Re: and who made god?
From: Barb Knox (see_at_sig.below)
Date: 02/07/05
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Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:47:45 +1300
In article <1107704514.608110.197730@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
"ken quirici" <kquirici@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Barb Knox wrote:
>> I do not claim my existence is any sort
>> of necessary fact, but it does happen to be a (contingent) fact.
>> Given that fact, the universe I find myself in must be one which
>> supports life such asm yself.
>> So any argument that the fact that the universe appears fine-tuned
>> for our sort of life actually means something more is thoroughly
>> bogus.
>
>You're arguing the universe must be the way it is because it IS the
>way it is.
No, I am making no claim about what the universe "must" be, a priori. I'm
perfectly happy accepting that it could have been very different, and that
the universe we inhabit is vastly improbable.
>That's perfectly true, and conclusive, if there were any
>doubt that the universe exists, and has the properties of supporting
>human life. About which, of course, there IS no doubt.
>
>But as far as the argument from design, which would use the phrase
>'must be' in a different way, and intend it to mean, 'must have been
>created and designed to be', it has no force whatsoever.
>
>> Let me put it in terms of conditional probabilities: Let's posit that
>> the probability of the existence of our sort of universe is very close
>> to 0.But, the probability of its existence GIVEN THAT we are in fact
>> here is 1.
>>
>>
>
>The probability of ANY event occurring AFTER it occurs is 1. The
>question is, what are the odds BEFORE it occurred?
You seem to have thoroughly missed the point. I'll try a less-abstract
explanation below.
>Unless we assume
>the universe had an infinite prior existence, it came into
>existence at some past time. What were the chances of its coming into
>existence, and with all the properties we know and love, at that past
>time? I'm not supporting the argument for design but simply saying
>the issues are more complex, I believe, than your argument allows.
>
>Actually, I think the community of thinkers out there believes ANY
>universe is POSSIBLE, in which case the chance of this one are near
>nil.
I'm entirely happy to posit that (as above).
>The question of whether any imaginable universe, however
>grotesque, can actually exist is interesting but I suppose there's
>very little one can say about that question.
>
>NOTE: it may be that ALL universes actually exist right now and we're
>lucky enuf (I hope it's lucky enuf) to be on THIS bus.
Here's a more concrete attempt to show that the anthropic principle has at
least as much explanatory power as the argument from design.
The argument from design is essentially that the universe as we see it seems
so vastly improbable that it takes more faith to believe that it "just
happened" to turn out this way (i.e. to be hospitable to intelligent life)
than to believe that it was designed to be this way.
So, consider the probability space of all possible universes. (It doesn't
matter whether or not you prefer to think of them as actually existing in
some sort of multiverse, but thinking of it that way does have the benefit
of concreteness.) Among all the possible universes, let's posit that only a
very very small fraction are hospitable to intelligent life; that is,
hospitable universes are very improbable, so improbable as to appear
miraculous. But in that vast majority of inhospitable universes, no-one is
making an "argument of non-design", since there is no-one there to make any
sort of argument at all. So the only universes in which any argument occurs
MUST be those very improbable hospitable ones. This is a massive "selection
bias", to the extent that it actually doesn't matter how vastly improbable
hospitable universes are.
>Thanks.
>
>Ken
-- --------------------------- | BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk | B B aa rrr b | | BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit, | B B a a r b b | altum viditur. | BBB aa a r bbb | -----------------------------
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