Some thoughts on fine tuning

[Mark Isaak]

A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .

1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
would allow it to exist are exactly one.

2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
approaches to answering that question.

2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.

2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
about how universes form or what different qualities they may take.
Yes, cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we
do not know how they could originate in practice. For all we know,
universes such as ours may be the norm.

2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")

3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
somewhere.

4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.

5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
seems worth throwing into the mix.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"We are not looking for answers. We are looking to come to an
understanding, recognizing that it is temporary--leaving us open to an
even richer understanding as further evidence surfaces." - author unknown

[Steven Carlip]

On 12/2/16 10:30 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .

[...]

> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
> does every electron have to be the same?

This is a quite active area of research. The idea of "variable
constants" dates back at least to the 1930s, when Dirac proposed
that the gravitational constant might change in time. Dirac's
motivation wasn't exactly what we now call fine tuning, but he
did want to explain some peculiar relations among certain natural
constants.

Dirac's "large number hypothesis" turned out to be observationally
wrong, but a number of other physicists have proposed other models
in which fundamental "constants" vary. It's the subject of a fair
amount of experimental testing, from laboratory tests (e.g., seeing
whether atomic clocks based on different atomic processes stay in
time with each other) to geophysics (e.g., we can learn about past
nuclear process from the remnants of a natural fission reactor
that occurred in a uranium deposit in Oklo, Gabon about 1.7 billion
years ago) to astrophysics (e.g., we can compare spectral lines
from distant galaxies that involve different types of atomic
transitions, or look at the effects of variable "constants" on
primordial nucleosynthesis or the cosmic microwave background).
Every once in a while there's a claim of evidence that some "constant"
has varied, but it's always been right at the edge of what we can
measure, and so far there's no really convincing evidence.

As to *why* the constants are constant, that might require a major
breakthrough in physics. In some string theory models, for example,
many physical constants are really geometrical -- they're related
to the sizes of "extra" compact spatial dimensions. If that's the
case, the question can be rephrased in a form we might be able to
answer: what laws of dynamics cause the sizes of these dimensions
to be stable? But right now, this is still at the level of an
interesting possibility to investigate; we don't have a good model
for our particular universe.

Steve Carlip

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016 10:30:37 -0800, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net>:

Good post; thanks. I suspect most of it will be rejected by
those intent on thinking us "special" in some way.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[R. Dean]

On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>
> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>

Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
billion years ago?

>
> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
> approaches to answering that question.
>
> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>
> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
> such as ours may be the norm.
>

Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.

>
> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>
> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
> somewhere.
>

True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
cosmological constants?

>
> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>

Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
are formed.

>
> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
> seems worth throwing into the mix.
>

If they varied by much, could the universe have even formed? If the
cosmological constant changed over time would there anything at all?

[jillery]

On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>
>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
> >
>Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>billion years ago?

How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?

>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>> approaches to answering that question.
>>
>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
>> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>
>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
>> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
>> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
>> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
>> such as ours may be the norm.
> >
>Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.

Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
posted your question in the first place.

>> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
>> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
>> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
>> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
>> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
>> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>>
>> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
>> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>> somewhere.
> >
>True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
>cosmological constants?

You cotinue to argue as if there's only one "right" set of constants.
You can't know that.

>> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
> >
>Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
>there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
>it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
>are formed.

You missed the point. Yes, it's true that life as we know it can't
exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just without life. And
there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.

>> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
>> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
>> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
>> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
>> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
>> seems worth throwing into the mix.
>>
>If they varied by much, could the universe have even formed? If the
>cosmological constant changed over time would there anything at all?

Nobody knows, not even you.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Mike Dworetsky]

jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>>
>>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to
>>> form?" has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of
>>> asking the question presupposes that there is something to do the
>>> asking, and that something, barring definitional quibbles, must be
>>> life. So, given the fact that life exists in the universe, the
>>> chances that our universe would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>>>
>> Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>> in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>> Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>> So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>> billion years ago?
>
>
> How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
> universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?

A lot of the discussions in this thread are covered in the book, The
Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by Barrow and Tipler. It comes down to
the notion that we are observing the Universe, hence we exist, and could
only exist in a Universe that had physical properties that allowed us (or an
observer, presumably organic) to exist. If there existed a Universe with
very different properties we could not have arisen in it.

>
>
>>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>>> approaches to answering that question.
>>>
>>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be
>>> very much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>>
>>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know
>>> nothing about how universes form or what different qualities they
>>> may take. Yes, cosmologists have mathematical models for other
>>> universes, but we do not know how they could originate in practice.
>>> For all we know, universes such as ours may be the norm.
>>>
>> Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>> of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>> wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.
>
>
> Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
> posted your question in the first place.

The Anthropic Principle again!

Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>
>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
> >
>Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>billion years ago?

As I understand it, the lotto started in 1988 and is held twice a week
so there have been something like 2,900 draws. [1]

The odds of 6 particular numbers being drawn in the Florida lotto are
1 in 22,957,480.

When the draw started eighteen years ago, the odds of any particular
2900 sets of six numbers being drawn was 1 in many billions - I can't
geive you an exact figure because it is so big that my calculator
cannot handle it [2].

Does that mean that the particular 2900 sets of numbers that did come
oput could not possibly have been random, somebody had to select them
and the whole lotterey has bee a fix?

[1] Feel free to correct me if that is wrong though it doesn't affect
the principle of what I am saying.

[2] 22957480^2900 - my maths are a bit rusty, maybe somebody can
provide the result as I would be midly interested in how it compares
to the figure of 10^40,000 which grasso has elsewhere described as
"an outrageously small probability".

[...]

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Sun, 04 Dec 2016 09:48:21 +0000, AlwaysAskingQuestions
<alwaysaski...@gmail.com> wrote:

>As I understand it, the lotto started in 1988 and is held twice a week
>so there have been something like 2,900 draws. [1]

The Florida lottery

[Jonathan]

On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:

> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>
> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"

100%. Do you believe in The Second Law?

That given some time, almost anything will fall apart
or disperse?

If the answer is yes then you must believe life is
just as inevitable. As the process of self organization
begins once a system has been fully dispersed by
The Second Law.

A totally random system, randomly disturbed, has
the tendency to create spontaneous cyclic order.

Which is why self organization was originally termed
....The Fourth Law.

> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>
> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
> apparently rare quality of allowing life?

Not once one sees how life begins, creation is
an inherent property of the universe, just
as The Second law, just as gravity.

There are different
> approaches to answering that question.
>
> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>
> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
> such as ours may be the norm.
>
> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>
> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
> tuner.

Natural selection fine tunes, and is a largely random process.
Any successful ecosystem will be fine tuned for that
system and it's inhabitants.

Same for the universe, it evolves in the same was a
coevolutionary system does, finding a way to produce
ideal conditions for life.

*Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
> somewhere.
>

There are no constants, everything evolves and is emergent.

> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>

The universe fine tunes for creation and evolution
as any ecosystem does.

If the universe began as a near singularity, it must
start off dispersing, once sufficiently dispersed
it will spontaneously create cyclic order and
begin self organizing or evolving.

The universe can't help but create, and so relentlessly
we can be entirely confident the universe is teeming
with life, or will be.


The question should be given ideal conditions for life
why life...didn't...begin there. What stopped it?

Not why did it begin?

Creation and evolution begin spontaneously given
good conditions.

> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
> the question of why there are constants at all.

There are no constants at all, everything is emergent and evolves.

> Why couldn't fine
> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
> seems worth throwing into the mix.
>

Why does any ecosystem fine tune itself for ideal conditions?

The answers are here....


Types and Forms of Emergence
Jochen Fromm
Distributed Systems Group,
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science,
Universität Kassel, Germany


"The process of emergence deals with the fundamental
question: “how does an entity come into existence?”


https://arxiv.org/ftp/nlin/papers/0506/0506028.pdf

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/2/16 10:30 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:

I forgot to add one more point:

6. Fine-tuning really is true! As exemplified by a news story I heard
this morning about lizards evolving to better climb smooth building
walls: Life fine-tunes itself to the universe.

[Robert Camp]

If you can ask this question seriously, you simply do not get how to
think about the issue. In the past you've expressed disdain for Adams'
puddle analogy. I know you think you comprehend it, but it's obvious
from your comments here that you still don't.

Here's a hint, taken from your own comments. You observed that, "Our

universe was not "written in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there

was no guarantee." If that's true, there is an obvious "then" which
follows from that "if". It's *not* that we are incredibly lucky, it's
*not* that there must be a multiverse, and it's certainly *not* there
must be a "tuner."

It's the anthropic principle (Carter's very constrained version) itself.
Adams captures it perfectly, and you still don't understand it.

[jillery]

Yes, IIUC you describe the weak anthropic principle. My impression is
most everyone agrees that's a truism at best, and R.Dean dismisses it
with prejudice. IIUC he prefers the strong anthropic principle, that
our universe would necessarily create intelligence, ie its purpose is
to create us.

Although I agree H.sapiens, or even life as we know it, would almost
certainly not arise in a universe with different properties, my
understanding is, since we don't even know what combinations of
properties are possible, or what conditions life as we know it
requires, nevermind life as we don't know it, we can't objectively
exclude the possibility that some kind of intelligence could arise in
a universe with other combinations. There are just too many
possibilities, and we have just too much ignorance about them, to
assert such absolute conclusions with any objectivity.

>>>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>>>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>>>> approaches to answering that question.
>>>>
>>>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>>>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be
>>>> very much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>>>
>>>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>>>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know
>>>> nothing about how universes form or what different qualities they
>>>> may take. Yes, cosmologists have mathematical models for other
>>>> universes, but we do not know how they could originate in practice.
>>>> For all we know, universes such as ours may be the norm.
>>>>
>>> Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>>> of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>>> wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.
>>
>>
>> Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
>> posted your question in the first place.
>
>The Anthropic Principle again!

The weak form anyway. Even accepting for argument's sake that it's a
truism, it's still a valid counterpoint to R.Dean's claim of
non-existence above.

>> exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just fine without life.

>> And there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
>>
>>
>>>> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen
>>>> discussed is the question of why there are constants at all. Why
>>>> couldn't fine structure and gravitational laws and such vary over
>>>> time and space? Why does every electron have to be the same?
>>>> Perhaps this is just another variant of "Why is there something
>>>> rather than nothing?", but it still seems worth throwing into the
>>>> mix.
>>>>
>>> If they varied by much, could the universe have even formed? If the
>>> cosmological constant changed over time would there anything at all?
>>
>>
>> Nobody knows, not even you.
--

[Robert Camp]

On 12/2/16 10:30 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:

And the definition of "nothing" keeps getting pushed back as new ideas
are propounded, turning it into more of a recursive rhetorical loop than
a scientific question. Krauss discovered this when people, even other
physicists in some cases, started complaining that his definition of
"nothing" included...well, something.

If you're going to ask the question, "Why is there something rather than
nothing," but are willing to go so far as to dismiss even the underlying
mathematics as being "something," then what you're saying is there is no
way to express an answer in terms that you'll accept. At that point it
is no longer a scientific question.

> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
> somewhere.

A point that stands regardless of whether there is a mono- or a multiverse.

> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>
> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
> seems worth throwing into the mix.

Maybe something like this happens in universes where life cannot exist.
Or maybe that's my own anthropocentric bias in assuming that I could
possibly know all of the circumstances under which life could exist.

[R. Dean]

On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>>
>>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>>>
>> Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>> in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>> Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>> So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>> billion years ago?
>
>
> How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
> universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?
>

Yes we do, the physical constants are interdependent and they have to
have the precise values they do for our universe to come into existence.

