That's correct, I am arguing facts and you're arguing semantics.
I will.
If something isn't designed, planned or engineered to be in a specific configuration yet such a specific configuration occurs we can either believe it was by the luckiest stroke of coincidence imaginable or it was in fact planned and designed.
Your argument is that mindless forces had to produce a universe and one in which life has to occur as a necessary consequence? You first argued there is no evidence the universe had to be as its observed and whether it had to be as it is or could be different is unknown. But now you state (still minus any evidence or fact) that the option it had to be as we observe is the most likely option. Based on what? Finally your third option doesn't avoid the dichotomy. Even if it had to be some consequence of the existence of nature, it was still the luckiest stroke of coincidence that if mindless forces cause a universe to exist, it has to be in the configuration that supports life as we know it. Now be honest...you don't really believe that bullshit do you? Lets take the fact the iron core in the earth produces a magnetic field that protects the earth from harmful effects of the sun. You don't honestly believe that some necessity of nature causes a spinning iron core to produce magnetic waves that fortuitously shields the earth do you? To say that the existence of human life is the neccesary consequence of the nature existence is to promote the very concept of the anthropomorphic principal you reject as a fallacy.
For the record this is another semantical argument the bogus notion that the burden of proof lies with the one making a positive claim. I can use semantics to turn a positive claim into an absence of belief. I can say I lack belief that mindless natural forces apart from plan or design could cause a universe to come into existence with just the right characteristics to produce life and sentience thus the burden of proof lies with those who claim that is how it happened. I can also just assert out of thin air that the default assumption is that we owe our existence to a Creator unless proven otherwise. Why not?
In reality (apart from the bogus atheist debating tactic) the debate is a philosophical debate about the mystery of our existence. The most basic philosophical question that can be asked is:
Is our existence and the existence of the universe the consequence of mindless forces that unintentionally produced life and sentient beings who could ponder the question? Or are we the result of a Creator who intentionally caused and designed the universe and sentient life to exist? Neither explanation is less or more extraordinary than the other. People who believe the latter explanation have become known as theists, while those who subscribe to the former belief have become known as atheists (meaning not or without God). There is no inherent advantage to either position neither is either position an established fact. It isn't a fact there was no designer creator who caused the universe to exist and its not a fact there was.
If I didn't specify I was referring to the gravitiation constant, obviously I misspoke. I didn't invent or make up the figure I mentioned to you. It was from a book (Just Six Numbers) written by a highly esteemed british cosmologist and astrophysicist (not to mention he's an atheist). The whole point of this book was to illustrate the degree to which these 6 numbers must fall within a very specific range to have a universe certainly in which human life could exist but arguably any life could exist.
The following is from the preface of the book.
The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially important huge number N in nature, equal to 1,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This number measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between them. If N had a few less zeros, only a short-lived miniature universe could exist: no creatures could grow larger than insects.
Another number, e, whose value is 0.007, defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table. Carbon and oxygen are common, whereas gold and uranium are rare, because of what happens in the stars. If e were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist.
The cosmic number W (omega) measures the amount of material in our universe - galaxies, diffuse gas, and `dark matter'. W tells us the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the universe. If this ratio were too high relative to a particular `critical' value, the universe would have collapsed long ago; had it been too low, no galaxies or stars would have formed. The initial expansion speed seems to have been finely tuned.
Measuring the fourth number, l (lambda), was the biggest scientific news of 1998. An unsuspected new force - a cosmic `antigravity' - controls the expansion of our universe, even though it has no discernible effect on scales less than a billion light-years. It is destined to become ever more dominant over gravity and other forces as our universe becomes ever darker and emptier. Fortunately for us (and very surprisingly to theorists), A is very small. Otherwise its effect would have stopped galaxies and stars from forming, and cosmic evolution would have been stifled before it could even begin.
The seeds for all cosmic structures - stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies - were all imprinted in the Big Bang. The fabric of our universe depends on one number, ,Q, which represents the ratio of two fundamental energies and is about 1/100,000 in value. If Q were even smaller, the universe would be inert and structureless; if Q were much larger, it would be a violent place, in which no stars or solar systems could survive, dominated by vast black holes.
The sixth crucial number has been known for centuries, although it's now viewed in a new perspective. It is the number of spatial dimensions in our world, D, and equals three. Life couldn't exist if D were two or four. Time is a fourth dimension, but distinctively different from the others in that it has a built-in arrow: we `move' only towards the future. Near black holes, space is so warped that light moves in circles, and time can stand still. Furthermore, close to the time of the Big Bang, and also on microscopic scales, space may reveal its deepest underlying structure of all: the vibrations and harmonies of objects called `superstrings', in a ten-dimensional arena.
Being an atheist and a naturalist Rees concludes that this is one of an infinitude of universes with differening characteristics so that naturally we would only find ourselves in a universe that had the right characteristics for life. I'd argue that the evidence he presents isn't evidence of other universes, its evidence that this universe was designed to produce life. Secondly his argument lacks evidence there are other universes and if so that there characteristics are different.
Quote:Prove it.
I will.
If something isn't designed, planned or engineered to be in a specific configuration yet such a specific configuration occurs we can either believe it was by the luckiest stroke of coincidence imaginable or it was in fact planned and designed.
Quote:False dichotomy. The third and most likely option is that its the necessary consequence of the nature existence.
