Can theists be rational?

[yy2bggggs]

Again, this just shifts the Fine Tuning up a level. If the constants are somehow set-in-stone, why are they set at the particular values that allow for a life-permitting universe? That would just be a stronger version of E:

What can be pushed up, can be pushed down.

Why are we only concerned with dimensionless parameters? Why not others? And for that matter, why are we only trying to account for intelligent life? Why not civilizations that send radio waves? Or just outright humans? Or pigs for that matter?

Are the questions we're asking even the right ones?

If you're seriously going to say "this just pushes the problem up a level", then it seems your problem is actually manufactured in the first place--you're asking about why universal constants are such that they make, coincidentally, the very things we care about existing.

There may not be a consensus about the number of constants that have to have precise values, but it doesn't follow that the number could be 0.

Wait a second... are you sure you have a proper burden here? You don't want to add in the possibility that no parameters can vary, because "it doesn't follow that it can be 0"? No... I refuse this burden. Feel free to toss in a low probability for the J_k that represents the ontological necessity option, but hear this...

I'm being nice to even grant you the notion to allow H into this in the first place. I mean, look at what you're doing. Consider H', alone. And consider it very, very seriously, in light of your intuitions. The probability that intelligent life actually wound up, as a result of the universe being the way it is, is astronomically low (pun intended). Now pause to consider the implications here.

We're talking about us--200 pound slabs of meaty apes, who can think. 200 pound apes, mind you, who have only built civilization about 10K years ago, running around on a huge planet that has been filled with all sorts of life, doing their own thing, for billions of years. Just a measly animal, with a tendency to develop bigger brains, who happened upon tools, and wound up where we are--who only recently discovered 95% of the universe that we didn't know existed before. And the odds that such a tiny minuscule consciousness arose... astronomically low.

And you dare consider an H hypothesis, which has it that a transcendent entity, built on mechanics we've never heard of, so vast he can create universes, with intent, exists? If the odds of a mere 200 pound ape is low, well... the odds against that H thing have got to be insane.

We're throwing H into the equation like it's nothing... and you don't even want to warrant consideration for this J_k?

The proper burden for excluding J_k isn't that I have to prove the choice can be 0... it's that we can rule it out as a viable alternative.

It could be there's a baseline of 20 or so constants that have to have precise values to allow for life and speculation about another couple dozen. The source I cite states:

Alright. Here's the way it works. Let's say that only 1 parameter needs a value, and it can be in a fairly large range. 100 to 200 units. It's just 1 parameter, mind you.

Now, what are the chances that this 1 parameter will fall within the range 100 to 200? 50%? 25%? 900 to 1 against? 1 billion to 1 against? 0?

You simply don't know, do you? That's because telling me a range that the parameter lies in, tells me nothing about the probability the parameter will lie in that range. And how could it?

Then ignore him and focus on the other six or seven. Linde and Hawking are hardly Christian apologists.

Seriously? We don't have to ignore him. Qualitatively, he's right. Key enzymes do need to come together. Just find a biochemist.

What's interesting, though, is that he was brought up at all... and that there was a comparison made to Drake equation, with the implication that that was rational.

None of us are professional phyiscists, so a lot of this is going to be an appeal to authority.

It'd be a good idea, then, to get professional physicists' opinions as to the fine tuning argument for God, would it not?

I don't know what model Penrose used and I probably wouldn't understand it. With all the awards won and discoveries made, attacking Penrose's credibility on this is probably not going to work.

You're missing the point. You're using Penrose's number without knowing what it means. You're plugging it into an equation that's supposed to compute an outcome from all collectively exhaustive outcomes. This is not about questioning Penrose's credibility--it's about knowing what you're using and how it fits into your equation.

Again, it doens't matter if the values of the constants are set or come about by chance, because the evidence is they have to have precise values either way for life to even have a chance. E1 or E2 both confirm H (E2 much better).

If they have set values, why would you need a God to set them?

It would be extremely rational to believe something that favors life set the constants at the precise values needed for life, and that is the point of this whole thread.

Or that life is just natural. You can't just cheat. The probability that God exists in the first place should be considered, and God is a much more unlikely thing to "just be" than we are.

You have not presented a model that would make Pr(E/~H) > Pr(E/H).

