Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 In recent decades, many scientist including Paul Davies, Luke Barnes, Martin Rees, John Barrow, Frank Tipler, Don N. Page, John A. Wheeler, Roger Penrose, David Jonathan, Luboš Motl, Peter Woit, Arno Penzias, Dr Dennis Scania, Francis Collins, Karl W. Giberson, Peter Harrison, Andrei Linde, Hugh Ross, Frank A. Wilczek, Dr. David Deutsch, Michael Turner, Lee Smolin, George Ellis, Alan Sandage, George Greenstein, Robin Collins, Tony Rothman, Vera Kistiakowsky, Ed Harrison, John Gribbin have expressed there astonishment at the order of the universe. Embedded within the laws of physics are roughly 30 numbers—including the masses of the elementary particles and the strengths of the fundamental forces—that must be specified to describe the universe as we know it.[1] The fundamental numbers, and even the form of the apparent laws of nature are not demanded by logic or physical principle, meaning they could have taken on different values.[2] However the problem is that small changes in there relative strengths would have had devastating consequences for life.[3] An interesting example of a finely-tuned initial condition is the critical density of the universe. In order to evolve in a life-sustaining manner, the universe must have maintained an extremely precise overall density. The precision of density must have been so great that a change of one part in 1015 (i.e. 0.0000000000001%) would have resulted in a collapse, or big crunch, occurring far too early for life to have developed, or there would have been an expansion so rapid that no stars, galaxies or life could have formed. [4] By “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” but simply that the fundamental constants and quantities of nature fall into an exquisitely narrow range of values which render our universe life-permitting. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by even a hair’s breadth, the delicate balance would be upset and life could not exist. [5] [1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/author/lsmolin/ [2] The Grand Design (page 143) [3] http://www.is-there-a-god.info/clues/designfacts.shtml [4] http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning [5] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/design-from-fine-tuning Our claim isn't that this universe contains the most amount of life that you could fit in it. We're saying that if things were slightly different, there wouldn't be any life at all. Saying how horrible things have been and will become doesn't change the precision of the fine-tuning. The majority view appears to be that it is highly unlikely that the universe could take on such values by chance. Gribbin & Rees ("Cosmic Coincidences"): "The conditions in our universe really do seem to be uniquely suitable for life forms like ourselves." Leonard Susskind ("The Cosmic Landscape")" "To make the first 119 decimal places of the vacuum energy zero is most certainly no accident." Paul Davies ("The Mind of God"): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming". Astronomer Fred Hoyle ("The Universe: Past and Present Reflections"): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." Lee Smolin ("Life of the Cosmos"): Perhaps before going further we should ask just how probable is it that a universe created by randomly choosing the parameters will contain stars. Given what we have already said, it is simple to estimate this probability. For those readers who are interested, in the arithmetic is in the notes. The answer, in round numbers, comes to about one chance in 10229." Roger Penrose, former Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and a cosmologist who worked with Stephen Hawking ("The Emperor's New Mind"): "This now tells us how precise the Creator's aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123. This is an extraordinary figure." A common response to the fine-tuning argument is "if the universe wasn't fine-tuned we wouldn't notice it". My response to this... What if someone asked "why are quasars so bright" and suppose someone else answered "because otherwise we wouldn't be able to see them". Well that's true, but it doesn’t answer the question. Quasars are massive black holes and as the matter is falling towards the black hole it gets extremely hot and luminous, as a result all the energy is released. So when someone asks “why is the universe so finely-tuned for life?” Should we answer “Because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t be here.”
A Tripolation Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Don't you already have, like, four threads on this? 2
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 Don't you already have, like, four threads on this? 1 got banned because I didn't list all my sources, this time I did. The other one got banned because he thought I already had a forum on this, but it had got banned and he didn't know. So no, this is the only active forum I have on this.
A Tripolation Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Ok. A little background I'm curious about: are you a theist of any sort?
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 Ok. A little background I'm curious about: are you a theist of any sort? I'm a Christian (not a very good one thou haha). I use this argument to get people to become deist (or atleast consiter it). I have other arguments for theism.
