Calling out chinking58!

Originally posted by no1marauder
Outside of demonstrating that you own a thesaurus, your post adds nothing to the debate. The whole question of whether something "external" to the universe defined its characteristics is the debate. Acting like you know something you obviously don't puts you in Darfius' league but in the low minors.

As a matter of fact, I don't own a thesaurus.

I'd be happy to elaborate on any piece of knowledge that you think I'm faking. Just ask. I'm curious to find out what it is that you think I so obviously don't know.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
As a matter of fact, I don't own a thesaurus.

I'd be happy to elaborate on any piece of knowledge that you think I'm faking. Just ask. I'm curious to find out what it is that you think I so obviously don't know.

You really should buy one; I find mine invaluable as simply using the same insults over and over again gets tedious.

I was wondering how you determined the likelihood of the physical characteristics of the universe existing. Or do you simply state the likelihood is 1 and that , therefore, it's senseless to even muse about it?

Originally posted by no1marauder
I put "external" in quotes because I'm not sure that an ID would have to be outside the universe; it has been postulated that the universe could have in some sense defined itself (i.e. that it is self-aware). I have also not supposed a spiritual god, so I have made no "severe" assumptions. I am only interested in discussing the fact that ...[text shortened]... th any degree of confidence by a rational man. But it is a rather intriguing subject to muse on.

Yeah, I didn't think you had restricted your discussion to a spiritual god. That was referring back to the real-life IDer's, who despite all their flailing, really are talking about a spiritual god.

I guess the only part of your post that I am hesitant about is the following:

I am only interested in discussing the fact that the universe has certain characteristics which make it life hospitable, that apparently the chance of that occurring is small and that there is apparently only one universe.

As I tried to impress earlier, I don't think the universe is really that hospitable to life as we know it. Even if we assume very primitive life forms on other planets, the mind-bogglingly large fraction of the universe is entirely inhospitable. It has been even more inhospitable in the past, and it seems it will be more inhospitable after some point in the future.

As for the chance of this occuring, we have no way of saying that it is small. This makes very strong assumptions about the supports of the cosmological constants. Like I pointed out before, the likelihood of our universe being the way it is can be anything on the interval (0,1]. Note that the interval is half-open, since our universe has occured.

If you do make the assumption that a great many other values of these constants were possible and that things "outside" the universe behave to a sufficient degree like they do "inside" the universe (i.e. randomness holds in both), then I agree with you. The slight probability of a universe like ours arising would lend more weight to the hypothesis that the universe did not arise by random chance. Just like getting a very unlikely draw during a hypothesis test.

Originally posted by no1marauder


I was wondering how you determined the likelihood of the physical characteristics of the universe existing. Or do you simply state the likelihood is 1

If you can refer me to a passage in which I claim to have determined the likelihood of the physical characterstics of the universe arising, being 1 or otherwise, I will admit that I was faking such knowledge.

Tell me, is 'misattribution' a word in your thesaurus?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
If you can refer me to a passage in which I claim to have determined the likelihood of the physical characterstics of the universe arising, being 1 or otherwise, I will admit that I was faking such knowledge.

Tell me, is 'misattribution' a word in your thesaurus?

Dr. Scribbles: It is unfortunate that you seek explanations for the occurence of unlikely events in something external to the very process that dictates their likelihood.


I thought that inherent in your criticism of what you perceive as my position was that you had determined what process dictated the likelihood of the physical characteristics of the universe as it was "unfortunate" that I "seek explanations" in "something external". If not, please clarify what the above statement was supposed to mean relative to this discussion.

Originally posted by telerion
[b/]Yeah, I didn't think you had restricted your discussion to a spiritual god. That was referring back to the real-life IDer's, who despite all their flailing, really are talking about a spiritual god.