And this suggests what part of the problem is. You're answers based. You want a view that will explain things. I'm not like you. I'm doubt based. I want to work really hard to get my explanations, and I want them based on my observations, because I know the power of humans to fool themselves.

Put it this way. You are willing to use argument for authority for physics. Why? Because physics is damned hard. You can't do physics anywhere near the capacity as an expert in the field. But philosophy? Theology? No problem! And don't get me started on mathematics.

Truth isn't easy to get to. It's mightily convenient to not claim expertise in a field where, if you put your money where your mouth is, you'd blow up a rocket rather than manage to get it to land on Mars. But for some reason--these much bigger questions--much grander ponderings... you can estimate on the back of a napkin, no problem! But it's only because you're not going to blow a rocket up when you're wrong. You don't get slapped in the face, or kill billions of people, by... ooops... concluding god exists when he doesn't.

I want you to deconvert from this temptation of easy answers to difficult questions. It's nowhere near as easy, and you're not even close to a proper napkin estimate.

What false dichotomy?

Well, for example, that either God created the universe, or the planets arose with odds of 10¹²³ per Penrose's napkin... which, by the way, was computed based on some unknown model, based on the Standard Model--which we know isn't complete anyway.

Of course, none of your actual numbers in the other threads were real estimates from these people anyway.

 

[westprog]

No. I'm just saying that before I believe that you can fly by flapping your arms you need to A.) show me or B.) at least show me how this is theoretically possible.

If you are insisting on the theoretical impossibility of God's existence, then the requirement is slightly stronger than convincing you that it's possible. If you aren't claiming that God is impossible, in theory, then this subthread can be abandoned.

That something could hypothetically be true given the right set of premises is no reason to suppose that it is.

In any event, you have grossly misrepresented my position. The laws of this universe, so far, look to be fixed.

I understood you to be positing an oscillating universe. Is that not the case?

This says nothing of other universes. I have no idea if there are other universes but if you are going to posit that fine-tuning necesitates a fine-tuner, then if you are intellectually honest, you must be willing to accept the consequences of that logic. In otherwords the universe could have been not fine tuned and therefore there could be other universes that are not fine tuned. IOW, you are the one that introduces the possibility of universes that are not fine tuned.

If you accept the possibility of other universes which are not bound by the laws of physics as we understand them, how can you claim the laws of physics as an absolute?

 

[Malerin]

What can be pushed up, can be pushed down.

Why are we only concerned with dimensionless parameters? Why not others? And for that matter, why are we only trying to account for intelligent life? Why not civilizations that send radio waves? Or just outright humans? Or pigs for that matter?

It's not just intelligent life. To suggest that any non-planetary or non-molecular life at all is possible is a fairy tale and goes against everything we know of biology.

Are the questions we're asking even the right ones?

Is this the argument from ignorance being used to support atheism, of all things?

If you're seriously going to say "this just pushes the problem up a level", then it seems your problem is actually manufactured in the first place--you're asking about why universal constants are such that they make, coincidentally, the very things we care about existing.

It's not a problem for me, because I believe in God and my explanation for the long odds is that God favors life and created the universe. The evidence in the FT argument is a problem for atheists who think it all came about through chance. Positing that the values of the constants are set just leads you to E2, which is an even worse problem.

Wait a second... are you sure you have a proper burden here? You don't want to add in the possibility that no parameters can vary, because "it doesn't follow that it can be 0"? No... I refuse this burden. Feel free to toss in a low probability for the J_k that represents the ontological necessity option, but hear this...

I'm being nice to even grant you the notion to allow H into this in the first place. I mean, look at what you're doing. Consider H', alone. And consider it very, very seriously, in light of your intuitions. The probability that intelligent life actually wound up, as a result of the universe being the way it is, is astronomically low (pun intended). Now pause to consider the implications here.

We're talking about us--200 pound slabs of meaty apes, who can think. 200 pound apes, mind you, who have only built civilization about 10K years ago, running around on a huge planet that has been filled with all sorts of life, doing their own thing, for billions of years. Just a measly animal, with a tendency to develop bigger brains, who happened upon tools, and wound up where we are--who only recently discovered 95% of the universe that we didn't know existed before. And the odds that such a tiny minuscule consciousness arose... astronomically low.

