(December 15, 2011 at 5:37 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: Anthropic principle is not a predictive model and essentially, not science. Philosophical causality is craptastic without taking into account chains of causality. Anyone wanna pull that shit with me, I'll tell them I created the universe. This is where all chains of causality lead.

It doesn't need to be science to have more parsimonious explanatory power than "god".

(December 15, 2011 at 6:35 pm)Chuck Wrote:

(December 15, 2011 at 5:37 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: Anthropic principle is not a predictive model and essentially, not science. Philosophical causality is craptastic without taking into account chains of causality. Anyone wanna pull that shit with me, I'll tell them I created the universe. This is where all chains of causality lead.

It doesn't need to be science to have more parsimonious explanatory power than "god".

Are you justifying that crap?

I liked it, once; then I did more research. A few scientists insist it has utility, I insist that said utility is formative and not intrinsic.

I disagree. It is an aknowledgement of, and provides some basis to correct, selection biase built in by the gap between what is possible and what could possibly be observed by one at our stage of development.

...which is justifying that crap.

Nah. It's solid as a principle. What I don't like is how it is often used.

(December 15, 2011 at 3:54 pm)Chuck Wrote: You christians are a disgrace clutching imaginatively at such straws.

When I first heard of the concept of cosmological fine tuning I was quite intrigued. However the term Fine Tuning is not a term I liked. It involks images of a being turning knobs. Frankly I don't accept a being doing that. When I started this thread I made an error in my question. I had in mnd Multiverse Cosmological Models. Had anybody actually looked at the paper I referanced then you'd see that it had nothing to do with cosmological fine-tuning. The name of the article is Multiverse Cosmological Models. This I can see being true. Whether it's a testable theory is another thing altogether. There is something in the book Cosmic Jackpot, by Paul Davies which mentions this. It may not really address it. I might have made a mistake reading it since I was flipping through the pages and cam across the term testable and some talk of how to test it (I think).

I'd like to make a request. If I hint at a creator of the universe it doesn't imply a being of infinite power such as The Christian/Hebrew/Islamic God. It's may be theoretically possible for an advanced race might be able to create a universe. A paper was written on the subject by Allen Guth and Edward Farhi (both from MIT). A reference to that paper is here - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987PhLB..183..149F

I'm going to upload aticle to my web site and you can download it from there. Although I'm not sure if the file is too large.

I'd also would appreciate a halt of all the rude remarks about Christians when they are applied to me. Please don't confuse me with all the ignorant Christians in the world. I may be a Christian but I'm a scientist as well. I think very differently than most Christians. Edmund Bertschinger, the head of the physics department at MIT, is a Christian, and is very intelligent.

As for testability of the principles of physics I'd like to remind you that some models in relativistic cosmology do contain such a principle. Thatprinciple being The Cosmological Principle. For details please see http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/...ciple.html

Thanks.

Best wishes

Pete

I apologize for my tart remark.

(December 16, 2011 at 1:47 pm)Pete Wrote: It's theoretically possible for an advanced race [i]might[i] be able to create a universe.

It is theoretically possible that the universe creates itself from nothing every 5.13 x 10 ^-43 seconds. Do you know quantum mechanics? What is popularly known, is that quantum theory is the most successful scientific theory ever; that no experiment ever performed in quantum mechanics failed to match prediction, only see what I did just there?

There is at least eighteen flavors of quantum theory floating around. Do you know which one I just referenced? What I'm not seeing is how a scientist is going to come to an atheist form and hint at a creator and not get rude remarks.

There's emergence to consider. Of course, if you're an IDiot, emergence is the last word you want to hear.

(December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: It is theoretically possible that the universe creates itself from nothing every 5.13 x 10 ^-43 seconds.

I believe your analogy is flawed. What you asserted cannot be observed and therefore cannot be falsified.

(December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: Do you know quantum mechanics?

Yes. My last course in it was the second semester of graduate level of quantum mechanics. That was over 15 years ago. However I try to keep my mind fresh in various fields of physics so I don't forget everything. My quamtum mechanics page is at http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/qm/qm.htm

(December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: What is popularly known, is that quantum theory is the most successful scientific theory ever; that no experiment ever performed in quantum mechanics failed to match prediction, only see what I did just there?

No. What did you do just there? I did notice that you used a general term for what you're talking about which is quantum chromodynamics. And as I understand it, that theory predigs a Higgs boson and a top quark, neither of which has been detected yet.

(December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: There is at least eighteen flavors of quantum theory floating around. Do you know which one I just referenced?

I don't see that ypu mentioned any particles, besides the ones I pointed out.

(December 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm)houseofcantor Wrote: What I'm not seeing is how a scientist is going to come to an atheist form and hint at a creator and not get rude remarks.

There's emergence to consider. Of course, if you're an IDiot, emergence is the last word you want to hear.

Why are you in such a hurry to judge me? I have no plans in judging anyone. Don't atheist have such rule they hold to?

And no. It is not neccesarily true that hinting at a creator would draw insults. That's not the way adults act. This is a discussion forum. And just because people disagree in something it would be childish to insult back as a logical response.

The reason I started this thread was to see the thoughts of atheists about something they might have had an inadequate time explaining one thing and then something comes along which makes it easy to explain.

It was a serious mistake to label this thred as I did. It's leading people to focus on something I have no interest in disussing. Is it possible to change the heading of this thread?

Best wishes

Pete

Hmm here's something I pondered while reading through the Multiverse Cosmological Models - Why are we making the claim to knowledge by calling that the total observable contents of intergalactic space and reality the Universe? Why call it that when we're also making hypothesises for Multi-verses as well?

Wouldn't it be more sensible for us all to simply call everything just the "cosmos" instead until empirical evidence confirms or refutes the existence of other realities?

Well that's enough ranting for now I think...

The best evidence that Fine Tuning is miraculous is that a universe where life can exist is so unlikely that theists think a miracle is needed to explain it, while the universe is so hostile to life that they also think a miracle is needed to explain it happening here.