>
>
>>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>>> approaches to answering that question.
>>>
>>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
>>> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>>
>>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
>>> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
>>> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
>>> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
>>> such as ours may be the norm.
>>>
>> Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>> of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>> wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.
>
>
> Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
> posted your question in the first place.
>

I know for a fact, you're not dense, so why would you assume I was
referring to our universe and not to this hypothetical multiverse which
I compared to Alice in wonderland? Is it to frustrate me?

>
>
>>> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
>>> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
>>> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
>>> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
>>> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
>>> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>>>
>>> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
>>> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>>> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>>> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>>> somewhere.
>>>
>> True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
>> cosmological constants?
>
>
> You cotinue to argue as if there's only one "right" set of constants.
> You can't know that.
>

Maybe there are other possibilities. I cannot prove there's not, but we
need to explain how the universe would up with just the _right_ values
that we do know about. If you think there's other possibilities,
what are they? There's no way you can know, so we're stuck with what
we do know. The constants are real many of their numerical values are
known. I get the distinct impression that critics cannot bring
themselves to come to grips with the fine tuning.

>
>>> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>>> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>>> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>>> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>>> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>>>
>> Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
>> there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
>> it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
>> are formed.
>
>
> You missed the point. Yes, it's true that life as we know it can't
> exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just without life.
>

Again you are not dense, so why bring up a truism.

And there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
>

But it would have no purpose: had the force of gravity been slightly
greater, hydrogen would be the dead end of the process.

>
>>> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
>>> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
>>> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
>>> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
>>> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
>>> seems worth throwing into the mix.
>>>
>> If they varied by much, could the universe have even formed? If the
>> cosmological constant changed over time would there anything at all?
>
>
> Nobody knows, not even you.
>

That's one of the more common attitude. I believe critics of fine tuning
automatically discredit it on the grounds that "it's theism", not
science. Consequently, they see no need to waste time seriously studying
it. As a result very few, critics really know much about it.
Case in point: Sean Carroll. OTOH Leonard Susskind, Martin Rees and Paul
Davies they do understand it, but they looks to multiverses as the
solution to the fine tuning of our universe. I might add Richard Dawkins
to this mix. He too turns to the multiverse. Even Stephen Hawking, at
time relied on the mmultiverse, but he, developed a no boundaries
proposal with the implications it brings - which I freely
admit I don't see how this in any way is an explanation for the fine
tuning. But this is far beyond my pay scale.

[Paul J Gans]

I've been waiting for someone with a little common sense to post
this. If others have already posted something like it, my apologies
for missing it.

There is no "fine tuning" problem. Just because one can assert
that there is one makes no difference.

There is a question as to how the various "constants" come to have the
values that they have, but that's another question entirely.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[jillery]

On Sun, 4 Dec 2016 21:26:16 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>>>
>>>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>>>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>>>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>>>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>>>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>>>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>>>>
>>> Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>>> in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>>> Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>>> So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>>> billion years ago?
>>
>>
>> How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
>> universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?
> >
>Yes we do, the physical constants are interdependent and they have to
>have the precise values they do for our universe to come into existence.

No we don't. All we have is the combination of values from *one*
universe; ours. Once again, you can't know what other combinations
might also work, or even if other combinations are possible.

>>>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>>>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>>>> approaches to answering that question.
>>>>
>>>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>>>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
>>>> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>>>
>>>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>>>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
>>>> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
>>>> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
>>>> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
>>>> such as ours may be the norm.
>>>>
>>> Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>>> of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>>> wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.
>>
>>
>> Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
>> posted your question in the first place.
> >
>I know for a fact, you're not dense, so why would you assume I was
>referring to our universe and not to this hypothetical multiverse which
>I compared to Alice in wonderland? Is it to frustrate me?

Since you asked, because your paragraph above appears to be a reply to
Mark Isaak's paragraph immediately above it, which specifically refers
to "universes such as ours".

Is the concept of a single Designed universe so essential to your
soul, that you can't even consider the possibility of other universes
which are *similar* to ours? Aren't you the one who insisted others
be open-minded and consider all possibilities? Get a grip.

>>>> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
>>>> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
>>>> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
>>>> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
>>>> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
>>>> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>>>>
>>>> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
>>>> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>>>> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>>>> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>>>> somewhere.
>>>>
>>> True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
>>> cosmological constants?
>>
>>
>> You cotinue to argue as if there's only one "right" set of constants.
>> You can't know that.
>>
>Maybe there are other possibilities. I cannot prove there's not, but we
>need to explain how the universe would up with just the _right_ values
>that we do know about.

I agree it's useful to explain how the universe wound up with the
values it has. I disagree it's useful to describe them as "just the
_right_ values".

>If you think there's other possibilities,
>what are they? There's no way you can know, so we're stuck with what
>we do know. The constants are real many of their numerical values are
>known. I get the distinct impression that critics cannot bring
>themselves to come to grips with the fine tuning.

What you fail to come to grips with is your fear of ignorance. My
impression is you wilfully jump to conclusions just to have an answer,
even though that answer is completely unsupported by the evidence.
Your line of reasoning here makes the same logical mistake as the
fellow who claimed life on Earth is unique because it's the only
example we know about.

>>>> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>>>> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>>>> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>>>> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>>>> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>>>>
>>> Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
>>> there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
>>> it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
>>> are formed.
>>
>>
>> You missed the point. Yes, it's true that life as we know it can't
>> exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just without life.
> >
>Again you are not dense, so why bring up a truism.

Since you asked, to point out the trivial nature of your comment to
which I replied. You strain out my gnat and swallow your camel. Since
you have a problem with my truisms, then consider not posting your
own.

>>And there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
> >
>But it would have no purpose: had the force of gravity been slightly
>greater, hydrogen would be the dead end of the process.

Do you really think that you, or anybody else, can know the purpose of
an Intelligence capable of creating the universe? If such an
Intelligence existed, your intelligence would be that of a bacterium
in comparison. When you say things like your paragraph above, I am
bemused by your hubris and your blindness to it.

Yes, there are lots of features and characteristics about the
universe. Yes, one of those features is life. Yes, life is
especially interesting to us, but that's an understandable
self-interest.

No, life in the universe isn't especially important to the universe.
If all life were snuffed out, everything else in the universe would
continue doing the things they do; the planets would continue to
revolve around their respective stars; the stars would continue to be
born, live through the main sequence, and die; the galaxies would
continue to merge. Spacetime would continue to expand. Entropy would
continue to increase.

I regret if your sense of purpose and faith depends on your denial of
reality, but that doesn't change reality. You're entitled to your own
opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts.

>>>> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
>>>> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
>>>> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
>>>> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
>>>> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
>>>> seems worth throwing into the mix.
>>>>
>>> If they varied by much, could the universe have even formed? If the
>>> cosmological constant changed over time would there anything at all?
>>
>>
>> Nobody knows, not even you.
> >
>That's one of the more common attitude. I believe critics of fine tuning
>automatically discredit it on the grounds that "it's theism", not
>science. Consequently, they see no need to waste time seriously studying
>it. As a result very few, critics really know much about it.
>Case in point: Sean Carroll.

To say that Sean Carroll doesn't know much about this subject is an
illustration of Dunning-Kruger. It's almost certain that he's
forgotten more about the subject than you will ever learn.

[jillery]

Just so you know, R.Dean has said that the weak anthropic principle is
a pointless truism.

[Burkhard]

R. Dean wrote:
> On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>>>
>>>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>>>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>>>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>>>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>>>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>>>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>>>>
>>> Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>>> in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>>> Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>>> So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>>> billion years ago?
>>
>>
>> How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
>> universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?
> >
> Yes we do, the physical constants are interdependent

how do you know that?

and they have to
> have the precise values they do for our universe to come into existence.

Ho do you know that if you can't observe other universes to test that
hypothesis?

No, that again begs the question. You are making the same basic logical
mistake that you also committed when you tried the same line of
reasoning in the discussion of alien life.

You jump from "X is observed" to "X is necessary" without any evidential
back up

If you think there's other possibilities,
> what are they? There's no way you can know, so we're stuck with what
> we do know. The constants are real many of their numerical values are
> known. I get the distinct impression that critics cannot bring
> themselves to come to grips with the fine tuning.
>>
>>>> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>>>> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>>>> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>>>> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>>>> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>>>>
>>> Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
>>> there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
>>> it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
>>> are formed.
>>
>>
>> You missed the point. Yes, it's true that life as we know it can't
>> exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just without life.
> >
> Again you are not dense, so why bring up a truism.
>
> And there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
> >
> But it would have no purpose: had the force of gravity been slightly
> greater, hydrogen would be the dead end of the process.

How do you know that - what experiments have you (or anyone else)
conducted that other constants would not have compensated for it, or
that this simply would heave lead to other types of life?

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/4/16 6:26 PM, R. Dean wrote:
> On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:

> [snip a lot]

>> And there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
>>
> But it would have no purpose: had the force of gravity been slightly
> greater, hydrogen would be the dead end of the process.

Whose purpose? Yours? Well then, yes, it would have no purpose. But
then, unless you are declaring yourself to be a god, your purpose does
not matter to this issue.

Someone else's purpose? In that case, you are just making things up, so
again your view does not matter.

For the record, the Creator of the universe had a very vital purpose for
creating hydrogen; it is meant as a sort of demonstration to influence
another creator in ways I do not pretend to understand. The Creator of
hydrogen thinks it is mildly regrettable that some of the hydrogen
became contaminated with carbon-based animate forms, but it's not a big
enough problem to bother with. (See? I can make things up, too.)

[R. Dean]

It's my opinion that Adams didn't get it. You are right I have nothing
but disdain for this misapprehension.

>
> Here's a hint, taken from your own comments. You observed that, "Our
> universe was not "written in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there
> was no guarantee." If that's true, there is an obvious "then" which
> follows from that "if". It's *not* that we are incredibly lucky, it's
> *not* that there must be a multiverse, and it's certainly *not* there
> must be a "tuner."
>
> It's the anthropic principle (Carter's very constrained version) itself.
> Adams captures it perfectly, and you still don't understand it.
>

I guess I have difficulties with reasoning and thinking, puddles.

[R. Dean]

Science can define laws of physics only because the fundamental laws are
constants. Because they are constant scientist can use these laws to
send space ships to Mars and beyond, determine future locations of large
asteroids and retrace the evolution of the universe almost back to the
Big Bang with a high degree of confidence. If these constants varied or
were varying, the scientific enterprise would virtually cease to function.
Martin Rees commented that he can be 99% confident there was a big
bang.
Michio Kaku in a video discusses the relationship between mathematics
and science. Engineers rely on physical laws being constant before
undertaking any design project. Albert Einstein once remarked,"The
most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is
comprehensible."
The reason he can make this comment is because the physical constants
are _constants_.

[Bill Rogers]

I don't think I agree. If, for example, the gravitational constant, or the speed of light changed in a deterministic way by some very small fraction every 10 million years, they might well be constant enough that science could identify natural laws and yet variable enough that the effects of the variation would be detectable to cosmologists. Yes, if they varied rapidly and by large amounts life, never mind science, might have been impossible, but I don't see why, in principle the physical constants might not vary by small amounts on ling time scales and still be compatible with life and science.

[Robert Camp]

On 12/5/16 9:25 AM, R. Dean wrote:
> On 12/4/2016 11:39 AM, Robert Camp wrote:
>> On 12/3/16 3:39 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:

<snip>

>>>> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it
>>>> presupposes a
>>>> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>>>> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>>>> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>>>> somewhere.
>>>>
>>> True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
>>> cosmological constants?
>>
>> If you can ask this question seriously, you simply do not get how to
>> think about the issue. In the past you've expressed disdain for Adams'
>> puddle analogy. I know you think you comprehend it, but it's obvious
>> from your comments here that you still don't.
>>
> It's my opinion that Adams didn't get it. You are right I have nothing
> but disdain for this misapprehension.
>>
>> Here's a hint, taken from your own comments. You observed that, "Our
>> universe was not "written in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there
>> was no guarantee." If that's true, there is an obvious "then" which
>> follows from that "if". It's *not* that we are incredibly lucky, it's
>> *not* that there must be a multiverse, and it's certainly *not* there
>> must be a "tuner."
>>
>> It's the anthropic principle (Carter's very constrained version) itself.
>> Adams captures it perfectly, and you still don't understand it.
>>
> I guess I have difficulties with reasoning and thinking, puddles.

