Our Universe: one of many or specially designed?

[QED]

Design amounts to a process of selection. Human designers design things by making intelligent selections. Our Universe has a number of critical parameters that have no apparent reason for their values, but if these values were even slightly different, we wouldn't exist. This suggests to some that the values were carefully selected by a sentient being who had the intelligence to know the exact values required for our existence.

I've illustrated this scenario in the following picture:



Here our Universe, with it's critical values, is all that exists -- besides its sentient, designer-creator.

However, other forms of selection are possible. The simple act of observation can create its own selection Effect. In the illustration that follows I have drawn our Universe surrounded by numerous other universes. Within this ensemble the vast majority could be expected to have parameters that would not support life (at least in a form that would be recognizable to us). But a tiny number might. We could, therefore, have selected our own Universe as one from many, simply as a consequence of it having a favorable set of parameters for our existence.



If we are only considering the empirical evidence furnished by scientific observations then both scenarios would seem to be functionally equivalent. How then can we claim that the apparent fine-tuning implies a designer-creator when we can see this potential for ambiguity?

[island]

Our Universe has a number of critical parameters that have no apparent reason for their values, but if these values were even slightly different, we wouldn't exist. This suggests to some that the values were carefully selected by a sentient being who had the intelligence to know the exact values required for our existence.

No it doesn't. The hardest proof that we are not here by accident can only be evidence that there is "method to nature's madness", unless you have **direct proof** that an intelligent agent is involved.

Your assertion requires an unfounded leap of faith that is not evidenced by non-random occurrence alone.

[island]

Confused:
Blame it on Weinberg. He made the first fatal flaw to introduce the "anthropic" concept into the cosmos.

If I were debating this, I'd stop you in your tracks right here and call this proof positive that you have no business whatsoever pretending that you know the first thing about it.

You think that Weinberg "introduced the anthropic principle into the cosmos"... huh?

L.O.L

And then I'd look to see if anybody else called you on it, or did they just keep rambling on as if you were right on track with the science...


goat said:
The way I look at it...

THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM!...

[Goat]

Confused:
Blame it on Weinberg. He made the first fatal flaw to introduce the "anthropic" concept into the cosmos.

If I were debating this, I'd stop you in your tracks right here and call this proof positive that you have no business whatsoever pretending that you know the first thing about it.

You think that Weinberg "introduced the anthropic principle into the cosmos"... huh?

L.O.L

And then I'd look to see if anybody else called you on it, or did they just keep rambling on as if you were right on track with the science...


goat said:
The way I look at it...

THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM!...

Indeed, that is the whole problem. Everyting is related to how people look at it. The object being observed (the universe) does not care, one way or another.

[island]

No, physicists didn't call it the anthropic principle because there is no evidence that the universe is "constrained by non-random biological factors" that neodarwinians would like to take credit for by pretending that it is just a "selection effect", while ignoring the fact that the physics produces 'sites that are conducive to the appearance and evolution of carbon-based life' that can't be accounted for by random natural selection.

Willful denial of the most apparent implications of the evidence does run rampant, however, but Brandon Carter noted that mentality requires what he called "anticentrist dogma".

Paul Davies has most recently noted that this predisposition to deny the most apparent implication of the evidence is still alive and doing just fine.

Even Richard Dawkins admits that the "forces are deployed in a very special way" that gives the universe the "appearance of design", so you have to willfully ignore this MOST APPARENT IMPLICATION to say that there is no evidence to support that we are not here by accident.

[island]

FYI to anyone that is interested... I keep an open challenge...

http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/ ... ciple.html

on my blog...

http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com

...to the common false assertion that the universe is not observed to be strongly anthropically constrained...

...until and unless somebody definitively proves otherwise by showing that the multiverse is necessary to a valid ToE, or via a theory that explains the structure of our universe from first principles that prove that we are simply a consequence of the physics, rather than the reason for it that is *most apparently* indicated.

[acamp1]

Science can't prove God doesn't exist (regardless of the sensationalist claims of recent atheistic authors). Calling ID a science, however, is just as disingenuous.

The problem (if it is a problem) with science is the relatively young tradition of Logical Positivism. Physicists, for example, are often told to "shut up and calculate." They are no more encouraged to look at the big-picture "why"'s than a jury is encouraged to consider inadmissible evidence in court. It's a deliberately limited view.

That said, I prefer the approach of science. Real science. Which allows for the modification of theories in the face of new evidence.

I see no evidence of intelligent design (as espoused by fundamentalist Christians). I don't deny it's a possibility, but I have seen nothing to convince me that it's a reality.

We should really define intelligence. If consciousness turns out to be an intrinsic part of the universe - a measurable force - then, sure, one could argue that the "design" of a life form is the physical manifestation of that force. In this way, ID could potentially be reconciled with science.

The battle, then, will come down to semantics. What do we call this life/consciousness force? Allah? God? The Force? YHWH?

[acamp1]

It occurs to me the problem is really one of urgency.

I'm cool with waiting out science to see if it eventually converges with religion. But the fundamentalist doctrine that one must "accept" Jesus or go to hell - regardless of one's "goodness" - makes it difficult to nurture such patience. The clock is ticking...

[Furrowed Brow]

The two hypotheses we are faced with (and there are only two) are a single universe with the parameters necessary for carbon-based life or multiple universes (and there are several multiple universe theories).

Ok Ive never been a fan of multi verses so lets chuck that idea out. So we are left with a universe sufficient for carbon based life, though we do not know that the appearance of carbon based life would happen by necessity.

The "many worlds" hypothesis is only formed from observations within our own universe.

Whilst interpreting the universe in terms of design/intelligence serves no purpose other than to support the idea that life is here on purpose, and idea dependent on there being design/intelligence. This is an interpretation of the facts that levitates itself by pulling on its own shoestrings.

[otseng]

If Earth say had no water, and life evolved anyway, I dunno say nitrogen based, we would look on the world differently but still have many of the same questions.

The problem is, life cannot come about in any other way. Please refer to the Nature's Destiny thread.

Its the same as the Universe.

This would not be true either. If any of the fundamental constants were any different, this universe would be a dead universe, or near dead.

Some examples:

1. If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 10^60, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. [See Davies, 1982, pp. 90-91. (As John Jefferson Davis points out (p. 140), an accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.)

2. Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler, p. 322.)

3. Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10^40, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.)

4. If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 )

5. If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons. (Leslie, 1988, p. 299.)

The Fine-Tuning Design Argument

Also I personally believe in multiple Universes but since we seem to be stuck on that I ignored it.

So, you believe something even though there is absolutely no empirical evidence for it to exist?

The battle, then, will come down to semantics. What do we call this life/consciousness force? Allah? God? The Force? YHWH?

As QED states in the OP, a "sentient designer creator" is good enough for me.

But the fundamentalist doctrine that one must "accept" Jesus or go to hell - regardless of one's "goodness" - makes it difficult to nurture such patience.

Uh, I think you are the only one that is bringing this up in this thread. So, not really relevant to our discussions here.

[acamp1]

Quote:
But the fundamentalist doctrine that one must "accept" Jesus or go to hell - regardless of one's "goodness" - makes it difficult to nurture such patience.

Uh, I think you are the only one that is bringing this up in this thread. So, not really relevant to our discussions here.

Fair enough. That's what I get for carrying on multiple conversations at once.