Let's pretend...

[Tcg]

.

...that any of the arguments for god are valid. We have to pretend of course because they are horrible. But, if one established that a god created us, them, the universe and whatever else, what reason would there be to conclude that creator is still around?

As I like to present for example, maybe god was given a chemistry set for Christmas one year and he accidentally blew himself up. Then his bits and pieces and those of the chemistry set become the universe. There'd be no more god any more.


Tcg

[Clownboat]

William, consider the OP: "As I like to present for example, maybe god was given a chemistry set for Christmas one year and he accidentally blew himself up."

Or a fairy fart coalesced into the matter we now have that is our universe. Don't even pretend to understand the force at play in a fairy fart. Similar in explanatory power, much like the gods or that we are in a simulation.

Inventing explanations is easy and I argue that humans have been doing it for thousands of years with their gods and other invented scenarios to attempt to explain the matter we observe around us.

How did our universe form? We don't know. Some humans play pretend though. Again, for all we know... fairies are the cause. I say we continue to look and stop inventing answers like fairies, simulations or god concepts (unless we are testing against said claims of course). Especially since we all know that it is black holes that create univeres. Sheesh.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #168

I'm not familiar with what you consider evidence for fine tuning.

So I ask, what do you consider evidence for fine tuning of the universe?

according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

---Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The argument comes from the statistical improbability of so many life-facilitating values coming out as they did.

[Athetotheist]

For scientific purposes, it doesn't have to mean it's the answer if the choice is between observable evidence (an apparently fine-tuned universe) and an untestable hypothesis (a multiverse).

Apparently does not necessarily mean actually. Without a mechanism or process to refer to, how do we know that the universe was actually fine-tuned, or that such a thing is even a possibility?

I'm not making a proof claim; I'm referring to evidence.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #170

Multiplying entities in logical terms is adding less likely possibilities where a simple explanation suffices. That is not the same thing as multiple universes, which is something suggested by indeterminacy.

Being suggested by indeterminacy doesn't amount to being testable.

There is evidence for it and mathematical evidence is not to be dismissed as easily as you did it. It is not 'proof' as you say, bu it has led to some significant progress in physics, requiring scientific confirmation; the Higgs Boson for one, Black holes for another, with string theory and Dark matter still awaiting confirmation.

Evidence of the Higgs Boson and black holes has been observed; evidence of a multiverse hasn't. "Awaiting confirmation"=unobserved.

Your worst is in fact that you misread the post. You totally ignored that biology explains sentience better than a cosmic mind, and multiplicity of universes was used to make a fair case for a cosmic mind 'beyond', but you jumped in and started waving away physics as unproven. If I'd done Joey's post I'd tell you to do it all again and consider apologising for not reading it properly.

Maybe you misread my post, or didn't read it thoroughly, but my point was that one could approach it from a different perspective and move toward the same conclusion. To clarify, I'm not ditching the higher-dimensions idea; it's the "bubble bath universe" hypothesis I'm taking issue with.

In fact I have to ask that you list (say) the best five arguments for 'Fine tuning' that shows evidence or a case for, a created universe, as that is surely what you are implying. Otherwise your fine tuning argument is no more than an unsubstantiated claim (1).

A lengthy back-and-forth on the subject:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine ... neTuneCons

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #170

Multiplying entities in logical terms is adding less likely possibilities where a simple explanation suffices. That is not the same thing as multiple universes, which is something suggested by indeterminacy.

Being suggested by indeterminacy doesn't amount to being testable.

There is evidence for it and mathematical evidence is not to be dismissed as easily as you did it. It is not 'proof' as you say, bu it has led to some significant progress in physics, requiring scientific confirmation; the Higgs Boson for one, Black holes for another, with string theory and Dark matter still awaiting confirmation.

Evidence of the Higgs Boson and black holes has been observed; evidence of a multiverse hasn't. "Awaiting confirmation"=unobserved.

Your worst is in fact that you misread the post. You totally ignored that biology explains sentience better than a cosmic mind, and multiplicity of universes was used to make a fair case for a cosmic mind 'beyond', but you jumped in and started waving away physics as unproven. If I'd done Joey's post I'd tell you to do it all again and consider apologising for not reading it properly.