Yes, I agree. And my name is not "puddles."

The problem isn't just with your reasoning disabilities, it's also with
your lack of desire to improve your understanding by engaging the
counterarguments you rouse. You go away for some period of time, then
return to repeat the same, tired, invalid arguments, having apparently
learned nothing from the previous encounter.

For example, my comments above that consider your own quote are an
attempt to explain some of the problems with the way you conceive of the
issue of "fine-tuning." Though I believe they are correct they are
certainly not inarguable, yet you completely ignore them and instead
respond to the ephemera.

Anyone who believes as you do and wants to support those beliefs would
feel an obligation to address a substantive contradiction of their
perspective. My guess is that you don't even recognize when these kinds
of rhetorical challenges occur. Whether that's from lack of competence
or disinterest, or both, I can't really say.

[Paul J Gans]

Weak, strong, etc. No matter what we exist. Therefore nothing in this
universe exists that prohibits our existance.

I don't know about other universes. I've never lived in one. I will
say that my wife thinks that the top of my desk is quite possibly
another universe, unfathomable and unlivable.

[J. J. Lodder]

Mark Isaak <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>
> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
> would allow it to exist are exactly one.

Merely with probability one, but that is a technicality.

> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
> approaches to answering that question.
>
> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.

You are your own anthropic principle.

> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take.
> Yes, cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we
> do not know how they could originate in practice. For all we know,
> universes such as ours may be the norm.
>
> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")

Word games are human games, hence irrelevant to the universe.

> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
> somewhere.

Before that, it presupposes that tuning is at all possible.
You can't fine-tune pi, and there is no a-priory reason to assume
that you can fine-tune anything at all.

> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>
> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
> seems worth throwing into the mix.

I won't go into variability. That is a matter for experiment.
As for constant at all: it may well be
that these are the result of underlying symmetries.
Structure constants of a group for example cannot be variable.
They are as fixed as pi.
Changing the group (if possible) must be a discrete change.

Lacking all understanding of the underlying physics, (or mathematics)
there is no point in idle speculations about it.

Apart from that, the whole idea of invoking a fine-tuning god
is very bad theology.

Einstein's ideas on this are still very much to the point.
To avoid misunderstanding,
for Einstein 'god' was merely a figure of speech for nature.

A perfect god (the same as a perfect nature, for Einstein)
can only create a perfect universe.
So Einstein fervently hoped that there would be no freedom at all
in creating the universe, precisely because we cannot imagine
the laws of nauture being anything less than perfect.

So fine-tuning is out,

Jan

[jillery]

On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 19:29:01 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans

I swear some ladies' purses have a portal to another universe, in
order to hold all that stuff.

[R. Dean]

Maybe so, don't know. But if the change was gradual, perhaps life would
adept to the changes

[Robert Camp]

Only if it was quite adapt.

[R. Dean]

Sorry typo.

[R. Dean]

On 12/5/2016 12:02 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 12/4/16 6:26 PM, R. Dean wrote:
>> On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:
>> [snip a lot]
>>> And there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
>>>
>> But it would have no purpose: had the force of gravity been slightly
>> greater, hydrogen would be the dead end of the process.
>

>
> Whose purpose? Yours? Well then, yes, it would have no purpose. But
> then, unless you are declaring yourself to be a god, your purpose does
> not matter to this issue.
>

I intended purpose in the sense that hydrogen burns in stars and begins
the process of nucleosynthesis through which all other elements are
form. So hydrogen serves a purpose. Whose purpose? or what purpose
Maybe "purpose" wasn't a good word choice, here.

>
> Someone else's purpose? In that case, you are just making things up, so
> again your view does not matter.
>

I didn't intend purpose in this sense. But rather in the sense that the
nucleus is positive charged and the electron is negatively charged.
The purpose is to hold atoms together.

>
> For the record, the Creator of the universe had a very vital purpose for
> creating hydrogen; it is meant as a sort of demonstration to influence
> another creator in ways I do not pretend to understand. The Creator of
> hydrogen thinks it is mildly regrettable that some of the hydrogen
> became contaminated with carbon-based animate forms, but it's not a big
> enough problem to bother with. (See? I can make things up, too.)
>

Okay, but you're using purpose in a different sense than I did.

[R. Dean]

Your name certainlly isn't puddles! :)

[R. Dean]

On 12/5/2016 2:24 PM, Robert Camp wrote:

As I see it, the responses I get are not always valid, I often disagree
with the opinion I do not accept arguments that are biased.

>
> For example, my comments above that consider your own quote are an
> attempt to explain some of the problems with the way you conceive of the
> issue of "fine-tuning." Though I believe they are correct they are
> certainly not inarguable, yet you completely ignore them and instead
> respond to the ephemera.
>

That seem to be a common practice on this NG. Very often people will
ignore the major argument and attack with gusto some minor,
insignificant comment.

>
> Anyone who believes as you do and wants to support those beliefs would
> feel an obligation to address a substantive contradiction of their
> perspective. My guess is that you don't even recognize when these kinds
> of rhetorical challenges occur. Whether that's from lack of competence
> or disinterest, or both, I can't really say.
>

From people I consider to be very biased against anything outside the
philosophical restraints of naturalism I usually will ignore.

>
>
>

[jillery]

On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 21:48:14 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

And yet appropriate nevertheless.

>>>>> As to *why* the constants are constant, that might require a major
>>>>>> breakthrough in physics. In some string theory models, for example,
>>>>>> many physical constants are really geometrical -- they're related
>>>>>> to the sizes of "extra" compact spatial dimensions. If that's the
>>>>>> case, the question can be rephrased in a form we might be able to
>>>>>> answer: what laws of dynamics cause the sizes of these dimensions
>>>>>> to be stable? But right now, this is still at the level of an
>>>>>> interesting possibility to investigate; we don't have a good model
>>>>>> for our particular universe.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Steve Carlip
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>

[jillery]

On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 23:02:13 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

FYI, that's exactly the impression I have about many of your comments,
that you strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. I even mentioned
that my comments you said were trivial, were in response to your
comments I thought were trivial.

>> Anyone who believes as you do and wants to support those beliefs would
>> feel an obligation to address a substantive contradiction of their
>> perspective. My guess is that you don't even recognize when these kinds
>> of rhetorical challenges occur. Whether that's from lack of competence
>> or disinterest, or both, I can't really say.
>>
> From people I consider to be very biased against anything outside the
>philosophical restraints of naturalism I usually will ignore.

[jillery]

On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 22:37:10 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
wrote:

You claim that hydrogen has a purpose, to "burn" in stars. You claim
you didn't mean it teleologically, that hydrogen was created for that
purpose, but instead to refer to an effect from its characteristics.
And yet you previously claimed:

**********************************************

But it would have no purpose: had the force of gravity been slightly
greater, hydrogen would be the dead end of the process.

**********************************************

So what was your sense when you wrote that? You know that hydrogen
atoms manifest many effects from many characteristics. You even
mentioned one, to complement the charge of electrons. Even if your
claim about gravity was true, which is arguable, hydrogen would still
manifest that effect just fine. So you can't reasonably claim that it
would have no purpose.

What you can reasonably say is it just wouldn't have a purpose that's
important to you. Which raises the question, why should what's
important to you make any difference to a presumptive Designer of the
universe?

More to the point, your comment quoted above was in response to a
discussion about fine tuning, the premise of which is that certain
physical constants are evidence for a universal Designer. So if you
didn't mean that said Designer designed hydrogen to "burn" in stars to
create new elements to create life, what did you mean?

[J. J. Lodder]

Or more interestingly, whether clocks based on gravity
keep time with atomic clocks.
Unfortunately it has proved practically impossible
to get free pendulum clocks to be more stable than about 10^-8,
which is not good enough to set stringent limits.
We can turn to the solar system, which is a huge gravitational clock
that we can track using atomic clocks.
It is limited though by asteroid noise.
Changes in fundamental constants should show up
as growing systematic errors in tracking solar system bodies
and space probes.

Better accuracy, no discrepancies, so far,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

R. Dean <"R. Dean"@gmail.com> wrote:

Nonsense. Science proceeds by successive approximations.
You can often do accurate predictions based on using 'constants'
that aren't quite constant at the next level of refinement.

> Because they are constant scientist can use these laws to
> send space ships to Mars and beyond, determine future locations of large
> asteroids and retrace the evolution of the universe almost back to the
> Big Bang with a high degree of confidence. If these constants varied or
> were varying, the scientific enterprise would virtually cease to function.
> Martin Rees commented that he can be 99% confident there was a big
> bang.
> Michio Kaku in a video discusses the relationship between mathematics
> and science. Engineers rely on physical laws being constant before
> undertaking any design project. Albert Einstein once remarked,"The
> most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is
> comprehensible."

The same Eistein also said the the question
he would most of all like to see answered
is whether 'Der HerrGott' had any freedom at all
in construcing the universe.

Einstein strongly felt that the answer must be NO.
Current talk about fine-tuning, multiverses, and anthropic principles
would have horrified him.

Jan

[Steven Carlip]

On 12/6/16 4:13 AM, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Steven Carlip <car...@physics.ucdavis.edu> wrote:

[...]

>> Dirac's "large number hypothesis" turned out to be observationally
>> wrong, but a number of other physicists have proposed other models
>> in which fundamental "constants" vary. It's the subject of a fair
>> amount of experimental testing, from laboratory tests (e.g.,
>> seeing whether atomic clocks based on different atomic processes
>> stay in time with each other) to geophysics (e.g., we can learn
>> about past nuclear process from the remnants of a natural fission
>> reactor that occurred in a uranium deposit in Oklo, Gabon about 1.7
>> billion years ago) to astrophysics (e.g., we can compare spectral
>> lines from distant galaxies that involve different types of atomic
>> transitions, or look at the effects of variable "constants" on
>> primordial nucleosynthesis or the cosmic microwave background).
>> Every once in a while there's a claim of evidence that some
>> "constant" has varied, but it's always been right at the edge of
>> what we can measure, and so far there's no really convincing
>> evidence.

> Or more interestingly, whether clocks based on gravity keep time with
> atomic clocks. Unfortunately it has proved practically impossible to
> get free pendulum clocks to be more stable than about 10^-8, which is
> not good enough to set stringent limits. We can turn to the solar
> system, which is a huge gravitational clock that we can track using
> atomic clocks. It is limited though by asteroid noise. Changes in
> fundamental constants should show up as growing systematic errors in
> tracking solar system bodies and space probes.

How about binary pulsars? They're very good gravitational clocks,
with loss only from gravitational radiation. They give limits on
the fractional rate of change of Newton's constant on the order of
about a part in 10^{11} per year.

Steve Carlip

[Steven Carlip]

On 12/5/16 10:08 AM, R. Dean wrote:

> Science can define laws of physics only because the fundamental laws
> are constants.

You're mixing up two different ideas here. It's true that physics
assumes that the fundamental *laws* are constant. But the numbers
that go into those laws, the "constants" of Nature, might change,
as long as that change is given by some other fundamental laws.