And you dare consider an H hypothesis, which has it that a transcendent entity, built on mechanics we've never heard of, so vast he can create universes, with intent, exists? If the odds of a mere 200 pound ape is low, well... the odds against that H thing have got to be insane.

Strawman. You assume that if something created the universe, it would have to be a product of a life-permitting universe itself and have gone through an evolutionary process similar to what we went through. This doesn't apply to an entity indepedent of the universe existing outside of space and time. The odds of such a being existing cannot be known in the first place, so it remains a plausible hypothesis on which to explain the values of the constants.

We're throwing H into the equation like it's nothing... and you don't even want to warrant consideration for this J_k?

The proper burden for excluding J_k isn't that I have to prove the choice can be 0... it's that we can rule it out as a viable alternative.

Alright. Here's the way it works. Let's say that only 1 parameter needs a value, and it can be in a fairly large range. 100 to 200 units. It's just 1 parameter, mind you.

Now, what are the chances that this 1 parameter will fall within the range 100 to 200? 50%? 25%? 900 to 1 against? 1 billion to 1 against? 0?

You simply don't know, do you? That's because telling me a range that the parameter lies in, tells me nothing about the probability the parameter will lie in that range. And how could it?

If we didn't know, the physicists I quoted would be just pulling numbers out of their asses. When Linde says "We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,”, and Hawking says "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life " do you really suppose these guys came up with that in a vacuum?

Again, this seems an awful lot like "we don't know, so we can't say for sure." I mean, isn't it kind of strange that I, the theist here, am the one citing scientists and you, the atheist, are essentially saying, "Well, we don't know for sure, do we?"

Seriously? We don't have to ignore him. Qualitatively, he's right. Key enzymes do need to come together. Just find a biochemist.

What's interesting, though, is that he was brought up at all... and that there was a comparison made to Drake equation, with the implication that that was rational.

It'd be a good idea, then, to get professional physicists' opinions as to the fine tuning argument for God, would it not?

I suspect many of them would go for the multiverse theory. It's pretty popular at the moment. I know Linde does. Hawking thinks we are creating the universe by observation. It doesn't really matter what they think of the FT argument itself, I'm only concerned with whether the evidence, as I characterized it, is accurate. From the sources I've cited, it is. If you want to present a model of the universe that makes Pr(E/~H) likely (besides an oscillating universe or some multiverse), be my guest.

You're missing the point. You're using Penrose's number without knowing what it means. You're plugging it into an equation that's supposed to compute an outcome from all collectively exhaustive outcomes. This is not about questioning Penrose's credibility--it's about knowing what you're using and how it fits into your equation.

It's very simple:
1. Life, as we know it, requires planets.
2. Penrose states that the odds of planets forming through chance alone are infinitesimally small.
That gives you three options:
1. non-plantary life is possible
2. we got lucky
3. something set the contants at a certain value

(1) is implausible, and goes against biology. (2) works if one belives in more than one universe. (3) works if one believes in a fine-tuner. Both (2) and (3) are rational to believe and neither has much evidence to support it.

If they have set values, why would you need a God to set them?

You don't. The whole point of the argument is that a fine-tuner is a more plausible hypothesis, given the evidence, than chance alone. If you're asking that kind of question, what have you been reading all these pages? The universe is what it is and came about how it came about, regardless of what we say about it.

The whole point here is to show the theist's belief is rational because "God made the universe" explains the evidence of the values of the constants better than mere chance. The only other hypothesis that can explain the values rationally is one that posits many other actual universes. It may be true but there's no evidence for it, so the theist is rational in not believing in it.

Or that life is just natural. You can't just cheat. The probability that God exists in the first place should be considered, and God is a much more unlikely thing to "just be" than we are.

There is evidence for God (cross-cultural spiritual experiences, NDE's, anecdotal accounts of the supernatural), though a lot here won't find it compelling evidence. Even if you toss all that out, there is no evidence for or against God, no reason to think God doesn't exist, no reason to assign God an absurdly low probability out of the starting gate.

And this suggests what part of the problem is. You're answers based. You want a view that will explain things. I'm not like you. I'm doubt based. I want to work really hard to get my explanations, and I want them based on my observations, because I know the power of humans to fool themselves.

You're accusing the theist of being "answers based"? Sorry if I'm trying to use what we know from cosmology and biology to support my viewpoint. So what's the principle here? When in doubt, nature did it? Nature-of-the-gaps?