Maybe you misread my post, or didn't read it thoroughly, but my point was that one could approach it from a different perspective and move toward the same conclusion. To clarify, I'm not ditching the higher-dimensions idea; it's the "bubble bath universe" hypothesis I'm taking issue with.

In fact I have to ask that you list (say) the best five arguments for 'Fine tuning' that shows evidence or a case for, a created universe, as that is surely what you are implying. Otherwise your fine tuning argument is no more than an unsubstantiated claim (1).

A lengthy back-and-forth on the subject:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine ... neTuneCons

You will have to do better than these evasions.

You had ignored the point of Joey's post that biology explains sentience better than an appeal to a cosmic mind. The point about multiverses was to help you find some support for a Cosmic mind. Go back and read the post.

Your denialism is beyond reason. Even if your arguments were on the point that Joey was making (they weren't) that mathematics has predicted some things that were later confirmed shows that you are unreasonable in dismissing the value of mathematics in physics. But nobody was using multiverses to debunk a cosmic mind, anyway.

And you should make your own case as to why a cosmic mind (on the basis of ID or anything else) is plausible. Here, yourself. Don't send us off finding your arguments for you. (Though I will have to have a look )

The article argues against the validity of fine -tuning arguments as much as presents the arguments for it. Pretty much that the universe is made with the physics that work, rather than the physics that don't - as I said earlier. You really have nothing but gaps for god (unexplained questions in physics) as evidence for your created universe much less your Cosmic Mind.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #168

I'm not familiar with what you consider evidence for fine tuning.

So I ask, what do you consider evidence for fine tuning of the universe?

according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

---Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The argument comes from the statistical improbability of so many life-facilitating values coming out as they did.

The classic error of the creationist. You are arguing as though life was planned to be a particular way and so conditions had to be arranged so as to bring that about. But if life came out without being intended, then it would depend on whatever the conditions were...

I suppose it was inevitable that a discussion (topic) of whether there is any reason to think a god is about now, even if there was one to create the universe (or Cosmos) was going to become a creationist debate. Let me say in advance that much of ID was thrown out as not science in a court of Law (Dover) and you would risk ending up doing science - denial, which would of course mean that you would have no business pointing to the findings of science as 'evidence'. Just sayin; before you even start on that route.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #168

I'm not familiar with what you consider evidence for fine tuning.

So I ask, what do you consider evidence for fine tuning of the universe?

according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

---Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The argument comes from the statistical improbability of so many life-facilitating values coming out as they did.

The classic error of the creationist. You are arguing as though life was planned to be a particular way and so conditions had to be arranged so as to bring that about. But if life came out without being intended, then it would depend on whatever the conditions were...

I suppose it was inevitable that a discussion (topic) of whether there is any reason to think a god is about now, even if there was one to create the universe (or Cosmos) was going to become a creationist debate. Let me say in advance that much of ID was thrown out as not science in a court of Law (Dover) and you would risk ending up doing science - denial, which would of course mean that you would have no business pointing to the findings of science as 'evidence'. Just sayin; before you even start on that route.

You're the one starting on that route. Mine was the route of a fine tuning argument being applied to the formation of galaxies in which there could be stars around which there could be planets on which life could arise.

that mathematics has predicted some things that were later confirmed shows that you are unreasonable in dismissing the value of mathematics in physics.

Fine-tuning mathematics describes what we can observe; multiverse mathematics speculates on what we haven't observed.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #168

I'm not familiar with what you consider evidence for fine tuning.

So I ask, what do you consider evidence for fine tuning of the universe?

according to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

---Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The argument comes from the statistical improbability of so many life-facilitating values coming out as they did.

The classic error of the creationist. You are arguing as though life was planned to be a particular way and so conditions had to be arranged so as to bring that about. But if life came out without being intended, then it would depend on whatever the conditions were...

I suppose it was inevitable that a discussion (topic) of whether there is any reason to think a god is about now, even if there was one to create the universe (or Cosmos) was going to become a creationist debate. Let me say in advance that much of ID was thrown out as not science in a court of Law (Dover) and you would risk ending up doing science - denial, which would of course mean that you would have no business pointing to the findings of science as 'evidence'. Just sayin; before you even start on that route.