For example, Bekenstein wrote down a theory in 1982 -- a proposed
"fundamental law" -- in which the charge of the electron varied
in time. There's nothing wrong with this in principle, since
his equations also predicted *how* the charge would vary. It
then becomes a matter of experiment to see whether Bekenstein's
proposal is right, or whether conventional electrodynamics is
right, or whether something else happens.

> Because they are constant scientist can use these laws to send space
> ships to Mars and beyond, determine future locations of large
> asteroids and retrace the evolution of the universe almost back to
> the Big Bang with a high degree of confidence. If these constants
> varied or were varying, the scientific enterprise would virtually
> cease to function.

If the constants varied randomly and unpredictably, this would be
true. But if they vary in a way that's described by some other
physical law, there's no problem -- it would just mean that we had
to discover the law that described the variation.

History is full of examples of this. It was once believed that the
length of a year was constant. We now know that it changes in time.
This doesn't mean we can't predict motion in the Solar System; it
just means that if we're giving the answer in "years" we have to be
more careful about what we mean.

Steve Carlip

[Glenn]

"Steven Carlip" <car...@physics.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message news:o26qo4$k1k$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 12/5/16 10:08 AM, R. Dean wrote:
>
>> Science can define laws of physics only because the fundamental laws
>> are constants.
>
> You're mixing up two different ideas here. It's true that physics
> assumes that the fundamental *laws* are constant. But the numbers
> that go into those laws, the "constants" of Nature, might change,
> as long as that change is given by some other fundamental laws.
>
> For example, Bekenstein wrote down a theory in 1982 -- a proposed
> "fundamental law" -- in which the charge of the electron varied
> in time. There's nothing wrong with this in principle, since
> his equations also predicted *how* the charge would vary. It
> then becomes a matter of experiment to see whether Bekenstein's
> proposal is right, or whether conventional electrodynamics is
> right, or whether something else happens.
>

Who are you trying to impress by being argumentative?

"The fundamental laws of physics, as we presently understand them, depend on about 25 parameters, such as Planck's constant h, the gravitational constant G, and the mass and charge of the electron. It is natural to ask whether these parameters are really constants, or whether they vary in space or time."
...
"So far, these investigations have found no evidence of variation of fundamental "constants." The current observational limits for most constants are on the order of one part in 1010 to one part in 1011 per year. So to the best of our current ability to observe, the fundamental constants really are constant."

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/constants.html

What is Dean "mixing up"?

[RSNorman]

Most of us are capable of distinguishing the fundamental laws,
themselves, from the numbers that go into those laws, the parameters
that they depend on for numerical computations. Apparently both Dean
and you fall into the alternative category of those incapable of
making that distinction.

[Robert Camp]

On 12/6/16 10:49 AM, Glenn wrote:
>
> "Steven Carlip" <car...@physics.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message news:o26qo4$k1k$1...@dont-email.me...
>> On 12/5/16 10:08 AM, R. Dean wrote:

<snip>

> Who are you trying to impress by being argumentative?

This may be the single, most impressively oblivious example of
projection t.o has ever seen.

[erik simpson]

Probably the same people Glenn is trying to impress with his talk about sitting
zazen for the last forty years.

[Glenn]

"RSNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:rr7e4ctbdmd0b4sm3...@4ax.com...

Most of us are capable of understanding the meaning of "constants", as well as recognizing strawmen and nose-pickers like you and Carlip.

[Glenn]

"Robert Camp" <rober...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:o27am3$ik5$1...@dont-email.me...

That is a run-of-the-mill crystal ball gazing.

[Glenn]

"erik simpson" <eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3248daca-0838-4a52...@googlegroups.com...

I could note that you and Robert both admit my inference, responding by snipping all context, engaging in quote-mining and ad hominem.

[czeba...@gmail.com]

Erik said: Probably the same people Glenn was trying to impress...

In all fairness to Glenn, that was my remark, not his.
And I said that to demonstrate how unimpressed I am by self-anointed enlightened ones like Kalkidas and Jonathan.

gregwrld

[jillery]

And that's a *very* high bar.

[erik simpson]

I must have misread things. If Glenn sees this, I apologize.

[Steven Carlip]

On 12/6/16 10:49 AM, Glenn wrote:
>

Right.
>
That's roughly were we started. Mark Isaac asked about the
assumption that the "constants of Nature" were constant, and I
replied that it was an experimental question, but that so far no
sign of variation had been found.

> What is Dean "mixing up"?

He responded by saying that as a matter of basic principle, the
"laws of Nature" had to be constant. What he's mixing up is
"laws of Nature" and "values of physical constants."

Steve Carlip

[J. J. Lodder]

Not mentioned, because they depend on general relativity
for their explanation.
So it is not immediately obvious
what an observed discrepancy would imply.
(and there are preciously few of them)

> They give limits on
> the fractional rate of change of Newton's constant on the order of
> about a part in 10^{11} per year.

Once constants start varying lots of theory will have to change,
including general relativity.
The solar system otoh (apart from some minor corrections)
is a purely Newtonian clock.

Different theories of gravity may well have the same Newtonian limit,

Jan

[Glenn]

"Steven Carlip" <car...@physics.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message news:o288ba$5bl$1...@dont-email.me...

I must need glasses, as I missed "laws of Nature" entirely in what you respond to above:

"Science can define laws of physics only because the fundamental laws are constants."

So what might you think would happen were the fundamental laws not constant?

[Steven Carlip]

Maybe that's because you didn't read Dean's original post, which
ended with the sentences

>>>>> Albert Einstein once remarked,"The most incomprehensible
>>>>> thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." The

>>>>> reason he can make this comment is because the physical
>>>>> constants are _constants_.

Or maybe it's because you didn't read the post he was responding
to, which was about the possibility that the values of physical
constants might be changing in time.

> So what might you think would happen were the fundamental laws not
> constant?

That depends on what you mean by "not constant." If the laws of
physics changed in time or space, but that change were described
by another law of physics, it would be no problem. There are
plenty of examples of this. For instance, the standard laws of
electrodynamics say that a photon has no mass, but photons inside
a superconductor do have a mass. That's fine -- we understand
the physical mechanism that causes the change.

On the other hand, if my "not constant" you mean laws changing
randomly and capriciously, with no way to predict even the
probability of a particular change, then I suppose I'd give up
science. (I imagine this is how some religious people feel --
if you believe every natural event is an act of God, and you
believe God's actions and motivations are totally beyond human
comprehension, then you must believe that it's possible you'll
wake up tomorrow and find that gravity has disappeared.)

Steve Carlip

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2016 11:49:39 -0700, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

>Who are you trying to impress by being argumentative?

My IronyMeter has been tested sufficiently, but thanks
anyway.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Glenn]

"Steven Carlip" <car...@physics.ucdavis.edu> wrote in message news:o29ehr$vo8$1...@dont-email.me...

No maybe about it. I thought you were a scientist. What was in Dean's original post was snipped by you, only leaving the single sentence that is seen in this post above.

>
>>>>>> Albert Einstein once remarked,"The most incomprehensible
>>>>>> thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." The
>>>>>> reason he can make this comment is because the physical
>>>>>> constants are _constants_.

No "laws of Nature" there. It appears for all the world that you are trying to misdirect.

>
> Or maybe it's because you didn't read the post he was responding
> to, which was about the possibility that the values of physical
> constants might be changing in time.

Or maybe I didn't read all of "google.com"? Pigs might fly someday as well.

>
>> So what might you think would happen were the fundamental laws not
>> constant?
>
> That depends on what you mean by "not constant." If the laws of
> physics changed in time or space, but that change were described
> by another law of physics, it would be no problem. There are
> plenty of examples of this. For instance, the standard laws of
> electrodynamics say that a photon has no mass, but photons inside
> a superconductor do have a mass. That's fine -- we understand
> the physical mechanism that causes the change.

Here you seem to imply that constants change, yet you claim "to the best of our current ability to observe, the fundamental constants really are constant".
Seems like you are avoiding answering the question.

Is photon mass a fundamental constant?

>
> On the other hand, if my "not constant" you mean laws changing
> randomly and capriciously, with no way to predict even the
> probability of a particular change, then I suppose I'd give up
> science.

There are many reasons why you could decide to give up science. Do you think that is an answer to the question? You think you would quit science were the fundamenatal laws not constant? Or if you prefer, if none of the fundamental constants were constant?

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:elig4cd2p029sai7u...@4ax.com...

> On Tue, 6 Dec 2016 11:49:39 -0700, the following appeared in
> talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>
>>Who are you trying to impress by being argumentative?
>
> My IronyMeter has been tested sufficiently, but thanks
> anyway.
> --

Impressive.

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/6/16 9:58 PM, Steven Carlip wrote:
> On 12/6/16 10:49 AM, Glenn wrote:

> [...]

>> http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/constants.html
>
> Right.
>>
> That's roughly were we started. Mark Isaac asked about the
> assumption that the "constants of Nature" were constant, and I
> replied that it was an experimental question, but that so far no
> sign of variation had been found.

Actually, I was wondering whether "constants of Nature" were a necessary
feature of any universe, and how the prospect of completely untuned and
untunable universes affects fine-tuning arguments.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"We are not looking for answers. We are looking to come to an
understanding, recognizing that it is temporary--leaving us open to an
even richer understanding as further evidence surfaces." - author unknown

[Glenn]

"Mark Isaak" <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote in message news:o2a63h$o2j$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 12/6/16 9:58 PM, Steven Carlip wrote:
>> On 12/6/16 10:49 AM, Glenn wrote:
>> [...]
>>> http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/constants.html
>>
>> Right.
>>>
>> That's roughly were we started. Mark Isaac asked about the
>> assumption that the "constants of Nature" were constant, and I
>> replied that it was an experimental question, but that so far no
>> sign of variation had been found.
>
> Actually, I was wondering whether "constants of Nature" were a necessary
> feature of any universe, and how the prospect of completely untuned and
> untunable universes affects fine-tuning arguments.
>

Try watching a bunch of old episodes of Twilight Zone.

[J. J. Lodder]

Mark Isaak <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

> On 12/6/16 9:58 PM, Steven Carlip wrote:
> > On 12/6/16 10:49 AM, Glenn wrote:
> > [...]
> >> http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/constants.html
> >
> > Right.
> >>
> > That's roughly were we started. Mark Isaac asked about the
> > assumption that the "constants of Nature" were constant, and I
> > replied that it was an experimental question, but that so far no
> > sign of variation had been found.
>
> Actually, I was wondering whether "constants of Nature" were a necessary
> feature of any universe, and how the prospect of completely untuned and
> untunable universes affects fine-tuning arguments.

The answer to your question is no.
We might be living in the best of all possible universes,
(acccording to Einstein, as referred to previously)
in which his 'lord god' has no freedom at all.

In such a universe there is one master equation
(without any free constants)
from which all follows.
All numbers in developments follow automatically and inevitably.

Such a possibility has no influence on fine-tuning arguments.
They are 'god of the gaps' arguments, and will always be that,

Jan

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016 10:30:37 -0800, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>

>1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>
>2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>approaches to answering that question.
>
>2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
>much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>
>2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
>about how universes form or what different qualities they may take.
>Yes, cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we
>do not know how they could originate in practice. For all we know,
>universes such as ours may be the norm.
>
>2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
>attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
>something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
>have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
>any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
>raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>
>3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
>tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>somewhere.
>
>4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.

>
>5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
>the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
>structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why

>does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
>variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
>seems worth throwing into the mix.

