and Einstein serve as the holy trinity of western science. And below these are the elders: Watson, Crick, Dawkins, Hawking, Dennet, Chomsky, Penrose and Sagan. And then you have the High Priests: the Nobel Prize winners, the popular writers and the media celebrities.
Their opinions are received as sermons, and their statements are quoted like sacred texts. Ordinary people are ridiculed, if they doubt the interpretations of this priesthood. Even for scientists, questioning a member of a higher tier is done only at your own risk. After all, all scientific work (from papers to grant applications) is peer reviewed, remember?
All scientific results are in their nature provisional – they can be nothing else. Someone will come along, either the next day or the next decade, with further refinements, new methods, more nuanced ways of looking at old problems, and, quelle surprise, find that conclusions based on earlier results were simplistic, rough-hewn – even wrong.
As discussed in Dr McLain's article and the comments subjacent, scientific experiments don't end with a holy grail so much as an estimate of probability. For example, one might be able to accord a value to one's conclusion not of "yes" or "no" but "P<0.05", which means that the result has a less than one in 20 chance of being a fluke. That doesn't mean it's "right".
One thing that never gets emphasized enough in science, or in schools, or anywhere else, is that no matter how fancy-schmancy your statistical technique, the output is always a probability level (a P-value), the "significance" of which is left for you to judge – based on nothing more concrete or substantive than a feeling, based on the imponderables of personal or shared experience. Statistics, and therefore science, can only advise on probability – they cannot determine The Truth. And Truth, with a capital T, is forever just beyond one's grasp. • Henry Gee is a senior editor of Nature.
In philosophy you don't need an explanation for the explanation just because you find it unappealing, it is what it is.
It is possible that the existence of God is a brute fact, in which case you would be correct in saying that there cannot be any further explanation. But God is the most highly complex entity imaginable. An intelligence capable of designing the universe is more complex (and more a priori improbable) than the universes itself. If you grant yourself the right to postulate a brute-fact God, then you are being wildly disingenuous if you don't grant me the right to postulate the brute-fact existence of the Big Bang. You might not like the BB explanation but, as you say, it is what it is. The value of the cosmological constant cannot be any less probable than the existence of an infinitely intelligent creator who is capable of assigning the value of the cosmological constant. So the "fine-tuning" question does not, in fact, lend any support to the existence of God. The 10^120 odds against the random chance value of the cosmological constant is insignificant compared to the 10^infinity odds against the random-chance existence of God. What this really shows, however, is that using "random chance" to determine the odds of something like either the cosmological constant, or God, is absurd. A brute fact is, as you say, simply a brute fact. It's not really a matter of "odds" in either case.
One is certainly welcome to accept the existence of God as a matter of faith, but to claim that the existence of God is somehow supported by science or logic is simply absurd.
Quote:
There is nothing in the laws of physics that require the cosmological constants be the way they are.
True, but all this shows is that physics is incomplete - which is something that we already know. There is not a single respectable physicist alive today who claims that physics is complete.
Quote:
Most physicists accept the element of design...
I'm not sure about the word "most" (do you know of a credible poll that shows this to be true?) but, in any case, it is a matter of faith for them, not a matter of physics or logic. Plenty of scientists are theists, but very few scientists will assert that theism is a scientific hypothesis.
Quote:
Invoking a multiverse to explain away the appearance of design, without proof, is a gross violation of Occams.
Also keep in mind that there are at least several different ways in which Reality might be a multiverse, and these different ways are not mutually exclusive, so Reality could turn out to be a multiverse in more ways than one. (Link: The Universes of Max Tegmark )
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-10-2017 at 08:54 AM..
No, it is not. As then question arises who created designer, or designed it. Where was designer before creation? What exactly was designer doing before creation? What kind of omni everything designer gets tired of some work in six days? Why perfect designer created imperfect world? And questions like this will go on and on and on.
The Kalam argument goes like this,
1.What begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe had a beginning.
3. therefore the universe had a cause.
You are inferring God began to exist, but God is outside time and no-one ever says God began to exist.
Just because you cannot wrap your mind around the concept of God means nothing else except your inability.
Atheist questions go on and on because they make glaring logic mistakes as pointed out above.
Lets listen to what an atheist philosopher, Michael Ruse, has to say about the silly arguments atheists ( usually kids) fall into.
No, it is not. As then question arises who created designer, or designed it. Where was designer before creation? What exactly was designer doing before creation? What kind of omni everything designer gets tired of some work in six days? Why perfect designer created imperfect world? And questions like this will go on and on and on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonesg
The Kalam argument goes like this,
1.What begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe had a beginning.
3. therefore the universe had a cause.
You are inferring God began to exist, but God is outside time and no-one ever says God began to exist.
On the flip side, theists seem to miss the deeper point of asking the "who created God" question. (From what I've seen, most atheists don't really understand it either, and it was not adequately addressed in the video that you posted.) Theists are perfectly justified in claiming that God is a necessary being, or a fundamental premise. So, yes, atheists do fall into a trap if they simply blabber "But who created God?" without thinking it through. But a smarter atheist will not be offering this question as an argument against the existence of God. THAT is just plain silly. The deeper goal should be to address theists who claim that a Intelligent Designer is the only plausible or the most plausible explanation for the existence of a highly complex - seemingly designed - universe. If theists can claim that God is uncreated, then atheists have the same logical right to claim that the physical foundations of the universe are uncreated, and these foundations need not be an Intelligent Designer.