Put it this way. You are willing to use argument for authority for physics. Why? Because physics is damned hard. You can't do physics anywhere near the capacity as an expert in the field. But philosophy? Theology? No problem! And don't get me started on mathematics.

Truth isn't easy to get to. It's mightily convenient to not claim expertise in a field where, if you put your money where your mouth is, you'd blow up a rocket rather than manage to get it to land on Mars. But for some reason--these much bigger questions--much grander ponderings... you can estimate on the back of a napkin, no problem! But it's only because you're not going to blow a rocket up when you're wrong. You don't get slapped in the face, or kill billions of people, by... ooops... concluding god exists when he doesn't.

So we should never rely on experts and get used to fence-straddling? Whose the radical skepticist here?

I want you to deconvert from this temptation of easy answers to difficult questions. It's nowhere near as easy, and you're not even close to a proper napkin estimate.

Well, for example, that either God created the universe, or the planets arose with odds of 10¹²³ per Penrose's napkin... which, by the way, was computed based on some unknown model, based on the Standard Model--which we know isn't complete anyway.

Again, an argument from ignorance for the naturalistic account? And now we're to suppose Penrose was ********ting around on the back of a napkin. Why? Why not take his claim seriously, being the distinguished physicist he is? Because you don't like his results?

Of course, none of your actual numbers in the other threads were real estimates from these people anyway.

I've been citing these guys since I started this argument. Well, Hawking and Davies I just found out about, but I was using the Stanford source way back in the other thread (Hoyle, Linde, Carter, Penrose).

If you're just going to keep arguing for a nature-in-the-gaps solution and not present any sources of your own, I don't think much more will be gained.

 

[fls]

So my question is, in what fields and in what situations is Bayes' theorem used to analyze ideas which are too vaguely specified (similar to the fine-tuning argument) to allow a well-formed conclusion? Can someone give me some examples?

Linda

Bri, Malerin, cj....you guys are the ones supporting this use of Bayes' theorem. Is Ivor right and there aren't any examples of this sort of use in any field of inquiry other than Religious Apologeticism?

Linda

 

[Belz...]

My point being that I suspect that most members of SETI hold a belief without evidence.

That's because, for some reason, you consider life on Earth to be invalid evidence for life in the universe. I find that odd.

 

[Darat]

Not so much odd as irrational....

 

[Belz...]

We still have the same amount of compelling evidence that ET intelligent life exists as we do of a god, invisible elephants, unicorns, or teapots orbiting Jupiter, which is to say very little if any. I'm really trying, but I don't get your point.

Gee, what part of "we already know of one instance" don't you understand ?

 

[Belz...]

Statistics teaches us two things. One is that certain patterns are not significant, because they can be expected by chance. The other is that certain patterns are significant, and they probably indicate something.

No, that's not what statistics teaches us. In order for those patterns to be significant, they have to be patterns in the first place.

According to you "HHHHHHHHH" is a pattern but "HTTHTHTTT" is not.

Let us consider what would constitute proof, or even evidence, that the universe were constructed. According to Randfan, just about nothing would do, because it would simply be just another unlikely event.

All else being equal, yes. Exactly.

 

[westprog]

No, that's not what statistics teaches us. In order for those patterns to be significant, they have to be patterns in the first place.

According to you "HHHHHHHHH" is a pattern but "HTTHTHTTT" is not.

No, HHHHHHH...(30) is a significant pattern. And there are ways to determine whether we are seeing something unusual, or something inevitable. Six heads in a row is to be expected every now and again. Thirty heads shouldn't happen in a lifetime.

The number of significant patterns is far less than the number of insignificant patterns.

All else being equal, yes. Exactly.

So nobody should ever be surprised at anything.

I wonder how many people really mean it if they say that there's no reason to be suspicious if 1-2-3-4-5-6 comes up on the lottery?

 

[Paulhoff]

Let’s try this again……..

If I said that I was going to throw 30 heads or tails in a roll, the chances for that are the same as if I said I will throw this predetermined pattern HTHHHTHHHTTTHTHHTHTHTHHHTHTHHT or this predetermined pattern THTHTHHHTHTHHTHHTHHHTHTHTHHHTT or any other predetermined pattern of 30.