Some interesting thoughts on this subject from John Polkinghorne
http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/does-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe-lead-us-to-god

"[My friend] Leslie suggests that there are really only two forms of
explanation which are possible. One is maybe there are just many many
many different universes. Always different laws of nature, all
separated from each other, all but our own unobservable by us, and if
there is a big enough portfolio of them (and there would have to be a
very very large number), if there is a bigger portfolio then just by
chance our universe turns out to be the one that has the right laws of
nature for carbon-based life, because of course we are carbon-based
life living in it. In other words, our universe is no more than by
chance a winning ticket in a sort of multiverse lottery. That is the
multiverse explanation of what’s going on, of the fine-tuning of our
world.

Of course there is another explanation. Maybe there is only one
universe, and it is the way it is because it is not any old world; it
is a creation that is to be endowed by its Creator with precisely the
finely tuned laws and circumstances which have enabled it to have a
fruitful history. These seem to be the two kindsof understandings that
make fine-tuning intelligible: either the multiverse, or the universe
is a creation.

And then the question is: which shall we choose? And Leslie says, and
I think he’s right in saying this, he says that as far as fine-tuning
is concerned, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. We don’t
know which to choose. Each does the explanatory work required of it.

But I think that there is sort of a cumulative case for seeing the
world as a creation which I don’t see reflected on the side of the
multiverse. I’ve already suggested that the deep intelligibility of
the world suggests we should see it as a divine creation with a divine
mind behind it. And so that reinforces the notion of seeing the
fine-tuning of the world as an expression with a divine purpose behind
it. And of course there are also well testified human experience and
encounters with sacred reality, of course. So it’s more of a
cumulative case for a theistic view for the world that builds up on
this side. I don’t see a corresponding cumulative case building up on
the multiverse side.

Moreover, of course, it’s not clear without further argument that the
multiverse thing simply does the trick. Having an infinite number of
things doesn’t guarantee that every desirable property is found among
an infinite collection of things. There are an infinite number of even
integers, but none of them has the property of oddness. So you have to
make some more argument to say that it works in that way.

[...]

I’ll say two things very briefly. I’ve simply been talking about
natural theology in terms, essentially, of our scientific
understanding of the world, but there is another possible source of
natural theology which I think is very important, a different kind of
general human experience: personal experience, the experience of value
in the world.

For example, I believe that we have irreducible ethical knowledge. I
believe that is just a fact, and I know actually about as surely as I
know any fact, that torturing children is wrong. That’s not some
curious genetic survival strategy which my genes have been encouraging
in me. It’s not just some cultural convention of our society, that we
choose in our society not to torture children. It’s an actual fact
about the world in which we live.

And there lies the question of where do those ethical values come
from? And theistic belief provides one with an answer for that, just
as the order of world we might see as reflecting the divine mind and
the fruitfulness of the world is reflecting the divine purpose, so our
ethical intuitions can be seen as being intonations of the good and
perfect world of our creator.

And then of course there is the aesthetic experience in the world, and
I think we should take our aesthetic experience extremely seriously. I
think it’s an encounter with a very important and specific dimension
of reality. It’s not just emotion recalled in tranquility or something
like that.

And again of course science offers no help for us in these questions
of value. If you ask a scientist as a scientist to tell you all he or
she could about the nature of music, they would say that it is neural
response -- things go off in our brains, neurons fire -- to the impact
of sound waves on our ear drum. And of course that is true and this
way is worth knowing, but it hardly begins to engage with the deep
mystery of music, of how that sequence of sounds in time can speak to
us -- and I think speak to us truly -- an encounter of a timeless
realm of beauty. I think we should take our aesthetic experience very
seriously.

And where do they come from? Where does that aesthetic value come
from? And again theistic belief suggests that aesthetic experience is
a sharing in the Creator’s joy in creation. So I see belief in God as
being a great integrating discipline really, a great integrating
insight, perhaps I should say rather than discipline. It links
together the order of the world, the fruitfulness of the world, the
reality of ethical values, the deep and moving reality of aesthetic
values. It makes sense. It’s a whole theory of everything in that way,
which is to me, essentially, most satisfying."

[John Harshman]

Perhaps Leslie is wrong. A third possibility is that the universe is not
in fact fine-tuned, and that a high fraction of possible universes,
whatever "possible" may mean, make life possible.

> One is maybe there are just many many
> many different universes. Always different laws of nature, all
> separated from each other, all but our own unobservable by us, and if
> there is a big enough portfolio of them (and there would have to be a
> very very large number), if there is a bigger portfolio then just by
> chance our universe turns out to be the one that has the right laws of
> nature for carbon-based life, because of course we are carbon-based
> life living in it. In other words, our universe is no more than by
> chance a winning ticket in a sort of multiverse lottery. That is the
> multiverse explanation of what’s going on, of the fine-tuning of our
> world.
>
> Of course there is another explanation. Maybe there is only one
> universe, and it is the way it is because it is not any old world; it
> is a creation that is to be endowed by its Creator with precisely the
> finely tuned laws and circumstances which have enabled it to have a
> fruitful history. These seem to be the two kindsof understandings that
> make fine-tuning intelligible: either the multiverse, or the universe
> is a creation.
>
> And then the question is: which shall we choose? And Leslie says, and
> I think he’s right in saying this, he says that as far as fine-tuning
> is concerned, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. We don’t
> know which to choose. Each does the explanatory work required of it.

Not quite, I think. Even if we say there's a phenomenon needing an
explanation, the multiverse theory arises as a consequence of some
theories about our universe, while a Creator does not, and a Creator
really needs some kind of justification for hypothesizing one.

> But I think that there is sort of a cumulative case for seeing the
> world as a creation which I don’t see reflected on the side of the
> multiverse. I’ve already suggested that the deep intelligibility of
> the world suggests we should see it as a divine creation with a divine
> mind behind it.

It doesn't suggest such a thing to me. And I submit that it probably
wouldn't suggest such a thing to anyone who is not already at least
half-way convinced of divine creation. At the least, there needs to be
some justification of this apparent intuition.

> And so that reinforces the notion of seeing the
> fine-tuning of the world as an expression with a divine purpose behind
> it. And of course there are also well testified human experience and
> encounters with sacred reality, of course. So it’s more of a
> cumulative case for a theistic view for the world that builds up on
> this side. I don’t see a corresponding cumulative case building up on
> the multiverse side.

I also deny that there are well testified encounters with sacred
reality, if that means anything like credible evidence.

> Moreover, of course, it’s not clear without further argument that the
> multiverse thing simply does the trick. Having an infinite number of
> things doesn’t guarantee that every desirable property is found among
> an infinite collection of things. There are an infinite number of even
> integers, but none of them has the property of oddness. So you have to
> make some more argument to say that it works in that way.

I believe (though I am not at all a physicist) that it's a consequence
of the very theories that demand a multiverse.

> I’ll say two things very briefly. I’ve simply been talking about
> natural theology in terms, essentially, of our scientific
> understanding of the world, but there is another possible source of
> natural theology which I think is very important, a different kind of
> general human experience: personal experience, the experience of value
> in the world.
>
> For example, I believe that we have irreducible ethical knowledge. I
> believe that is just a fact, and I know actually about as surely as I
> know any fact, that torturing children is wrong. That’s not some
> curious genetic survival strategy which my genes have been encouraging
> in me. It’s not just some cultural convention of our society, that we
> choose in our society not to torture children. It’s an actual fact
> about the world in which we live.

How would one justify this belief?

> And there lies the question of where do those ethical values come
> from? And theistic belief provides one with an answer for that, just
> as the order of world we might see as reflecting the divine mind and
> the fruitfulness of the world is reflecting the divine purpose, so our
> ethical intuitions can be seen as being intonations of the good and
> perfect world of our creator.

Here I am denying that: I don't think that god can offer justification
for morality. The Euthyphro dilemma applies here. Nor does "not
torturing children" seem to be the rule in the world, as one might
suppose for a world whose moral values are built in. Coots, for example,
commonly have more babies than they can feed, and the usual solution is
for the parents to attack begging chicks, pecking them until they give
up, go away, and starve. Shall we thank Jesus for that?

> And then of course there is the aesthetic experience in the world, and
> I think we should take our aesthetic experience extremely seriously. I
> think it’s an encounter with a very important and specific dimension
> of reality. It’s not just emotion recalled in tranquility or something
> like that.

It would be good to have an argument for this.

> And again of course science offers no help for us in these questions
> of value. If you ask a scientist as a scientist to tell you all he or
> she could about the nature of music, they would say that it is neural
> response -- things go off in our brains, neurons fire -- to the impact
> of sound waves on our ear drum. And of course that is true and this
> way is worth knowing, but it hardly begins to engage with the deep
> mystery of music, of how that sequence of sounds in time can speak to
> us -- and I think speak to us truly -- an encounter of a timeless
> realm of beauty. I think we should take our aesthetic experience very
> seriously.

I don't think the author ever actually asked a scientist about this, and
the imagined scientist is just a strawman. The aesthetic value of music
is clearly a product of our brains, but at a higher level than just
"neurons fire to the impact of sound waves". One could certainly do
research on the subject, and I suspect there is some already, if the
author cared to look.

> And where do they come from? Where does that aesthetic value come
> from? And again theistic belief suggests that aesthetic experience is
> a sharing in the Creator’s joy in creation. So I see belief in God as
> being a great integrating discipline really, a great integrating
> insight, perhaps I should say rather than discipline. It links
> together the order of the world, the fruitfulness of the world, the
> reality of ethical values, the deep and moving reality of aesthetic
> values. It makes sense. It’s a whole theory of everything in that way,
> which is to me, essentially, most satisfying."

I think it's satisfying only to someone who is already convinced that
god exists and is responsible for all of it. It's certainly not an
argument that anyone else would accept.

[Robert Camp]

On 12/11/16 2:01 PM, AlwaysAskingQuestions wrote:

Elsewhere you've expressed your affinity for Polkinghorne's ideas.
Although my intent is not to be deliberately provocative, it seems to me
the window into his thinking you've offered below reveals some pretty
sketchy rationale, so just remember...you posted it.

> Some interesting thoughts on this subject from John Polkinghorne
> http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/does-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe-lead-us-to-god
>
> "[My friend] Leslie suggests that there are really only two forms of
> explanation which are possible. One is maybe there are just many many
> many different universes. Always different laws of nature, all
> separated from each other, all but our own unobservable by us, and if
> there is a big enough portfolio of them (and there would have to be a
> very very large number), if there is a bigger portfolio then just by
> chance our universe turns out to be the one that has the right laws of
> nature for carbon-based life, because of course we are carbon-based
> life living in it. In other words, our universe is no more than by
> chance a winning ticket in a sort of multiverse lottery. That is the
> multiverse explanation of what’s going on, of the fine-tuning of our
> world.

I don't know whether to blame this on friend Leslie or J.P., but I just
don't get why people have such trouble understanding the anthropic
principle. Writing "...then just by chance our universe turns out to be
the one that has the right laws of nature for carbon-based life..." is a
huge and perplexing logical blunder that calls into question how deeply
someone has thought about this issue.

Only if one is,

- assuming a priori that we are an intended result of the multiverse, and,
- further somehow assuming that there are no other universes (in the
multiverse) which could sustain life, or carbon-based life, or even
"just the right laws" for our exact kind of carbon-based life,

...can one make statements about how we chanced upon a "winning ticket"
in a "multiverse lottery." This is a bald assumption that seems to
affect even otherwise rational thinkers. It's an unwarranted, illogical
leap from the constrained and reasonable weak anthropic principle to the
much more presumptive strong version.

> Of course there is another explanation. Maybe there is only one
> universe, and it is the way it is because it is not any old world; it
> is a creation that is to be endowed by its Creator with precisely the
> finely tuned laws and circumstances which have enabled it to have a
> fruitful history.

Polkinghorne is essentially saying, "Here's a good reason to believe in
God as the creator of the universe: because it explains the creation of
the universe."

Circular reasoning doesn't "explain" anything.