A Tripolation Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 I'm a Christian (not a very good one thou haha). I use this argument to get people to become deist (or atleast consiter it). I have other arguments for theism. Okay, good to know. I'm a Christian as well. May I ask you: what is the cause for radioactive decay? What is the cause for quantum tunneling? What causes those things to happen? If I kick a chair over, my kick imparted a force that overcame the force of gravity pulling the chair down and the friction force that opposed forward motion. What causes a particle to decay?
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 Okay, good to know. I'm a Christian as well. May I ask you: what is the cause for radioactive decay? What is the cause for quantum tunneling? What causes those things to happen? If I kick a chair over, my kick imparted a force that overcame the force of gravity pulling the chair down and the friction force that opposed forward motion. What causes a particle to decay? Everything which begins to exist has a cause apart from itself. The Casimir effect and radioactive decay comes from the quantum vacuum.
A Tripolation Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Everything which begins to exist has a cause apart from itself. The Casimir effect and radioactive decay comes from the quantum vacuum. Erm, no. That's not what causes radioactive decay. I'll give you a hint: it's a trick question.
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 Erm, no. That's not what causes radioactive decay. I'll give you a hint: it's a trick question. Lol wikianswers say unstable atomic nuclei causes radioactive decay, but they can be wrong.
A Tripolation Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Lol wikianswers say unstable atomic nuclei causes radioactive decay, but they can be wrong. That's not really an explanation, nor is it a cause. Here's how Swansont explained it to me back when I first took quantum mechanics. //It's causeless in the sense that there is no trigger, i.e. it's spontaneous — it doesn't require an outside event to cause it. This is supported by the random decay time, which indicates that it's a probabilistic event. Non-spontaneous events require an outside influence of some sort — some particle that undergoes an interaction. Decays lack this. Seeking the lowest energy is a true; classically we see this as a force of some sort. But those events happen immediately. A ball on an incline rolls downhill. It doesn't wait an arbitrary length of time before doing so. For alpha decay, it's the alpha hitting the potential barrier, and having a chance to tunnel through, but tunneling is probabilistic. Nothing causes the tunneling to occur . "Random" is not a particularly difficult model. Random fluctuations in the nucleus are not caused, so at best you've moved the explanation one step back.// 2
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 That's not really an explanation, nor is it a cause. Here's how Swansont explained it to me back when I first took quantum mechanics. //It's causeless in the sense that there is no trigger, i.e. it's spontaneous — it doesn't require an outside event to cause it. This is supported by the random decay time, which indicates that it's a probabilistic event. Non-spontaneous events require an outside influence of some sort — some particle that undergoes an interaction. Decays lack this. Seeking the lowest energy is a true; classically we see this as a force of some sort. But those events happen immediately. A ball on an incline rolls downhill. It doesn't wait an arbitrary length of time before doing so. For alpha decay, it's the alpha hitting the potential barrier, and having a chance to tunnel through, but tunneling is probabilistic. Nothing causes the tunneling to occur . "Random" is not a particularly difficult model. Random fluctuations in the nucleus are not caused, so at best you've moved the explanation one step back.// Is it possible we will find a cause for it in the future? But than we will need to find a cause for that cause, and a cause for that cause and a cause for that cause? Until we get to the uncaused first cause? I'm defindently not educated in quantum mechanics. Does this have anything to do with the fine-tuning argument thou lol?
Strange Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Is it possible we will find a cause for it in the future? Possible, but there is no reason to think so currently. Does this have anything to do with the fine-tuning argument thou lol? It probably belongs in the Cosmological Argument thread as yet another example of things that are acausal.