Paul

 

[yy2bggggs]

Is this the argument from ignorance being used to support atheism, of all things?

...

This doesn't apply to an entity indepedent of the universe existing outside of space and time. The odds of such a being existing cannot be known in the first place, so it remains a plausible hypothesis on which to explain the values of the constants.

Funny when you put the two together, huh? It wasn't hard to connect though--you didn't separate them far enough apart.

Strawman. You assume that if something created the universe, it would have to be a product of a life-permitting universe itself and have gone through an evolutionary process similar to what we went through.

More special pleading. I'm not assuming God has to be created through evolution--that's just the only thing being put on the table. But God damned well has to exist, doesn't he? If he's going to start creating life and such?

Remember... you are trying to show your belief is rational.

It's not a problem for me, because I believe in God and my explanation for the long odds is that God favors life and created the universe. The evidence in the FT argument is a problem for atheists who think it all came about through chance. Positing that the values of the constants are set just leads you to E2, which is an even worse problem.

I agree, Malerin. It's an even worse problem. It appears that even if we should discover life is inevitable, even then, you'll try to put God into it, by asking, "but why is it such a way that it's inevitable?" I think this betrays a sort of absolute bias.

Can you imagine a scenario where you wouldn't put God into it, and please tell me what it looks like?

And all I'm demanding is that you add this into your set of possible universes, in your Bayesian equation. Why? Because you haven't ruled it out.

But if you want to exclude it, fine. You get to exclude one possibility you hold to be extremely remote from the equation, and I'll pick another extremely remote possibility to remove. Fair trade, right? Guess what I'm picking.

If we didn't know, the physicists I quoted would be just pulling numbers out of their asses.

Okay, fine then. You should be able to point me to their model.

When Linde says "We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,, and Hawking says "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life " do you really suppose these guys came up with that in a vacuum?

Do you really suppose they have actual probabilities? They don't even have a full standard model yet, much less an idea of how universes get created. You're focused on what the parameters are again... this part is about arguing what the chances are that the parameters are that way.

Again, this seems an awful lot like "we don't know, so we can't say for sure."

Well, yeah. But that's what the actual case is. We don't know. Are you supposing those physicists do know how the universe got those parameters? Then cite me quote mines about their model (and a supporting word or two about their discovery).

Do you just not understand the question or it's relevance?

I mean, isn't it kind of strange that I, the theist here, am the one citing scientists and you, the atheist, are essentially saying, "Well, we don't know for sure, do we?"

What's even more strange that the atheist, who is saying "we don't know for sure, do we?", applies it to everything that we actually don't know for sure, where the theist is surgically applying it only to the existence of God, and absolutely refuses to apply it to convenient factoids. Everything else, that slants his way... we're certain of, even though he doesn't even have so much as the model any of these quote mined scientists are using.

I suspect many of them would go for the multiverse theory. It's pretty popular at the moment. I know Linde does. Hawking thinks we are creating the universe by observation.

Isn't that strange? And right after you ask me if they are picking these out from a vacuum... it appears Linde and Hawking, who you're trying to beat me over the head with, are not jumping onto the God hypothesis.

It doesn't really matter what they think of the FT argument itself,

Boy... that's convenient.

I'm only concerned with whether the evidence, as I characterized it, is accurate.

Then why is it not relevant what they think of the fine tuning argument for God?

From the sources I've cited, it is. If you want to present a model of the universe that makes Pr(E/~H) likely (besides an oscillating universe or some multiverse), be my guest.

A very easy model, very quickly. Science progresses through observations. We don't have much about how universes are created. So we are, legitimately, ignorant of the matter. The parameters of the universe seem to be such that we ourselves could be here. We don't know why, because we have no viable working scientific theory of how universes come into being.

In other words, it's the "well, we don't know for sure", but bumped up a couple of notches--the "well, we don't even have a vague idea of how it works, much less a theory". Now find me a scientist who claims we have an actual theory (outside of multiverses, which you seem to hate, because it would explain things exactly like your god wouldthere's no evidence for it).

It's very simple:
1. Life, as we know it, requires planets.
2. Penrose states that the odds of planets forming through chance alone are infinitesimally small.

10¹²³ isn't infintessimal, and you don't know how he arrived at that number. But it doesn't even seem important to you.