> These seem to be the two kindsof understandings that
> make fine-tuning intelligible: either the multiverse, or the universe
> is a creation.

As far as I can tell he's gotten it all wrong up to this point.

> And then the question is: which shall we choose? And Leslie says, and
> I think he’s right in saying this, he says that as far as fine-tuning
> is concerned, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. We don’t
> know which to choose. Each does the explanatory work required of it.
>
> But I think that there is sort of a cumulative case for seeing the
> world as a creation which I don’t see reflected on the side of the
> multiverse. I’ve already suggested that the deep intelligibility of
> the world suggests we should see it as a divine creation with a divine
> mind behind it.

That's a meaningful suggestion only if you can present evidence for why
"the world" shouldn't be deeply intelligible absent a divine creator.

I can think of no non-arbitrary reason why this should be the case.

> And so that reinforces the notion of seeing the
> fine-tuning of the world as an expression with a divine purpose behind
> it. And of course there are also well testified human experience and
> encounters with sacred reality, of course. So it’s more of a
> cumulative case for a theistic view for the world that builds up on
> this side. I don’t see a corresponding cumulative case building up on
> the multiverse side.

I hope he is being tongue-in-cheek here. Otherwise one has to wonder how
it would be possible to see a similar "cumulative case" of "well
testified human experience" for the multiverse side?

> Moreover, of course, it’s not clear without further argument that the
> multiverse thing simply does the trick. Having an infinite number of
> things doesn’t guarantee that every desirable property is found among
> an infinite collection of things. There are an infinite number of even
> integers, but none of them has the property of oddness. So you have to
> make some more argument to say that it works in that way.
>
> [...]
>
> I’ll say two things very briefly. I’ve simply been talking about
> natural theology in terms, essentially, of our scientific
> understanding of the world, but there is another possible source of
> natural theology which I think is very important, a different kind of
> general human experience: personal experience, the experience of value
> in the world.
>
> For example, I believe that we have irreducible ethical knowledge. I
> believe that is just a fact, and I know actually about as surely as I
> know any fact, that torturing children is wrong. That’s not some
> curious genetic survival strategy which my genes have been encouraging
> in me. It’s not just some cultural convention of our society, that we
> choose in our society not to torture children. It’s an actual fact
> about the world in which we live.

Of course it is, because you've incorporated the moral disapprobation
into your expression of the argument. It's just like someone saying, "I
believe murder is always immoral." Of course murder is immoral, "murder"
is defined as the unjustified taking of a human life. It is not possible
for murder to be moral. The correct question for those investigating the
objective morality of this issue is to ask, "Is taking a human life
always immoral?"

Similarly, "torture" is the immoral inflicting of pain (persecution,
torment, abuse, etc.). The way Polkinghorne should have posed the
question, and it's a different question entirely, is to ask, "Is it
always immoral to inflict pain on children." That's a much deeper, more
nuanced inquiry, and has the benefit of not having assumed it's conclusion.

> And there lies the question of where do those ethical values come
> from? And theistic belief provides one with an answer for that, just
> as the order of world we might see as reflecting the divine mind and
> the fruitfulness of the world is reflecting the divine purpose, so our
> ethical intuitions can be seen as being intonations of the good and
> perfect world of our creator.

Sure. That's the same logic as, "You just have to believe in him first,
then you'll understand."

> And then of course there is the aesthetic experience in the world, and
> I think we should take our aesthetic experience extremely seriously. I
> think it’s an encounter with a very important and specific dimension
> of reality. It’s not just emotion recalled in tranquility or something
> like that.
>
> And again of course science offers no help for us in these questions
> of value. If you ask a scientist as a scientist to tell you all he or
> she could about the nature of music, they would say that it is neural
> response -- things go off in our brains, neurons fire -- to the impact
> of sound waves on our ear drum. And of course that is true and this
> way is worth knowing, but it hardly begins to engage with the deep
> mystery of music, of how that sequence of sounds in time can speak to
> us -- and I think speak to us truly -- an encounter of a timeless
> realm of beauty. I think we should take our aesthetic experience very
> seriously.

Me too. And it bothers me when a scientist cheapens that experience by
trying to tie it to some ineffable, "timeless realm." Polkinghorne
should know better than to make this, "If we don't know everything, then
we can infer the existence of things we will never know" kind of argument.

Yes, many of us engage with the listening to, playing of, and writing of
music at a very deep level. Knowing the physics and neurobiology
involved neither diminishes, nor pretends to encompass all of the
experience.

> And where do they come from? Where does that aesthetic value come
> from? And again theistic belief suggests that aesthetic experience is
> a sharing in the Creator’s joy in creation. So I see belief in God as
> being a great integrating discipline really, a great integrating
> insight, perhaps I should say rather than discipline.

That is a good start. The more people take pains to distinguish their
beliefs from methodological axioms the better.

> It links
> together the order of the world, the fruitfulness of the world, the
> reality of ethical values, the deep and moving reality of aesthetic
> values. It makes sense. It’s a whole theory of everything in that way,
> which is to me, essentially, most satisfying."

A hopeful, positive summation. For me, it was undermined by a lot of
what preceded it.

[J. J. Lodder]

And then he goes on to argue for creation nevertheless.

It is disappointment, in all.
I had been told that Polkinghorne is some kind of philosopher,
perhaps a thinker even, to be taken seriously.
He turns out to be just another creationist,
only with some academic veneer applied.
And a dishonest one too.
Instead of saying wat he thinks straight away
he hides behind stories told by 'his friend'.

His method is the age old preacher's trick
of argument for god by false dichotomy.
Life requires either an extremely improbable multiverse,
or a designer.

It is of course not difficult to see other posssibilities.
For example:
1) The multiverse really might be a lottery,
so there is sure to be a winner, and that's us.
2) Einstein's wish. There is only one possible universe,
and a creator, if any, has no freedom at all
to design or tune anything..
3) It's not hard to invent still others.

So no, nothing of interest there,
just sophisticated preaching to arrive
at a conclusion given beforehand,

Jan

[Glenn]

"J. J. Lodder" <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote in message news:1my5771.myrppyf7kiklN%nos...@de-ster.demon.nl...

Horseshit.

>
> His method is the age old preacher's trick
> of argument for god by false dichotomy.
> Life requires either an extremely improbable multiverse,
> or a designer.

Horseshit.

>
> It is of course not difficult to see other posssibilities.
> For example:
> 1) The multiverse really might be a lottery,
> so there is sure to be a winner, and that's us.
> 2) Einstein's wish. There is only one possible universe,
> and a creator, if any, has no freedom at all
> to design or tune anything..
> 3) It's not hard to invent still others.

Goody.

>
> So no, nothing of interest there,
> just sophisticated preaching to arrive
> at a conclusion given beforehand,
>

Projection.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 05:51:49 -0700, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

>

You might recognize this quote:

"Who are you trying to impress by being argumentative?"

[Mark Isaak]

On 12/11/16 2:01 PM, AlwaysAskingQuestions wrote:

Sorry, but I don't see Polkinghorne's thoughts as interesting at all.
His points on fine-tuning were no more than what I addressed in my
original post, and his excursion into natural ethics seems to be based
on an ignorance of both natural history and recent research into the
psychology and evolution of ethical behavior.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:e9qt4cp882j9n4gco...@4ax.com...

The answer is within you, grasshopper.

[J. J. Lodder]

Mark Isaak <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
[snip]

> Sorry, but I don't see Polkinghorne's thoughts as interesting at all.
> His points on fine-tuning were no more than what I addressed in my
> original post, and his excursion into natural ethics seems to be based
> on an ignorance of both natural history and recent research into the
> psychology and evolution of ethical behavior.

I have no idea what the original Sam was like,
but I think the adjective 'soapy' is applicable to Polkinghorne.

He should be more straightforward,
and use less debating tricks,

Jan

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:55:14 -0700, the following appeared

>The answer is within you, grasshopper.

OK, then "your therapist" it is. Thanks for confirming.

[R. Dean]

On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
> wrote:

>
>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>>
>>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>>>

>> Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>> in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>> Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>> So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>> billion years ago?
>
>
> How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
> universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?
>
The fact that we are here the chances of us being here is one. This
is undeniable it's a truism.

>
>
>>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>>> approaches to answering that question.
>>>
>>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
>>> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>>
>>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
>>> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
>>> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
>>> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
>>> such as ours may be the norm.
>>>

>> Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>> of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>> wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.
>
>
> Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
> posted your question in the first place.
>
It's not about our universe, rather it's about _other_ universes IE
the mutiverse.

>
>
>>> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
>>> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
>>> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
>>> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
>>> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
>>> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>>>
>>> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
>>> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>>> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>>> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>>> somewhere.
>>>

>> True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
>> cosmological constants?
>
>
> You cotinue to argue as if there's only one "right" set of constants.
> You can't know that.
>
I think after the first constant was "set" the rest (how ever many there
are) was had to have the "right" values. Had any one of them been off
just a little there would be no universe, stars or intelligent life.

>
>>> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>>> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>>> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>>> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>>> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>>>

>> Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
>> there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
>> it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
>> are formed.
>
>
> You missed the point. Yes, it's true that life as we know it can't
> exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just without life. And
> there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
>
Okay. But had gravity been weaker, hydrogen is about all there would be.

>
>>> 5. One aspect related to fine-tuning which I have not seen discussed is
>>> the question of why there are constants at all. Why couldn't fine
>>> structure and gravitational laws and such vary over time and space? Why
>>> does every electron have to be the same? Perhaps this is just another
>>> variant of "Why is there something rather than nothing?", but it still
>>> seems worth throwing into the mix.
>>>

>> If they varied by much, could the universe have even formed? If the
>> cosmological constant changed over time would there anything at all?
>
>
> Nobody knows, not even you.
>
No, but there is no reason to think that any of the constants or the
laws of physics changed since Planck Time 10^-43 sec after the big bang.
Martin Rees claims that scientist can regress backward toward
the big bang and that he can be 99% certain that the big bang happened.
Einstein commented. that the most incomprehensible thing about the
universe is that it is comprehensible. (Just six numbers pg. 11)
And Mark Tegmark expresses his amazement that the universe can be
explained by mathematics. To him the universe is mathematics.

http://www.livescience.com/42839-the-universe-is-math.html

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Sun, 11 Dec 2016 17:12:31 -0800, John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>On 12/11/16 2:01 PM, AlwaysAskingQuestions wrote:

[...]

Quoting Polkinghorne:

>> And again of course science offers no help for us in these questions
>> of value. If you ask a scientist as a scientist to tell you all he or
>> she could about the nature of music, they would say that it is neural
>> response -- things go off in our brains, neurons fire -- to the impact
>> of sound waves on our ear drum. And of course that is true and this
>> way is worth knowing, but it hardly begins to engage with the deep
>> mystery of music, of how that sequence of sounds in time can speak to
>> us -- and I think speak to us truly -- an encounter of a timeless
>> realm of beauty. I think we should take our aesthetic experience very
>> seriously.
>
>I don't think the author ever actually asked a scientist about this, and
>the imagined scientist is just a strawman.

So, let’s see … Polkinghorne was Professor of Mathematical physics at
the University of Cambridge; for 25 years, he worked on theories about
elementary particles, played a role in the discovery of the quark, and
researched the analytic and high-energy properties of Feynman
integrals and the foundations of S-Matrix theory. He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society and later served as president of Queens'
College, Cambridge. One of his best friends was Steven Weinberg, he
who coined the expression "With or without religion, good people can
behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil
— that takes religion." He actually made that statement at a public
debate with Polkinghorne yet Weinberg was the first person
Polkinghorne turned to for advice when he started giving serious
consideration to giving up his position in Cambridge to take up
ordained ministry in the Anglican Church.