Moontanman Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 In recent decades, many scientist including Paul Davies, Luke Barnes, Martin Rees, John Barrow, Frank Tipler, Don N. Page, John A. Wheeler, Roger Penrose, David Jonathan, Luboš Motl, Peter Woit, Arno Penzias, Dr Dennis Scania, Francis Collins, Karl W. Giberson, Peter Harrison, Andrei Linde, Hugh Ross, Frank A. Wilczek, Dr. David Deutsch, Michael Turner, Lee Smolin, George Ellis, Alan Sandage, George Greenstein, Robin Collins, Tony Rothman, Vera Kistiakowsky, Ed Harrison, John Gribbin have expressed there astonishment at the order of the universe. Embedded within the laws of physics are roughly 30 numbers—including the masses of the elementary particles and the strengths of the fundamental forces—that must be specified to describe the universe as we know it.[1] The fundamental numbers, and even the form of the apparent laws of nature are not demanded by logic or physical principle, meaning they could have taken on different values.[2] However the problem is that small changes in there relative strengths would have had devastating consequences for life.[3] An interesting example of a finely-tuned initial condition is the critical density of the universe. In order to evolve in a life-sustaining manner, the universe must have maintained an extremely precise overall density. The precision of density must have been so great that a change of one part in 1015 (i.e. 0.0000000000001%) would have resulted in a collapse, or big crunch, occurring far too early for life to have developed, or there would have been an expansion so rapid that no stars, galaxies or life could have formed. [4] By “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” but simply that the fundamental constants and quantities of nature fall into an exquisitely narrow range of values which render our universe life-permitting. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by even a hair’s breadth, the delicate balance would be upset and life could not exist. [5] [1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/author/lsmolin/ [2] The Grand Design (page 143) [3] http://www.is-there-a-god.info/clues/designfacts.shtml [4] http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning [5] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/design-from-fine-tuning Our claim isn't that this universe contains the most amount of life that you could fit in it. We're saying that if things were slightly different, there wouldn't be any life at all. Saying how horrible things have been and will become doesn't change the precision of the fine-tuning. The majority view appears to be that it is highly unlikely that the universe could take on such values by chance. Gribbin & Rees ("Cosmic Coincidences"): "The conditions in our universe really do seem to be uniquely suitable for life forms like ourselves." Leonard Susskind ("The Cosmic Landscape")" "To make the first 119 decimal places of the vacuum energy zero is most certainly no accident." Paul Davies ("The Mind of God"): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming". Astronomer Fred Hoyle ("The Universe: Past and Present Reflections"): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." Lee Smolin ("Life of the Cosmos"): Perhaps before going further we should ask just how probable is it that a universe created by randomly choosing the parameters will contain stars. Given what we have already said, it is simple to estimate this probability. For those readers who are interested, in the arithmetic is in the notes. The answer, in round numbers, comes to about one chance in 10229." Roger Penrose, former Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and a cosmologist who worked with Stephen Hawking ("The Emperor's New Mind"): "This now tells us how precise the Creator's aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123. This is an extraordinary figure." A common response to the fine-tuning argument is "if the universe wasn't fine-tuned we wouldn't notice it". My response to this... What if someone asked "why are quasars so bright" and suppose someone else answered "because otherwise we wouldn't be able to see them". Well that's true, but it doesn’t answer the question. Quasars are massive black holes and as the matter is falling towards the black hole it gets extremely hot and luminous, as a result all the energy is released. So when someone asks “why is the universe so finely-tuned for life?” Should we answer “Because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t be here.” How do you know the universe is fine tuned? How do you know that our universe isn't the only way a universe can be? How do you know there aren't a infinite number of ways a universe can be and we are just lucky enough to exist in one that allows life? How do you know that different constants would not produce unique conditions that would allow things we cannot imagine?