Your argument is that mindless forces had to produce a universe and one in which life has to occur as a necessary consequence? You first argued there is no evidence the universe had to be as its observed and whether it had to be as it is or could be different is unknown. But now you state (still minus any evidence or fact) that the option it had to be as we observe is the most likely option. Based on what? Finally your third option doesn't avoid the dichotomy. Even if it had to be some consequence of the existence of nature, it was still the luckiest stroke of coincidence that if mindless forces cause a universe to exist, it has to be in the configuration that supports life as we know it. Now be honest...you don't really believe that bullshit do you? Lets take the fact the iron core in the earth produces a magnetic field that protects the earth from harmful effects of the sun. You don't honestly believe that some necessity of nature causes a spinning iron core to produce magnetic waves that fortuitously shields the earth do you? To say that the existence of human life is the neccesary consequence of the nature existence is to promote the very concept of the anthropomorphic principal you reject as a fallacy.
Quote:For the record, the burden of proof lies with the one making the positive claim. It is the presence of intelligence behind the laws of nature that would be the positive claim - not the absence of it. The premise that is agreed upon is that the universe works in a particular way - with regards to laws of physics or logic. You are the one adding something extra - an intelligence with an intention - thus the burden of proof lies upon you.
For the record this is another semantical argument the bogus notion that the burden of proof lies with the one making a positive claim. I can use semantics to turn a positive claim into an absence of belief. I can say I lack belief that mindless natural forces apart from plan or design could cause a universe to come into existence with just the right characteristics to produce life and sentience thus the burden of proof lies with those who claim that is how it happened. I can also just assert out of thin air that the default assumption is that we owe our existence to a Creator unless proven otherwise. Why not?
In reality (apart from the bogus atheist debating tactic) the debate is a philosophical debate about the mystery of our existence. The most basic philosophical question that can be asked is:
Is our existence and the existence of the universe the consequence of mindless forces that unintentionally produced life and sentient beings who could ponder the question? Or are we the result of a Creator who intentionally caused and designed the universe and sentient life to exist? Neither explanation is less or more extraordinary than the other. People who believe the latter explanation have become known as theists, while those who subscribe to the former belief have become known as atheists (meaning not or without God). There is no inherent advantage to either position neither is either position an established fact. It isn't a fact there was no designer creator who caused the universe to exist and its not a fact there was.
Quote:No wonder you keep repeating the same old refuted arguments - you can't even remember the ones you made. And, apparently, lack the capacity to scroll up half an inch to read it again. And fail to read what you are obviously copying and pasting. You did not talk about the gravitational constant, you talked about the force of gravity. Also, the figure of 10^36 is nowhere to be found in the data you pasted. And finally, the difference between 10^36 and 10^30 is infinitesimal? The variation of 99.9999% is insignificant? Pray tell, then, what percentage do you call significant?
If I didn't specify I was referring to the gravitiation constant, obviously I misspoke. I didn't invent or make up the figure I mentioned to you. It was from a book (Just Six Numbers) written by a highly esteemed british cosmologist and astrophysicist (not to mention he's an atheist). The whole point of this book was to illustrate the degree to which these 6 numbers must fall within a very specific range to have a universe certainly in which human life could exist but arguably any life could exist.
The following is from the preface of the book.
The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially important huge number N in nature, equal to 1,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This number measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between them. If N had a few less zeros, only a short-lived miniature universe could exist: no creatures could grow larger than insects.
Another number, e, whose value is 0.007, defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table. Carbon and oxygen are common, whereas gold and uranium are rare, because of what happens in the stars. If e were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist.
The cosmic number W (omega) measures the amount of material in our universe - galaxies, diffuse gas, and `dark matter'. W tells us the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the universe. If this ratio were too high relative to a particular `critical' value, the universe would have collapsed long ago; had it been too low, no galaxies or stars would have formed. The initial expansion speed seems to have been finely tuned.
Measuring the fourth number, l (lambda), was the biggest scientific news of 1998. An unsuspected new force - a cosmic `antigravity' - controls the expansion of our universe, even though it has no discernible effect on scales less than a billion light-years. It is destined to become ever more dominant over gravity and other forces as our universe becomes ever darker and emptier. Fortunately for us (and very surprisingly to theorists), A is very small. Otherwise its effect would have stopped galaxies and stars from forming, and cosmic evolution would have been stifled before it could even begin.
The seeds for all cosmic structures - stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies - were all imprinted in the Big Bang. The fabric of our universe depends on one number, ,Q, which represents the ratio of two fundamental energies and is about 1/100,000 in value. If Q were even smaller, the universe would be inert and structureless; if Q were much larger, it would be a violent place, in which no stars or solar systems could survive, dominated by vast black holes.
The sixth crucial number has been known for centuries, although it's now viewed in a new perspective. It is the number of spatial dimensions in our world, D, and equals three. Life couldn't exist if D were two or four. Time is a fourth dimension, but distinctively different from the others in that it has a built-in arrow: we `move' only towards the future. Near black holes, space is so warped that light moves in circles, and time can stand still. Furthermore, close to the time of the Big Bang, and also on microscopic scales, space may reveal its deepest underlying structure of all: the vibrations and harmonies of objects called `superstrings', in a ten-dimensional arena.
Being an atheist and a naturalist Rees concludes that this is one of an infinitude of universes with differening characteristics so that naturally we would only find ourselves in a universe that had the right characteristics for life. I'd argue that the evidence he presents isn't evidence of other universes, its evidence that this universe was designed to produce life. Secondly his argument lacks evidence there are other universes and if so that there characteristics are different.