In spite of all that, you reckon he doesn't really know how scientists
think.

Thank you for reminding me (if reminder were needed) how trying to
have a rational discussion with you concerning religion is remarkably
akin to trying to have a rational one with Ray Martinez about science
- an utter waste of time.

[...]

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:29:36 +0100, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
Lodder) wrote:

[...]

>And then he goes on to argue for creation nevertheless.
>
>It is disappointment, in all.
>I had been told that Polkinghorne is some kind of philosopher,
>perhaps a thinker even, to be taken seriously.
>He turns out to be just another creationist,
>only with some academic veneer applied.
>And a dishonest one too .

[...]

>So no, nothing of interest there,
>just sophisticated preaching to arrive
>at a conclusion given beforehand,

Polkinghorne was Professor of Mathematical physics at the University
of Cambridge; for 25 years, he worked on theories about elementary
particles, played a role in the discovery of the quark, and researched
the analytic and high-energy properties of Feynman integrals and the
foundations of S-Matrix theory. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society and later served as president of Queens' College, Cambridge.

You decide to dismiss him as "just another creationist, only with some
academic veneer applied" and then go on to accuse him of being
dishonest. I think that tells us a lot more about your propensity to
"to arrive at a conclusion given beforehand" than Polkinghorne's
propensity to do so.

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Sun, 11 Dec 2016 21:48:18 -0800, Robert Camp
<rober...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On 12/11/16 2:01 PM, AlwaysAskingQuestions wrote:

< snip for brevity ]

>> "[My friend] Leslie suggests that there are really only two forms of
>> explanation which are possible. One is maybe there are just many many
>> many different universes. Always different laws of nature, all
>> separated from each other, all but our own unobservable by us, and if
>> there is a big enough portfolio of them (and there would have to be a
>> very very large number), if there is a bigger portfolio then just by
>> chance our universe turns out to be the one that has the right laws of
>> nature for carbon-based life, because of course we are carbon-based
>> life living in it. In other words, our universe is no more than by
>> chance a winning ticket in a sort of multiverse lottery. That is the
>> multiverse explanation of what’s going on, of the fine-tuning of our
>> world.
>
>I don't know whether to blame this on friend Leslie or J.P., but I just
>don't get why people have such trouble understanding the anthropic
>principle. Writing "...then just by chance our universe turns out to be
>the one that has the right laws of nature for carbon-based life..." is a
>huge and perplexing logical blunder that calls into question how deeply
>someone has thought about this issue.

I would imagine that a scientist with Polkinghorne's experience and
accomplishments would understand the anthropic principle at least as
well as you do and thought about it at least as much as you have.

I'm not going through the rest of your arguments individually.
Essentially, you are disputing philosophical arguments with
philosophical arguments. There is nothing wrong with that as long as
we both accept that the issues involved are philosophy, not science.
To be honest, I just don't have the appetite for protracted discussion
of them where we are both going to end up where we started.

[...]

[John Harshman]

No. I reckon he either doesn't know how scientists (particularly
neuroscientists, who would be the relevant ones) think about this
particular subject or he's raising a straw man to make his point.

> Thank you for reminding me (if reminder were needed) how trying to
> have a rational discussion with you concerning religion is remarkably
> akin to trying to have a rational one with Ray Martinez about science
> - an utter waste of time.

Anything to let you ignore what I say, right?

[John Harshman]

Do you really think the appeal to authority, which is all the response
you have given to anyone commenting on this, is a valid argument?

[Robert Camp]

On 12/13/16 2:25 PM, AlwaysAskingQuestions wrote:

You may well imagine it (which, absent substantive commentary, deserves
little consideration). More importantly, it may well be true. But his
words, quoted by you, so far demonstrate otherwise.

> I'm not going through the rest of your arguments individually.
> Essentially, you are disputing philosophical arguments with
> philosophical arguments. There is nothing wrong with that as long as
> we both accept that the issues involved are philosophy, not science.
> To be honest, I just don't have the appetite for protracted discussion
> of them where we are both going to end up where we started.

Your choice.

I submit, however, that his errors are egregious enough to be considered
more than just a different perspective, they are evidence of credulity
and naiveté.

Why did you post his thoughts here, if your only response is to employ a
logical fallacy?

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

No it isn't which is why I haven't.

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2016 15:20:22 -0800, Robert Camp

That is a subjective view, just as Polkingthorne's views are
subjective, and that is why I have no appetite (a lack of time to be
more accurate) for protracted debate on them which is not going to
alter either of our views.

>
>Why did you post his thoughts here, if your only response is to employ a
>logical fallacy?

The reason I posted them - and I do not accept that they are a logical
fallacy - is that I thought *some* people might find them interesting.

[jillery]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2016 16:25:03 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On 12/4/2016 3:10 AM, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 3 Dec 2016 18:39:08 -0500, "R. Dean" <"R. Dean"@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/2/2016 1:30 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> A few thoughts on fine tuning. . .
>>>>
>>>> 1. "What are the chances that the universe would allow life to form?"
>>>> has an answer which is known exactly. The very act of asking the
>>>> question presupposes that there is something to do the asking, and that
>>>> something, barring definitional quibbles, must be life. So, given the
>>>> fact that life exists in the universe, the chances that our universe
>>>> would allow it to exist are exactly one.
>>>>
>>> Well yes, but that's after the fact. Our universe was not "written
>>> in the cards": 13.7 billion years ago, there was no guarantee.
>>> Therefore, neither was life and certainly not intelligent life.
>>> So, chances at the present time, it is exactly one, but 13.7
>>> billion years ago?
>>
>>
>> How can you even begin to quantify the chances of the existence of our
>> universe when you don't know what it takes for a universe to exist?
> >
>The fact that we are here the chances of us being here is one. This
>is undeniable it's a truism.

Your statement above is technically correct, and is exactly the same
point made by Mark Isaak, the one you objected to as "after the fact".
Make up your mind if your point is about before *or* after the fact.

>>>> 2. But shouldn't we still be surprised that the universe has an
>>>> apparently rare quality of allowing life? There are different
>>>> approaches to answering that question.
>>>>
>>>> 2a. The logical approach: As noted in point 1, the "we" in that
>>>> question, being living already, constrains the options. I would be very
>>>> much more surprised to discover that I am nonexistent.
>>>>
>>>> 2b. The scientific approach: The qualifier "apparently rare" in that
>>>> question is unjustified. Working with a sample of one, we know nothing
>>>> about how universes form or what different qualities they may take. Yes,
>>>> cosmologists have mathematical models for other universes, but we do not
>>>> know how they could originate in practice. For all we know, universes
>>>> such as ours may be the norm.
>>>>
>>> Or non existent. It's pointless, to discuss, the breed or the color
>>> of the disappearing cat in Alice in wonderland when the Alice's
>>> wonderland, is yet to be proven to exist.
>>
>>
>> Don't be silly. Our universe clearly exists, else you couldn't have
>> posted your question in the first place.
> >
>It's not about our universe, rather it's about _other_ universes IE
>the mutiverse.

Multiverse is a prediction from other successful lines of reasoning.
That prediction may or may not be true. It's also possible there is
only one possible configuration of those alleged fine tuned constants,
dependent on fundamental laws of which we're ignorant. It's
interesting to speculate about what might have happened IF something
was different, but that speculation says nothing about if that
something COULD have been different.

It's similar to speculating about how differently events would have
played out if you hadn't existed. To say that such speculation is
evidence that your existence was intelligently designed is ignorant
hubris.

>>>> 2c. The intuitive approach: Yes, some people still feel surprised. This
>>>> attitude essentially makes the question a variant of, "Why is there
>>>> something rather than nothing?" To the best of my knowledge, people
>>>> have been asking that question for at least 4000 years, and nobody is
>>>> any closer to an answer today. ("God" is not an answer, since it merely
>>>> raises the question, "Why is there a god rather than no god?")
>>>>
>>>> 3. The phrase "fine-tuned" itself is misleading because it presupposes a
>>>> tuner. *Any* universe with physical constants is going to qualify as
>>>> being "fine-tuned" for those constants. That does not mean the
>>>> constants were tuned; it merely means that the constants had to land
>>>> somewhere.
>>>>
>>> True, but how did random chance just hit upon the "right" interdependent
>>> cosmological constants?
>>
>>
>> You cotinue to argue as if there's only one "right" set of constants.
>> You can't know that.
>>
>I think after the first constant was "set" the rest (how ever many there
>are) was had to have the "right" values. Had any one of them been off
>just a little there would be no universe, stars or intelligent life.

It's equally possible that variations of other values would have
counteracted your change and still supported a universe, stars, and
intelligent life. Or that even your presumptive first constant was as
constrained as the others. You just don't know.

>>>> 4. If one does posit a tuner, we should ask what our universe is tuned
>>>> for, rather than taking a popular answer for granted. It seems very
>>>> unlikely that our universe was tuned for life, since life is such a
>>>> minuscule, insignificant part of it. It is much more likely that our
>>>> universe was fine-tuned for hydrogen than for life.
>>>>
>>> Hydrogen is one of the essential elements for chemistry and life. Could
>>> there be life without hydrogen? No, there could not even be stars. And
>>> it's through stars that burn hydrogen through which all of the elements
>>> are formed.
>>
>>
>> You missed the point. Yes, it's true that life as we know it can't
>> exist without hydrogen. No, hydrogen can exist just without life. And
>> there's a lot more hydrogen in the universe than there is life.
>>
>Okay. But had gravity been weaker, hydrogen is about all there would be.

And if frogs had wing, they wouldn't bump their asses when they
jumped.

[John Harshman]

I ask you to take a look at what you posted above. The first paragraph
is a summary of Polkinghorne's CV. The second is an implied comparison
of his CV with Lodder's characterization. What is that if not an
argument from authority?

[Burkhard]

Well, as Jan brought up the issue ("...some kind of philosopher") I read
it as a factual correction ("professor of mathematical physics")

[Robert Camp]

Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to soften my evaluation. I'll put it this
way - Polkinghorne's comments (the ones with which I took issue) are
just wrong. And in some cases the errors are sophomoric.

That's not subjective. Neither are Polkinghorne's views. All of these
things are amenable to logical inspection, which was my point in
responding. If you want to salve your sensibilities by believing it's
six of one, half a dozen of the other, that's your prerogative, but I
think you are kidding yourself.

Also, I looked into some more of Leslie's (I assume he's talking about
the Canadian philosopher, John Leslie) thoughts on the matter, and I'm
sure you'll be thrilled to know I think he's just as, if not more,
guilty of credulity (at least on the matter of fine-tuning) as Polkinghorne.

>> Why did you post his thoughts here, if your only response is to employ a
>> logical fallacy?
>
> The reason I posted them - and I do not accept that they are a logical
> fallacy - is that I thought *some* people might find them interesting.

I didn't say or imply that the quotes you posted are a logical fallacy
(though Polkinghorne's views on fine-tuning are clearly anthropocentric
question-begging), I suggested that your only response was a logical
fallacy. I addressed his thoughts on fine-tuning directly. I offered
what I think are good arguments to support my difference with his
perspective. You responded with this,

"I would imagine that a scientist with Polkinghorne's experience and
accomplishments would understand the anthropic principle at least as
well as you do and thought about it at least as much as you have."

That is nothing but an appeal to authority. Had I wanted to respond in
kind I would have invoked Stenger and Park and many other physicists
with regard to Polkinghorne, but that would have been a dereliction of
my rhetorical responsibilities.

[John Harshman]

One can be both. I believe the "academic veneer" takes care of the
professor of mathematical physics thing.

[Burkhard]

True, but as someone who is just trying to buy an affordable new
bookshelf, I'd say "veneer" too is a factual claim (i.e." surface only,
not very deep, but cheap" ) to which a statement of the actual
qualification is a legitimate reply.