Penrose seems like your best bet for having a model of universe formation in the first place. Why not chase that down? What are you scared you'll discover?

That gives you three options:
1. non-plantary life is possible
2. we got lucky
3. something set the contants at a certain value

4. Penrose wasn't working with a known, scientific model of universe formation, that accounts for why parameters get the values they get (you know, the one we need to get relevant probabilities).

I'll put my money on 4. Thanks for the fallacy of false choices though.

You don't. The whole point of the argument is that a fine-tuner is a more plausible hypothesis, given the evidence, than chance alone.

Except that we need the fine-tuner to even exist in the first place. Even with long odds, to make fine-tuners more plausible, you need to beat the odds of a fine-tuner existing in the first place.

If you're asking that kind of question, what have you been reading all these pages? The universe is what it is and came about how it came about, regardless of what we say about it.

The actual world is a subset of one of the possibly actual ones.

The whole point here is to show the theist's belief is rational because "God made the universe" explains the evidence of the values of the constants better than mere chance.

That's not rational. The FSM explains it just as well as God. You need more than God explains it. God has to kind of exist in the first place, you know.

God obviously explains it. God explains everything. He'd explain everything if it was completely different. There's no way things can be that God doesn't explain things. The major problem here, is that even if God doesn't exist, God would explain things. That... and you're trying to show that God exists. Now isn't that curious?

As I said, you're answers based. I'm doubt based. I don't mind winding up at God, but I'd rather wind up at God through intellectually honest means. If God is to be real, he's to be treated as a real entity. I want my theory to actually derive from his existence or possible existence, not sophistry. God explaining things isn't enough if we can't account for God being there in the first place. And if we can, and prove he exists? I'll buy the old man a beer (and I don't even drink).

The only other hypothesis that can explain the values rationally is one that posits many other actual universes. It may be true but there's no evidence for it, so the theist is rational in not believing in it.

...and isn't that convenient. You get to use these same long odds as evidence that there's a god, but it can't be used as evidence that there's a multiverse... which, by the way, your own authorities, from whom you picked these numbers, buy into?

Malerin... make no mistake. Here's the big question before us. Are you rational?

There is evidence for God (cross-cultural spiritual experiences, NDE's, anecdotal accounts of the supernatural),

...........
interesting....
okay.

You're accusing the theist of being "answers based"?

I'm accusing you of being answers based. You would be surprised to hear the variety of theists I've been exposed to.

Sorry if I'm trying to use what we know from cosmology and biology to support my viewpoint. So what's the principle here? When in doubt, nature did it? Nature-of-the-gaps?

You'll find the problem with answers based explained a few paragraphs above.

Answers are too easy. I don't trust them. Truth is always hard, and rarely what we expect.

So we should never rely on experts and get used to fence-straddling?

Don't flatter yourself. You're not relying on the experts. You're dropping them off at the multiverse.

And as for fence straddling? Absolutely! Why not? Even the 0-parameter case hasn't been ruled out. Given complete ignorance, I'd say, anything is possible.

After all... who in their right minds would have come up with QM?

Whose the radical skepticist here?

You're just not familiar with a doubt based approach, are you?

The idea is that we can easily fool ourselves, so you try to get your ideas to come solely from the thing the idea is about. So instead of just willy-nilly picking ideas that tickle our fancy, you actually try to test things. You seek out what's wrong with ideas, with a passion, and try to attack them--fairly yet harshly, and you judge them based on how much they actually seem to come from reality.

The underlying idea is that you are performing a desperate search for those ideas you came up with based on your own hidden biases, and culling them. You're left with a reality-focused... reality. The theory is that this is how things should be done.

And now we're to suppose Penrose was ...

The children!!!

Why? Why not take his claim seriously, being the distinguished physicist he is?

That's a good question, Malerin. Why not take it seriously? How did he get to that number? What model did he use?

It's your argument, and yet you're the one that doesn't want to take him seriously. You just want his precious number. Penrose is one of your best bets... he actually talked about a probability. Don't you think it'd be worth actually chasing that down, rather than trying sophistry?

If you're just going to keep arguing for a nature-in-the-gaps solution and not present any sources of your own, I don't think much more will be gained.

How cute... nature-in-the-gaps. Is there a nomination for best tu quoque?

If you haven't noticed by now, Malerin, this thread is about whether or not a theist can be rational.