I guess the only part of your pos ...[text shortened]... Just like getting a very unlikely draw during a hypothesis test. [/b]

This whole train of thought started for me when I was listening to a talk by a scientist concerning the Big Bang on TV. He stated that if the strength of the "force" of gravity was even slightly different then life would have been impossible in the universe (I forget the exact reason; something to do with star or galaxy formation). There were other similiar statements made about all the basic forces. So it's not that all parts of the universe are hospitable to life, it's that the universe itself is at all.

I asked for people's input as to the existence of meta laws which would govern the strength of the basic forces so that they were not random. I haven't heard or found anything yet. It is a basic premise of the argument that the chance of the universe being hospitable to life is small, so evidence suggesting the probability was not small would, of course, make the conclusion less likely. It is also reliant on their being only one universe as if there are a large or infinite number of universes, it is true that one would be hospitable to life even if the probability for a single "draw" is small. If's its a billion to 1 and you "draw" a billion times, you're likely to get one. I think scientists have a theory called "multiverses" suggesting their are many universes, but I'm uncertain how that could be scientifically proven.

EDIT: The talk I saw was given by Simon Singh regarding his book, Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and was last aired on CSPAN2 on March 27, 2005. Mr. Singh is an author and journalist and directed the show Fermat's Last Theorem. I guess he's not a practicing scientist, but he does have a PHD in Particle Physics from Cambridge. http://www.simonsingh.com/BoringBiography.html
His website has a lot of neat stuff.

Originally posted by no1marauder

I thought that inherent in your criticism of what you perceive as my position was that you had determined what process dictated the likelihood of the physical characteristics of the universe as it was "unfortunate" that I " ...[text shortened]... above statement was supposed to mean relative to this discussion.

No, my criticism does not rely on any determinition of any random process. My criticism is an abstract one that applies to all cases in which a person
1) presumes that some event has a small but non-zero likelihood, and
2) upon observation of that event then seeks an explanation for it outside of whatever led to the establishment of (1).

For example, we can presume that the likelihood of observing 8 heads in exactly 8 tosses of a fair coin is 1/256, such presumption deriving from standard Bayesian probability that all college educated people should be comfortable with. Now suppose we flip a fair coin 8 times and observe that unlikely outcome. If you seek an explanation for this particular outcome in something other than the probability model which led you to estimate that the event was unlikely, then it made no sense to make any assertions about the event's likelihood based on that model in the first place. A person who insists on having both (1) and (2) is not dealing with uncertainty appropriately. And that is unfortunate in my estimation.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
No, my criticism does not rely on any determinition of any random process. My criticism is an abstract one that applies to all cases in which a person
1) presumes that some event has a small but non-zero likelihood, and
2) upon observation of that event then seeks an explanation for it outside of whatever led to the establishment of (1).

For ...[text shortened]... nd (2) is not dealing with uncertainty appropriately. And that is unfortunate in my estimation.

If I was told there was a one in a billion chance that the coin which was about to be flipped would land "heads" and in ONE and only ONE try it did, I would think that there was either something wrong with the assessment of the likelihood of it landing heads or that some external factor influenced it. That's all I've been trying to say.

Originally posted by no1marauder
If I was told there was a one in a billion chance that the coin which was about to be flipped would land "heads" and in ONE and only ONE try it did, I would think that there was either something wrong with the assessment of the likelihood of it landing heads or that some external factor influenced it. That's all I've been trying to say.

And I'll I've been trying to say is that's unfortunate. It indicates that you misunderstand how to reason about uncertainty, for you have presented a false dichotomy of explanations for the observation. A third possible explanation, which follows directly from your initial presumption about the experiment's possible outcomes, is that you have observed the one instance in a billion in which it is expected to land heads.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
And I'll I've been trying to say is that's unfortunate. It indicates that you misunderstand how to reason about uncertainty, for you have presented a false dichotomy of explanations for the observation. A third possible explana ...[text shortened]... ne instance in a billion in which it is expected to land heads.

