Cap'n Refsmmat

I believe Moontanman's on dial-up, so that may be an issue. I've worked a bit to make sure everything that can be served in a compressed form is, and the server even notifies the browser that it's allowed to save a copy of avatars, stylesheets, etc., so the browser doesn't have to download them again. After the first page load, things should be pretty fast.

The purposeful agent in question is also unknown and potentially non-existent. We are speculating either way. Induction, as a principle, holds no logical water whatsoever, so "that's what we see in other systems" is does not raise the purposeful agent option from speculation to "a good idea." Conway's design goal was to build a system that could make copies of itself using simple rules. Most of the emergent systems that appear in the Game of Life don't do that at all. I don't think you understood my quote of Karl Popper correctly. Induction does not even give us a probability of our conclusion being correct. It tells us nothing except "this is what we've observed in the past." One cannot create conclusions about the future with induction. In the scientific method, the problem is not proving a negative; the problem is proving a positive. Any scientific hypothesis we create ("all systems that look like x are designed") should be testable; we can then falsify that hypothesis if it fails the test. However, we can never prove the hypothesis to be true. We have no way of knowing that it applies in every possible situation at every possible time, because we cannot test it under every possible condition. So we have two hypotheses: "All objects exhibiting characteristics of design are designed," and "Physical principles can result in characteristics of design." The first hypothesis can be falsified with one counterexample; the second can be falsified if it is mathematically or physically proven to be impossible. I see no reason to favor the first hypothesis.

Unfortunately new releases of vBulletin are almost unusable, and IPB is an easier software to run and manage. I'm fairly certain you can view your old posts and threads; go to your name in the upper right, click on it, and there's a drop-down with a My Content link that shows you your posts and threads. (To the top right of the thread list is a drop-down that lets you see your threads or posts.) We'll just have to get used to the new software. It'll take some time. Feel free to ask if you can't find something or something's gone wrong.

This is a test

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Most experimental medications are protected by patents. Should the company developing the medication decide not to sell it to you, why should you have a right to use it?

Is there any reason physical principles cannot derive such a system? Otherwise, this is an inductive argument again, and that doesn't work. The design argument also fails if one does not grant a soul to humans; if we are deterministic organisms following physical laws, than anything we design is a result of applied physical laws. There are also numerous self-organizing systems that appear in Conway's Game of Life, which is based on simple physical principles. Since it is difficult to predict the outcomes in the Game of Life, most of these systems appear from random dot-placing. Not design. But I shouldn't have to point this out, since you're using the inductive argument instead of giving reasons why physical laws cannot create design.

There are numerous examples of self-organizing complex systems in nature -- particularly in chemistry. Were you to examine a self-organizing microscopic structure without understanding, you would presume it was designed -- until you learned how it works.

And that shape would be stable at any point in time, regardless of whether humans exist. We just had to notice. Please also remember rule 1.a of the religion forum.

Under Additional Options in the posting screen is an Attach Files section. Hit Manage Attachments. Of course, with the upgrade tomorrow morning, it'll be completely different...

There's not even enough data to get to the first few picoseconds of the existence of the universe. Why bother going further? No, it isn't. This is inductive reasoning. The question whether inductive references are justified, or under what conditions, is known as the problem of induction. ... My own view is that the various difficulties of inductive logic here sketched are insurmountable. So also, I fear, are those inherent in the doctrine so widely current today, that inductive inference, although not 'strictly valid', can attain some degree of 'reliability' or of 'probability'. ... In short, like every other form of inductive logic, the logic of probable inference, or 'probability logic', leads either to an infinite regress, or to the doctrine of apriorism. From Karl Popper's work The Logic of Scientific Discovery, the foundation work for the philosophy of science. You cannot base your hypothesis on the idea that "all we've seen so far has been designed" because that is an inductive argument, and there is no valid principle of induction that we can use to declare your conclusion valid. Hume also makes this point: It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that, for the future, it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. From An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, another classic philosophical work. Emphasis mine. Unless you propose a logical principle that denies the possibility of a tuning principle, a purposeful agent cannot be favored over a physical principle. Unknown principles are no different from unknown purposeful agents.

We are attempting to explain the existence of our universe by trying to find a first cause. We cannot arbitrarily pick a point in the causal chain and say "right, I quit, let's call it good right here." I do not see how any of the evidence points to a designer rather than a physical principle. There is no need to favor a designer. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Why? The principle that results in fine tuning does not have to be one already known to science.

Infinite regression is required. You just argued that fine tuning implies purposeful design; purposeful design implies the existence of a realm external to the universe in which some purposeful agent must exist. A purposeful agent implies life; and life in an alternate universe is dependent on its physical constants. Even if you do not accept that the external realm must be finely tuned, you must admit that its existence requires separate explanation, as does the existence of a purposeful agent inside it. On the other hand, it's possible that there is no purposeful agent, no external realm, and nothing that would have to create an external realm. Instead, some unknown principle of physics resulted in our physical constants emerging as they did. It would be safer to say "nobody knows why the constants have their values" than to say "their values imply a purposeful agent." Until physical causes can be ruled out, you can't jump to the conclusion that purpose was involved.

If the fine tuner is caused, you've merely introduced another turtle; something must have occurred to cause the fine tuner, and if the universe were just slightly different, that may never have happened... I still do not see why a potential Fine Tuner cannot be a simple physical principle. If it can be, fine tuning is not evidence for purposeful design.

Chaotic processes can easily result in predictable long-term outcomes. See, for example, weather and climate; weather is somewhat chaotic, but the long-term climate is not. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11641-climate-myths-chaotic-systems-are-not-predictable-.html

This resource may be useful: http://physics.suite101.com/article.cfm/understanding_convection_currents We can see how convection currents cause a flow of fluid from this example. Also, a simple video demonstrating the flow of water due to convection currents: 7xWWowXtuvA Underneath the tank on the left is hot water. Underneath on the right is a bowl of ice. The temperature of the hot water causes a convection current in the dye. Convection is considered a flow of heat because heat does flow -- by means of the flow of the heated fluid. The hot fluid rises.

Links to back this up: http://www.astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing.html http://www.curtismenning.com/ZeroEnergyCalc.htm It's a viable explanation, but still a hypothesis -- more precise measurements of the variables involved would be needed to prove it. And we still don't quite understand the processes in the first moments of the universe.

Doctors also understand better than anyone the risks, benefits, and costs of medical treatment. A professional ethicist won't know the risks of a particular surgery and can't make a good decision. Incidentally, most medical schools require students to take medical ethics courses.

Do they need to be? Some principle of physics could have required the physical constants to end up in a configuration similar to the one we have now. There could be some fundamental relation between the constants that we do not understand. And so on. Of course, then it's hard to call it a Fine Tuner, but oh well. If we can call something a God Particle, we can call a physical principle a Fine Tuner.

There is also no particular reason that a Fine Tuner has to be a deity rather than an unknown principle of physics. Perhaps there's some physical limitation that we do not yet understand that constrains the values of physical constants.