 

[GStan]

No, HHHHHHH...(30) is a significant pattern. And there are ways to determine whether we are seeing something unusual, or something inevitable. Six heads in a row is to be expected every now and again. Thirty heads shouldn't happen in a lifetime.

The number of significant patterns is far less than the number of insignificant patterns.

So nobody should ever be surprised at anything.

I wonder how many people really mean it if they say that there's no reason to be suspicious if 1-2-3-4-5-6 comes up on the lottery?

They are only significant patterns because we have decided to label the lottery balls with numbers, which do have pre-determined patterns of significance. What if, instead of using numbers, we labeled each lottery ball with sixty different drawings of dogs done by third graders. There are no predetermined patterns of significance in sixty random drawings of dogs that would equate to six sequentially numbered balls. There is no reason to be suspicious in either case.

Plus what Paulhoff said.

 

[westprog]

Let’s try this again……..

If I said that I was going to throw 30 heads or tails in a roll, the chances for that are the same as if I said I will throw this predetermined pattern HTHHHTHHHTTTHTHHTHTHTHHHTHTHHT or this predetermined pattern THTHTHHHTHTHHTHHTHHHTHTHTHHHTT or any other predetermined pattern of 30.

Paul

Yes, that's right. Any sequence is equally likely. So why would we be very, very surprised and suspicious if we picked up a coin and rolled 30 heads? Why would we tend to assume there was something odd about the coin?

The answer is that the number of significant sequences is very much less than the number which signify nothing. So the odds are greatly against a significant sequence appearing.

For 30 heads to be expected to appear, we need the order of a billion attempts. That's not really that many - we'd expect it to have happened a few times in the history of the world. When it did happen I expect people thought something very strange was happening - but it wasn't.

But how many times has it happened due to fraud and deceit? I would imagine many more times. Given than financial matters are often settled with a coin toss, a double-headed coin would be very useful.

Certain events are very unlikely. Knowing that 10 heads in a row isn't that unusual, that thirty is very rare, and 200 is almost impossible allows us to evaluate whether there's something strange going on when we encounter them. If I saw someone throw 200 heads in a row, I would not only be suspicious, I would be certain that fraud or bias was involved - even though that sequence was no more unlikely than any other.

 

[westprog]

They are only significant patterns because we have decided to label the lottery balls with numbers, which do have pre-determined patterns of significance. What if, instead of using numbers, we labeled each lottery ball with sixty different drawings of dogs done by third graders. There are no predetermined patterns of significance in sixty random drawings of dogs that would equate to six sequentially numbered balls. There is no reason to be suspicious in either case.

Plus what Paulhoff said.

The two cases would be entirely different. In one case, the set of significant results would be zero. It would be impossible for any sequence to be more significant than any other. In the other case, a small number of sequences would appear to be significant. The probability of such sequences occurring is extremely small.

When an unlikely event occurs, it's not foolish to look for possible reasons why it might have happened. It's sensible. If we notice that two of our neighbours are lying dead in the road, we don't simply say that they might well have had simultaneous random heart attacks - after all, everyone dies some time. We look for possible other explanations that would make an unlikely event more probable.

In the event of 123456, there are (at least) two possible explanations. To decide arbitrarily that only one should be considered, and another, which would make what seemed unlikely far more plausible, should be not even considered is an approach that most people wouldn't follow. It seems that a smattering of probability theory is enough to make people abandon their normal suspicions.

 

[GStan]

The two cases would be entirely different. In one case, the set of significant results would be zero. It would be impossible for any sequence to be more significant than any other. In the other case, a small number of sequences would appear to be significant. The probability of such sequences occurring is extremely small.

So it seems as though you agree that the "significance" is only a function of the labels that have been assigned to the balls, not the actual results. You put the emphasis on the wrong word above. (Bolding mine)

When an unlikely event occurs, it's not foolish to look for possible reasons why it might have happened. It's sensible. If we notice that two of our neighbours are lying dead in the road, we don't simply say that they might well have had simultaneous random heart attacks - after all, everyone dies some time. We look for possible other explanations that would make an unlikely event more probable.

You keep interchanging 'unlikely' and 'significant'. By your statement above, it would not be foolish to be suspicious of every lottery result, as they were all equally unlikely.