It's unfortunate you don't read my posts carefully; I've never disputed that the random result explanation was a "possible" one. I just find it an unlikely one given the facts as I understand them. Look, in the "billion to one" coin flipping experiment, if it came up heads, you'd probably say flip it again to test the randomness. If it again came up heads (another billion to one chance) which of the explanations would be most plausible? Unfortunately, we have no way to "flip" the universe again so we can't test the hypothesis that it was a random result.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I just find it an unlikely one given the facts as I understand them.

Iit makes no sense to begin with a model of uncertainty that you're going to reject upon observing certain outcomes that are consistent with it, without some additional evidence that the model is wrong. The outcome itself does not suggest that the model is wrong.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I put "external" in quotes because I'm not sure that an ID would have to be outside the universe; it has been postulated that the universe could have in some sense defined itself (i.e. that it is self-aware). I have also not supposed a spiritual god, so I have made no "severe" assumptions. I am only interested in discussing the fact that ...[text shortened]... th any degree of confidence by a rational man. But it is a rather intriguing subject to muse on.

the Higgs boson ,still hypothetical, i.e. hasn't been observed, yet.

"The Higgs boson, sometimes called the God particle, was first predicted in the 1960s by the British physicist Peter Higgs. The Higgs mechanism for giving mass to particles was actually first proposed in the context of solid state physics to explain how particle-like structures in metals can act as if they had an effective mass.

The Higgs boson itself has a characteristic rest-mass. As of 2004, the best estimate for this mass is 117 GeV, with a theoretical upper limit of 251 GeV. Particle accelerators have probed energies up to about 115 GeV, and have recorded a small number of events that could be interpreted as resulting from Higgs bosons, but the evidence is as yet inconclusive. It is expected among physicists that the Large Hadron Collider, currently under construction at CERN, will be able to confirm or disprove the existence of Higgs bosons. "

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Higgs_boson

As I have said science can't prove or disprove god, but science can discover how the universe works, and what forces created it and the associated fundamental laws.

an aside : Please fundies, no 4-termers using the words "faith", "universe". "science" or "God".

Originally posted by frogstomp
the Higgs boson ,still hypothetical, i.e. hasn't been observed, yet.

"The Higgs boson, sometimes called the God particle, was first predicted in the 1960s by the British physicist Peter Higgs. The Higgs mechanism for giving mass to particles was actually first proposed in the context of solid state physics to explain how particle-like structures in ...[text shortened]... ease fundies, no 4-termers using the words "faith", "universe". "science" or "God".

What does it mean to be a 'God Particle?' What about its behavior
or influence distinguishes it to the degree that a person would
reasonably conclude that it was Divinely motivated?

Originally posted by Nemesio
What does it mean to be a 'God Particle?' What about its behavior
or influence distinguishes it to the degree that a person would
reasonably conclude that it was Divinely motivated?

The god particle is the particle that instantiates mass , it doesn't imply or deny ID. It's just the exchange particle of the Higgs field.

Originally posted by bbarr
As stated, premise (2) is false. The universe contains within it any number of elements that do not foster the existence of mankind. For instance, war, pestilence, famine, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc., do not foster the existence of mankind. Presumably you want to exlude such elements from consideration in your argument. So, how would you like to modify premise (2)?

Premise two stands but for one word.

The fact that there are other, negative elements (and not referring to those listed in the periodic table telerion), also at work in the universe does not detract from my statement. Perhaps the word 'all', as in 'all foster', could be eliminated for clarity of argument.

Since this is the spirituality forum however; I will go so far as to justify even that word. This may beg the question a bit, but here goes.
When A&E sinned, our just God responded like a good father would. He disciplined his charges by establishing what is known as the curse. The various traumas you mentioned, we suffer under as a result of that discipline. Now, like a good father who metes out unlikeable punishments to his kids, our Heavenly Father also acts in such a way that is always and only for our benefit; that is, in such a way that fosters, not only our existence, but our growth and maturity.