On a sort of related note, we do frequently dismiss creationist due to
their lack of appropriate training expertise and publications - and
rightly so in my view. But that works in both ways. Appeals to proven
authority seem perfectly valid to me (in Doug Walton's theory of
argumentation terminology, an argument from a position to know) in areas
where the poster has less experience than the person they use as backup
of their claims.

What I know about physics I "know" because I accept the verdict of the
relevant domain experts.

[J. J. Lodder]

AlwaysAskingQuestions <alwaysaski...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:29:36 +0100, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.
> Lodder) wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >And then he goes on to argue for creation nevertheless.
> >
> >It is disappointment, in all.
> >I had been told that Polkinghorne is some kind of philosopher,
> >perhaps a thinker even, to be taken seriously.
> >He turns out to be just another creationist,
> >only with some academic veneer applied.
> >And a dishonest one too .
> [...]
> >So no, nothing of interest there,
> >just sophisticated preaching to arrive
> >at a conclusion given beforehand,
>
> Polkinghorne was Professor of Mathematical physics at the University
> of Cambridge; for 25 years, he worked on theories about elementary
> particles, played a role in the discovery of the quark, and researched
> the analytic and high-energy properties of Feynman integrals and the
> foundations of S-Matrix theory. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal
> Society and later served as president of Queens' College, Cambridge.

'Was' is the word. ".... from 1968 to 1979,
when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood,
becoming an ordained Anglican priest in 1982."
Did you see any mathematical physics in his quoted discourse?
Or did you seee soapy preaching for the choir?

> You decide to dismiss him as "just another creationist, only with some
> academic veneer applied" and then go on to accuse him of being
> dishonest.

Right. I do.
As dishonest as Pascal when he proposed Pascal's wager.
He is just playing for cheap effect.
(with his 'execution squad' tale, for example)

> I think that tells us a lot more about your propensity to
> "to arrive at a conclusion given beforehand" than Polkinghorne's
> propensity to do so.

I'm not using sock-puppets, Polkinghorne does.
My usenet experience makes me distrust anyone
who resorts to debating tricks like that,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

I was being kind.
I could have said 'Anglican priest' instead,

Jan

[Robert Camp]

I agree with this, and it prompted me to think several times before I
responded to AAQ with the same charge as John. But I think there's a
distinction to be made here, and I'd like to get your take on it.

There's no doubt Polkinghorne, as a theoretical physicist, has likely
forgotten more about the subject than I know. And had my differences
with his remarks implied that in general I should be accorded the same
deference on the subject as he then I think it would have been fair to
respond with an appeal to pertinent authority.

I contend, however, that in directing specific criticisms at (what I see
as) particular errors of reason I am not asking to be believed on my
authority (lacking as it is), I am simply questioning his rationale on
particular points of interest. An argument from authority in that case,
I submit, is inapplicable.

If it becomes accepted that it's inappropriate to inspect the arguments
of someone who is more credentialed, it seems to me that is the point at
which we actually turn the appeal to better education and experience
(authority) into a fallacious argument.

[Burkhard]

I obviously agree with all of that. Using authority is often a good and
rational proxy for correctness - but obviously a defeasible inference,
and one way to defeat it is to show an actual mistake or fallacious
inference. (Walton calls these "critical question")

But so far I did not see much of this.

There is another issue going on here though, more related to burden of
proof or framing. similar I'd say to character evidence in a legal
trial: normally, evidence of bad character is inadmissible for the
prosecution - unless that is the defence makes a claim of good
character. This can then legitimately get attacked. Seems to me at least
something similar happening here - a claim of "what does he know about
these things" countered with a "probably more than you, until proven
otherwise"

[John Harshman]

If this were actually a discussion of physics, you might have a point.
But it isn't.

[J. J. Lodder]

Ah, yes, but did you see any of that?
Did you see any technical point made by Polkinghorne
beyond repackaging the standard fine-tuning/design stuff
and preaching about it?
It is not about what he might know, it is about what he says.

Note btw that Polkinghorne's supposed authority status ended in 1979,
well before all this multiverse stuff, or even string theory came up.
What he did work on was standard quantum field theory, before strings.
In your supposed trial situation an adversarial advocate
would make mincemeat of his supposed expert status,

Jan

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 06:21:08 -0800, John Harshman

The first paragraph is a correction of Lodder's misrepresentation of
Polkinghorne's scientific qualifications; the second paragraph is my
opinion as to why he did misrepresent them.

Do you actually understand what an argument from authority is? If so,
please show where I have claimed that Polkingihorne's *scientific*
qualifications add weight to his *religious* opinions.

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 21:38:25 +0100, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.

You reckon?

Funnily enough, I reckon the judge and/or jury might be a little bit
more impressed than you with the fact that from 1988 until 1996
Polkinghorne served as the president of Queens' College, Cambridge and
that between 1996 and 2011 he had 7 *scientific* books published[1] as
well as a number of other books about the twin topics of science and
religion.

Unlike you, they might not assume that as soon as he became a priest,
he parked his brain somewhere.

[1] One jointly with other authors, one for which he was editor.

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 19:43:17 +0100, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.

See my reply to your post to Burkhard.

>Did you see any mathematical physics in his quoted discourse?
>Or did you seee soapy preaching for the choir?

All I see here is your determination to rubbish somebody's prestige as
a scientist simply because you do not like his religious views.

>
>> You decide to dismiss him as "just another creationist, only with some
>> academic veneer applied" and then go on to accuse him of being
>> dishonest.
>
>Right. I do.
>As dishonest as Pascal when he proposed Pascal's wager.
>He is just playing for cheap effect.
>(with his 'execution squad' tale, for example)
>
>> I think that tells us a lot more about your propensity to
>> "to arrive at a conclusion given beforehand" than Polkinghorne's
>> propensity to do so.
>
>I'm not using sock-puppets, Polkinghorne does.

I suspect that John Leslie would be somewhat amused to be dismissed as
somebody else's sock puppet.

[J. J. Lodder]

That is a ceremonial function.

> and
> that between 1996 and 2011 he had 7 *scientific* books published[1] as
> well as a number of other books about the twin topics of science and
> religion.

Look at the list again, lots of science and religion books,
few science books. Last serious one:
The Analytic S-Matrix (CUP 1966,
jointly with RJ Eden, PV Landshoff and DI Olive)

Or do you count
Quantum Theory_ A Very Short Introduction (2002)
as a scientific publication as well?

> Unlike you, they might not assume that as soon as he became a priest,
> he parked his brain somewhere.

Your straw man.
You should put some more work into hiding your bias.

BTW, Polkinghorne has better sense than you.
He says what he thinks he should say,
without claiming to be right
by pulling the authority of having been a scientist,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

Nothing there.
and if you want to argue with me, argue with me.
No leap-frogging.

> >Did you see any mathematical physics in his quoted discourse?
> >Or did you seee soapy preaching for the choir?
>
> All I see here is your determination to rubbish somebody's prestige as
> a scientist simply because you do not like his religious views.

Nothing wrong with his standing as a scientist,
while he was one.

> >> You decide to dismiss him as "just another creationist, only with some
> >> academic veneer applied" and then go on to accuse him of being
> >> dishonest.
> >
> >Right. I do.
> >As dishonest as Pascal when he proposed Pascal's wager.
> >He is just playing for cheap effect.
> >(with his 'execution squad' tale, for example)
> >
> >> I think that tells us a lot more about your propensity to
> >> "to arrive at a conclusion given beforehand" than Polkinghorne's
> >> propensity to do so.
> >
> >I'm not using sock-puppets, Polkinghorne does.
>
> I suspect that John Leslie would be somewhat amused to be dismissed as
> somebody else's sock puppet.

A sock puppet argument is a sock puppet argument
It is irrelevant if a real person with the same name exists.
If there is a point to be made Polkinghorne should make it himself,

Jan

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:55:34 +0100, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.

You think they just pick somebody at random for it, that one of the
most prestigious colleges in the world would pick as their president
somebody who is "just another creationist, only with some academic
veneer applied" - and a fraud as well!

>
>> and
>> that between 1996 and 2011 he had 7 *scientific* books published[1] as
>> well as a number of other books about the twin topics of science and
>> religion.
>

First of all, correction, I should have said "after 1979 he had 5
*scientific* books published ...

>Look at the list again, lots of science and religion books,
>few science books. Last serious one:
>The Analytic S-Matrix (CUP 1966,
>jointly with RJ Eden, PV Landshoff and DI Olive)

So "Models of High Energy Processes" (1980), "The Quantum World"
(1985), "Rochester Roundabout: The Story of High Energy Physics"
(1989), "Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction" (2002) and
"Meaning in Mathematics" (Edited, 2011) are not serious books?

>
>Or do you count
>Quantum Theory_ A Very Short Introduction (2002)
>as a scientific publication as well?

Why on earth would I not count it as one?

>
>> Unlike you, they might not assume that as soon as he became a priest,
>> he parked his brain somewhere.
>
>Your straw man.
>You should put some more work into hiding your bias.
>
>BTW, Polkinghorne has better sense than you.
>He says what he thinks he should say,
>without claiming to be right
>by pulling the authority of having been a scientist,
>

Where did I claim his authority as a scientist gives weight to his
religious views?

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:55:34 +0100, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J.

So you now take it upon yourself to set the rules as to where people
should post on this group? Sorry to tell you, but you don't have that
power, I - just like everybody else here including you - will reply
wherever I feel it is appropriate to do so.

>
>> >Did you see any mathematical physics in his quoted discourse?
>> >Or did you seee soapy preaching for the choir?
>>
>> All I see here is your determination to rubbish somebody's prestige as
>> a scientist simply because you do not like his religious views.
>
>Nothing wrong with his standing as a scientist,
>while he was one.
>
>> >> You decide to dismiss him as "just another creationist, only with some
>> >> academic veneer applied" and then go on to accuse him of being
>> >> dishonest.
>> >
>> >Right. I do.
>> >As dishonest as Pascal when he proposed Pascal's wager.
>> >He is just playing for cheap effect.
>> >(with his 'execution squad' tale, for example)
>> >
>> >> I think that tells us a lot more about your propensity to
>> >> "to arrive at a conclusion given beforehand" than Polkinghorne's
>> >> propensity to do so.
>> >
>> >I'm not using sock-puppets, Polkinghorne does.
>>
>> I suspect that John Leslie would be somewhat amused to be dismissed as
>> somebody else's sock puppet.
>
>A sock puppet argument is a sock puppet argument
>It is irrelevant if a real person with the same name exists.
>If there is a point to be made Polkinghorne should make it himself,

So you've now decided that it is not acceptable for an author to cite
other authors? You clearly don't understand that that is one of the
fundamental principles of academic writing.

[John Harshman]

If that isn't the case, then you have offered no defense of his
religious opinions, since that's the only reply you have made to anyone
here. That was your response to me just as it was to Lodder.

Of course you refuse to talk to me, or so you claim. And I think you
have no interesting in defending Polkinghorne's claims, to me or to
anyone else. True?

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 13:33:14 -0800, John Harshman

I never claimed to be defending his religious opinion so it was just
another example of you being unable to attack me for anything I said
so you just make up something I didn't say and attack that.

Yet another reminder of why it is pointless trying to have a rational
debate with you.

>
>Of course you refuse to talk to me, or so you claim.

Where did I claim that? Is the difference between talking to somebody
and having a protracted debate with them also beyond your
comprehension?

[AlwaysAskingQuestions]

On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:04:23 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>

Is there a word or expression for the opposite of 'argument from
authority' where somebody's opinions on subject A are rubbished on the
basis that they weren't really all that good at B, their main area of
expertise?