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 How do you know the universe is fine tuned? How do you know that our universe isn't the only way a universe can be? How do you know there aren't a infinite number of ways a universe can be and we are just lucky enough to exist in one that allows life? How do you know that different constants would not produce unique conditions that would allow things we cannot imagine? Well I have to give you complaments on your imagination. I will do my best to answer your questions. Physicist Stephen Hawking says, "It appears that the fundamental numbers, and even the form, of the apparent laws of nature are not demanded by logic or physical principle.” Also you would have to believe that a life-prohibiting universe is physically impossible, but a life-prohibiting universe is logically possible and there is no evidence suggesting otherwise. Saying the universe had to take a form suitable for life is ridiculous, which is why physical necessity has few, if any supporters. Furthermore even if this is the only way the universe could be, we could still use it as a argument for God. Why would a universe without purpose make the constants "have" to be life permitting. I mean think about it, the "only" way the universe could be is life permitting? There is currently no experimental evidence in support of the M-verse "hypothesis". While there is some support in physics for string theory and inflationary cosmology, they are currently provisional and highly speculative. However I actually believe the multiverse exists, but is insufficient in accounting for the fine-tuning of the laws of nature. (see links) http://sententias.org/2013/01/19/do-multiverse-scenarios-solve-the-problem-of-fine-tuning/ http://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.0246.pdf To learn more about fine-tuning go to these links... Audio references http://ia700304.us.archive.org/26/items/ConversationsFromThePaleBlueDot040-LukeBarnes/040-LukeBarnes.mp3 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-anthropic-universe/3302686 Online referenceshttp://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/ft.htm http://www.is-there-a-god.info/clues/designfacts.shtml http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.4647 http://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/in-defence-of-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe-for-intelligent-life/ Book references"Just Six Numbers." Martin Rees . "Cosmic Coincidences." John Gribbin & Martin Rees "The Cosmic Landscape". Leonard Susskind "The Universe: a biography". John Gribbin "The Accidental Universe". Paul Davies "The Mind of God". Paul Davies "The Emperor's New Mind". Roger Penrose
Moontanman Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 (edited) So all you have is an appeal to authority and then you use that to support the concept of god? How do you know it is a god and not just some fluke of nature, the odds have no meaning in this context because the probability of us being here is one... And btw, your appeals to authority do not answer my questions, how do you know that? Is not a request for what other people hypothesize, it is a request for evidence, so far you have given none other than "it had to be that because I can't think of another way" I think your entire premise is fatally flawed because it assumes the answer is god and not just any god but your own god and it also assumes that further scientific progress cannot be made... there for god did it.... Edited July 31, 2013 by Moontanman 1
Crispy Bacon Posted July 31, 2013 Author Posted July 31, 2013 So all you have is an appeal to authority and then you use that to support the concept of god? How do you know it is a god and not just some fluke of nature, the odds have no meaning in this context because the probability of us being here is one... No, it's not an appeal to authority, because they know what they are talking about. "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject." I'm not commiting an appeal to authority because everyone I named is legitamate. -1
A Tripolation Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Is it possible we will find a cause for it in the future? But than we will need to find a cause for that cause, and a cause for that cause and a cause for that cause? Until we get to the uncaused first cause? I'm defindently not educated in quantum mechanics. Does this have anything to do with the fine-tuning argument thou lol? Quantum mechanics is a theory with acausal mechanisms and it is quite sound. I don't anticipate it being turned over that its tenets will need to be rewritten, but it is possible. Highly unlikely, though. And I thought this was the KCA thread. My bad. I was using it as a direct counterexample of "everything that begins to exist has a cause," which is most certainly not true at the quantum level. The FTA is destroyed when you realize that it is possible for other universes to form with radically different fundamental constants. This is not the only valid universe and it is egocentric to think so. There are many valid configurations and if the MWI of QM is correct, then there are infintely many valid universes and FT would be quite a silly statement. 1
Moontanman Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 No, it's not an appeal to authority, because they know what they are talking about. "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject." I'm not commiting an appeal to authority because everyone I named is legitamate. No, it's not an appeal to authority, because they know what they are talking about. "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject." I'm not commiting an appeal to authority because everyone I named is legitamate. No, it's not an appeal to authority, because they know what they are talking about. "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject." I'm not commiting an appeal to authority because everyone I named is legitamate. No, it's not an appeal to authority, because they know what they are talking about. "This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject." I'm not commiting an appeal to authority because everyone I named is legitamate. you are incorrect, you have indeed done nothing but appeal to authority and then use that authority to posit something that does not necessarily follow...
ydoaPs Posted July 31, 2013 Posted July 31, 2013 Don't you already have, like, four threads on this? ! Moderator Note Yes, yes he does. This exact thread has also been closed twice. We do not allow reposting of closed threads. Thread closed. Continued failure to abide by rule 8 and further opening of closed threads will result in warning points. We do ask that members who see infractions use the report function to bring it to our attention.
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