In the event of 123456, there are (at least) two possible explanations. To decide arbitrarily that only one should be considered, and another, which would make what seemed unlikely far more plausible, should be not even considered is an approach that most people wouldn't follow. It seems that a smattering of probability theory is enough to make people abandon their normal suspicions.

People's "normal suspicions" are the reason why when you type "how to win the lottery" into the 'search books' function of Amazon.com, you get 664 returns.

 

[Paulhoff]

Yes, that's right. Any sequence is equally likely. So why would we be very, very surprised and suspicious if we picked up a coin and rolled 30 heads? Why would we tend to assume there was something odd about the coin?

Because we put a value on that sequence, not the universe.

Paul



The same with humans existing, the universe puts no value on humans and/or anything else.

 

[RandFan]

If you are insisting on the theoretical impossibility of God's existence...

"Insisting"? No. Though I think that for many, many reasons it's probably true. But no, I'm not "insisting".

...then the requirement is slightly stronger than convincing you that it's possible.

I've conceded, for the purpose of argument, that it's possible. Over and over and over and over and...

If you aren't claiming that God is impossible, in theory, then this subthread can be abandoned.

{sigh} No.

My point goes to the OP. My point goes directly to the OP. So no, it shouldn't be abandoned. That something is possible doesn't mean that it is rational to believe in it. IMHO, the confidence in the truth value of a proposition should increase based on a number of criteria.

1. It should be possible.
2. It should be theoretically possible.
3. It should be demonstrable.

It's arguable but at best god is #1. Given that god is not demonstrable and given that god isn't theoretically possible then it's fair to say that a belief in god is irrational. Searching for ET intelligent life because it could exist is rational because it is theoretically possible.

I understood you to be positing an oscillating universe. Is that not the case?

I'm saying that if you are trying to infer something from the improbability of a fine-tuned universe then you need to account for the possibility of an oscillating universe and multi universes.

If you accept the possibility of other universes which are not bound by the laws of physics as we understand them, how can you claim the laws of physics as an absolute?

Wrong question. The correct question to ask is, "how can you?"

That's the question. You are the one positing that they are not and that it takes a fine-tuner to make them that way. You want to have your cake and eat it too. If the laws of physics are fixed and could only be one way and we are here then god is not needed. It's just the way things are.

I on the other hand do not start with any premise that requires oscilating and multi universes. I'm only saying that if we accept your logic then we are forced to follow that logic and accept the consequences of that logic. If god could have tuned the universes differently then following that logic there could be other universes that are tuned differently. I'm really not sure why that is so hard for you to understand. You are special pleading. Plain and simple. Don't try and paint me in a corner using your special pleading. I make no arguments that require me to assume that the laws of the universe are not fixed. I'm only saying that once we accept, for argument sake, a fine tuner then we must accept, for arguments sake the possibility of other universes that are not the same as ours.

In any event, it's moot because I only claim that said laws are fixed in THIS universe. I don't claim that they cannot be different in another universe.

 

[RandFan]

No, HHHHHHH...(30) is a significant pattern. And there are ways to determine whether we are seeing something unusual, or something inevitable. Six heads in a row is to be expected every now and again. Thirty heads shouldn't happen in a lifetime.

Innumeracy. As Paulos notes, unusual events happen all of the time.

Your existence is very, very, very improbable.

Rare events are only significant if we have a reason to think them significant like human intention.

Absent that intention the fact that something extremly rare happens doesn't mean anything. Otherwise you would be forced to accept that there is something significant to the improbability of your existence. And there's not. Unless you believe god picked out the sperm personally for your existence and your fathers existence and his fathers. If that is the case then why are so many fetuses naturaly aborted or why are there serious birth defects that result in the death of a baby shortly after birth?

The only answer that best fits the facts is that you exist as a result of many, many highly improbable events.

 

[Belz...]

I'm sorry, but you would really, really have to be desperate to argue that if something like that were to be found on the surface of Jupiter that it wouldn't be evidence of at least one intelligent being having been on Jupiter.

You mean like the face on Mars ? You DO also know they found a smiley on Mars, right ? So did Wall-Mart use that planet for advertising ?

 

[Belz...]

The concept of an intelligent being that has the power to adjust the universal constants so that the universe supports life is also theoretically possible

It's logically possible, I guess. But what kind of a theory could posit such a thing ?