Notice a difference between "the universe" (which, seemingly, began with the Big Bang) and the physical foundations of the universe, which presumably did not have a beginning for essentially the same reasons that God did not have a beginning - i.e., space and time spring into existence with the BB, so the singularity, as such, is non-temporal and thus, logically, has no "beginning." Initially the physical foundations were thought to be simply the BB singularity, but most cosmologists are now looking deeper than this. Notice that, unlike "God", the BB singularity is a scientific concept and, as such, it is bound to be probed and challenged on scientific grounds. Unlike "God" which is simply defined as a necessary being, the BB singularity is hypothesized, and thus can be empirically challenged.
The "God" concept is the end of scientific investigation, but the BB singularity can, in principle, be just a rung on a much bigger ladder of explanation. Currently, Quantum Field Theory (so far our best foundational theory and extremely well-confirmed) suggests that the quantum vacuum is exactly the sort of "stuff" that can play the role of "unmoved mover" - the non-temporal "brute fact" foundations of physical reality that contain just the sorts of characteristics that a cosmologist would need in order to explain how a universe "pops out of nothing." The vacuum of QFT is, so to speak, exactly the right kind of "nothingness" out of which a universe could spontaneously "pop". And, keep in mind, that the vacuum of QFT is a testable idea, and it has so far passed all of its tests with flying colors.
Like "God", the vacuum of QFT is uncreated and has no beginning, but unlike God, the vacuum is part of a highly confirmed scientific theory. But there is something else. Something really, really big. If the quantum vacuum is the sort of "stuff" out of which a universe can pop, then it is wildly absurd to think that this "popping" would only occur once in all eternity. It would be like rolling dice. If it is physically possible to roll snake eyes, and the dice are being rolled infinitely, why the heck would snake eyes only occur once? Physically and logically, tacking on some restriction that says "Oh, and this can only happen once" makes no plausible sense at all. Thus we get variations on the concept of a multiverse.
Notice that the multiverse concept - in virtually all of it variations - is not just thrown out there as an ad hoc way to explain how something as improbable as the precise value of the cosmological constant could occur. On the contrary. The multiverse concept is a highly plausible extension of our best understanding of the quantum vacuum of QFT (and, although following different logic, the nature of string theory). Again I want to emphasize: God and QFT (or String Theory, or Loop Quantum Gravity, etc.) are posited as non-temporal foundations of physical reality. If God does not need to be created by a Creator, then the quantum vacuum does not need to be created either. That is (or, at least, ought to be) the deeper point of asking "Who created God?" It is a rhetorical question meant to point out the Theistic flaw of supposing that God is the only logically possible source of everything. But whereas the God concept shuts down further scientific inquiry, the quantum vacuum is an unimaginably fertile beginning for further investigation. We can actually test this stuff, and we are doing so, and the results continue to be encouraging.
Bottom line: It is not that the general idea of an Intelligent Designer is a logically impossible explanation, but rather, the key point is that the God concept is scientifically infertile and, more importantly, the scientific approach via QFT (and it scientific rivals) are rationally plausible alternatives to an ID, and they don't suffer from the problem of evil (as pointed out by ukrkos in the quote above - why would an ID who is both loving and intelligent create such a painfully brutal and seemingly messed-up system?).
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-11-2017 at 08:01 AM..
So, yes, at the moment "we have no awareness of other versions of us" but, ultimately, each and every version of me IS me in all of the deepest and most important senses of the concept of identity. I am, in fact, far "bigger" than my current perspective and it is possible, in principle, that I could wake up to discover this in roughly the same way that I wake up from a dream.
This thread delivers!
Beautiful concept. I'd rep you but they say I've got to spread it around. You continue to impress.
None of this removes the ultimately shocking mystery that confronts the philosophical mind, namely, the mystery of "Why is there something rather than nothing?" And even given the fact that things exists, there is the mystery of why "me." This ultimate mystery is not a problem to be rationally solved but, rather, an aesthetic flourish of Reality to be simply appreciated for what it is. But I think part of this appreciation is the realization that "I" was always already basically inevitable, because the "I" is a universal component that stands at the core of each and every instance of Reality realizing its own conscious potential.
not invalid thats for sure.
I feel that complexity vs volume will hint at life as we move off of one. We had an awful small volume with an awful lot of complexity at the bang. Now physical limits, like temp, could have kept it from "being", but it cooled faster then it expanded to me. Even with inflation, those interactions confined to the fabric of space might not see it.
"I" am here due to the probability of humans being here. Once humans are here, then somebody has to be me.
And there is little doubt that humans were not only going to be here on earth (we are the Periodic table) but I bet many human types were here, are here, and will be here again. I was going to be here from the moment it went "bada bing, bada big bang".
Your infinite universe making you again can be made limited size with a limited number of interactions by repeating the interactions. Fractal style.
mention my arguments in that book.
Not that pure scientist worry about honesty over fame,
but hey, its worth a try.
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