You're the one starting on that route. Mine was the route of a fine tuning argument being applied to the formation of galaxies in which there could be stars around which there could be planets on which life could arise.

that mathematics has predicted some things that were later confirmed shows that you are unreasonable in dismissing the value of mathematics in physics.

Fine-tuning mathematics describes what we can observe; multiverse mathematics speculates on what we haven't observed.

You are still way off. You were arguing against multiverses in a post that was mentioning multiverses as somewhere for a cosmic Mind to hide. You went in on the attack and ignored the actual argument that biology explained sentience better. Though you did address that in a later post.

So ok, you want to argue creationism and use fine tuning. You are being rather craftily polemical in your last, since, yes, multiverses like string theory and dark matter still remain to be proven, but like Black holes, the Higgs -Boson, quantum, relativity and indeterminacy, mathematics postulated those and they were proved. So you have no business to dismiss the mathematical case for multiverses, even though it hasn't been proven.

Argument for fine tuning is quite another matter. The 'evidence' is there for sure, and is 'mathematical', as you say. but your case is that it is inexplicable unless a cosmic mind did it. You gave a link to several examples (Stanford) of fine - tuning claims, and I guess we will get onto the arguments, but they are NOT evidence for a cosmic mind because you cannot prove that a natural reason for them is impossible, leaving 'God' the only possibility. And that is the only way Fine Tuning works for a god -claim.

P.s the quick reference to this is in Talk Origins:
Claim CE440:
Cosmologists cannot explain where space, time, energy, and the laws of physics came from.
Source:
Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 20.
Response:
Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero. Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001). For example, it is possible that there is more than one dimension of time, the other dimension being unbounded, so there is no overall origin of time. Another possibility is that the universe is in an eternal cycle without beginning or end. Each big bang might end in a big crunch to start a new cycle (Steinhardt and Turok 2002) or at long intervals, our universe collides with a mirror universe, creating the universe anew (Seife 2002).

One should keep in mind that our experiences in everyday life are poor preparation for the extreme and bizarre conditions one encounters in cosmology. The stuff cosmologists deal with is very hard to understand. To reject it because of that, though, would be to retreat into the argument from incredulity.

Creationists cannot explain origins at all. Saying "God did it" is not an explanation, because it is not tied to any objective evidence. It does not rule out any possibility or even any impossibility. It does not address questions of "how" and "why," and it raises questions such as "which God?" and "how did God originate?" In the explaining game, cosmologists are far out in front.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #178

Argument for fine tuning is quite another matter. The 'evidence' is there for sure, and is 'mathematical', as you say. but your case is that it is inexplicable unless a cosmic mind did it.

Putting aside for the moment the tactic of putting "evidence" and "mathematical" in quotation marks, I've been trying to put forth counterarguments to strict materialism from various perspectives.

they are NOT evidence for a cosmic mind because you cannot prove that a natural reason for them is impossible

But remember this argument, from an earlier thread?.....

The problem (for you) is that a complex thinking being has a lot of causality to explain. A nothing does not

A nonrational argument can't be countered with an irrational one.

Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero.

This has come up before as well:

viewtopic.php?t=38250&start=120
(posts #129-132)

Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001).

Since you bring up Hawking....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -cosmology

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #178

Argument for fine tuning is quite another matter. The 'evidence' is there for sure, and is 'mathematical', as you say. but your case is that it is inexplicable unless a cosmic mind did it.

Putting aside for the moment the tactic of putting "evidence" and "mathematical" in quotation marks, I've been trying to put forth counterarguments to strict materialism from various perspectives.

they are NOT evidence for a cosmic mind because you cannot prove that a natural reason for them is impossible

But remember this argument, from an earlier thread?.....

The problem (for you) is that a complex thinking being has a lot of causality to explain. A nothing does not

A nonrational argument can't be countered with an irrational one.

Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero.

This has come up before as well:

viewtopic.php?t=38250&start=120
(posts #129-132)

Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001).

Since you bring up Hawking....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -cosmology

I thought you might complain about the Quotes, but that is done with forethought, because while I agree the Data, their use as Evidence, by you, to assist your apologetic, is Not necessarily agreed.

The rest of it seems to make no argument or apologetic at all. Just what point were you making there?