(April 11, 2025 at 2:12 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 11, 2025 at 1:33 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: Even if, IF, the watchmaker fallacy was somehow proof that a deity existed, where's the proof that it was your particular god?

I don't have any particular God. I'm a philosophical theist. What we think of as God could be a scientist in another sphere of existence that caused this universe.

No, you're a Christian. You'd object loudly to the notion that Allah Created the universe.

Quote:They wouldn't be called constants otherwise.

 There is no reason to think constants aren't conditional and that consistency must be eternal they may constant in a context and within a framework

(April 11, 2025 at 2:48 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 11, 2025 at 2:41 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: If those are your standards, then your belief in a deliberately created universe doesn’t meet them.

Boru

It meets the preponderance of evidence meaning more in favor of the existence of a Creator than against.

You have said that the fine-tuning argument supports the multiverse hypothesis as well as it does a deity. By your own standard you should believe in a multiverse. Instead, you believe in god because that's what indoctrination has pounded into your skull.

Quote:It meets the preponderance of evidence meaning more in favor of the existence of a Creator than against.

No it does  not there zero evidence of a creator and you have failed to provide any

There is more evidence for a vast series of natural multi-verses then there is any evidence of one supernatural being.

(April 11, 2025 at 4:11 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: The answer of whether the universe and life was intentionally caused or was unintentionally caused by mindless natural forces is up for debate and at this point all anyone has is there opinion. I could be wrong...you could be wrong. Stop pretending its cut and dry and one opinion is obvious and the other preposterous.

Emergent behaviors that lead from a simple set of basic rules to complex behaviors are favoured by thermodynamics because they're a more efficient mechanism for achieving stable low-energy, high-entropy states more rapidly. These emergent behaviors favour the emergence of life and sentience. The result is that the entire "fine-tuning" argument is a retrospective view that mistakenly underestimates how likely it is that sentience might arise in any possible universe.

(April 11, 2025 at 4:29 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 11, 2025 at 3:35 pm)Sheldon Wrote: That depends on the evidence, and lest we forget you have only present subjective claims, and arguments that are demonstrably irrational, and therefore weak. I don't say this to provoke your ire, I and others have highlighted the many fallacious arguments, and you have chosen to hand wave those objections away. 

I have heard apologists claim that the deity they imagine to be real, transcends logic. I think the irnoy of the claim, as well as the truth of it, is lost on them.

Quote:That depends on the evidence, and lest we forget you have only present subjective claims, and arguments that are demonstrably irrational, and therefore weak. I don't say this to provoke your ire, I and others have highlighted the many fallacious arguments, and you have chosen to hand wave those objections away.

My arguments aren't fallacious because people can look one up and claim its so. 

1. The fact the universe exists
2. The fact life exists
3. The fact intelligent life exists.
4. The fact the universe has laws of physics, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research and the laws of logic deduction and induction and is also explicable in mathematical terms.
5. The fact that in order for intelligent humans to exist requires a myriad of exacting conditions including causing the ingredients for life to exist from scratch.

Those are objective facts. 

1. Bricks are red
2. Apples are red.
3. Apples are sweet and delicious.

Those are objective facts. I've concluded that bricks are sweet and delicious.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: @Angrboda

Quote:I'm not invoking any specific explanation.  I'm pointing out that we simply don't know one way or another whether the characteristics could be other than what they are. 

Which makes it a moot point and the hill you choose to die on. Nor do we need to know if they could be different to ascertain the universe is fine-tuned for life.

If there is no evidence they could be different than what they are then you have no basis for making an inference of design, and thus you have no evidence for the existence of God. Design implies that the specific characteristics were chosen -- if there was no choice as to what these characteristics are, then there is no design involved and no reason to make that inference. Far from a moot point, showing that you cannot provide any evidence for design is central to whether your argument from design counts as evidence. Since you have no evidence that the values are the result of choice, you have no evidence of design.
 

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

Quote:Since any argument that a creator had to tune such things requires that they needed to be tuned, no such argument can get off the ground without some evidence that they would have needed tuning. 

In science, "fine-tuning" refers to the idea that certain fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe are incredibly precisely set for life to exist. These parameters, such as the laws of physics and the values of constants like the gravitational constant, must fall within a very narrow range to allow for the formation of stars, planets, and the complex molecules necessary for life.

Quote:Fine tuning is a metaphor derived from music and mechanics that is used to describe apparently improbable combinations of attributes governing physical systems.

The Templeton Foundation || What Is Fine Tuning?

It has been pointed out to you multiple times that these terms are being used in a metaphorical sense. You don't learn well. As the definition above points out, the improbability of the constants being what they are is an appearance ('apparently'), not a literal fact.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: Do you think scientists who stake their reputation on the claim we live in a multiverse never considered your brilliant objection that for some unknown reason the universe had to come out as it did and that way was to allow life? No they avoid that argument because its not much different than saying the universe had to come out with the properties for life because it was intentionally caused for that purpose. Secondly as I wrote to you motherboards are fine-tuned to perform calculations and designed to come out exactly the same already fine-tuned. 

I don't know that many scientists have staked their reputation on the claim we live in a multiverse. I suspect many consider it a stronger or weaker hypothesis, but generally speaking they do not claim it. I think you have once again misrepresented other people's views in order to artificially make your argument stronger. But regardless, scientists are well aware of the limitations of the evidence for multiverses, and there is little uniformity among which multiverse hypothesis they consider, as the multiverse hypothesis is actually a family of hypotheses. Rees differs from Penrose who differs from DeWitt and so on. Your attempt to manufacture a consensus where none exists is not well evidenced nor convincing. And again, you haven't presented the views and reasons of ANY scientists, so for all any of us know, you're misrepresenting them and their views the same as you have misrepresented people in this thread. We have plenty of evidence that you say many things that simply are not true. Regardless, what matters is the evidence that this or that scientist bases their opinion on, not simply that they are an authority and hold an opinion. Even scientists can be wrong; science depends on it.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

Quote: It is a key premise of the argument from fine tuning that they could be or had to be tuned. 

No, the key argument is that they are tuned for life to exist. It makes not a slightest difference if they had to be that way. 

If the characteristics could not vary, then there is no alternative. Design requires that the designer chose one thing over another. If there were no alternatives, then there was no choice to be made, and with no choice, it isn't design, and if it isn't an example of design then it isn't evidence for God.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

Quote:If there's no evidence for this, then it isn't a sound argument for God.  Since it has a material impact on the argument and issues in question, it is not a red herring.  Though I will welcome any explanation from you as to why you think it is.

If there's no evidence the universe had to come out as it did then it's not a sound argument. In legal parlance you're offering facts not in evidence.

That you haven't offered certain evidence that is required to make your case would be a part of the court record and very much a fact in evidence.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: But for the sake of argument if it did 'have' to come out as it did how does it look any different than a circuit board deliberately designed to fine tolerances?

If the universe had to be the way it is, then we would have no more information than we have now, that it could have been designed, but no specific evidence points to it having been designed. Thus if the characteristics could not vary, we would not be justified in concluding that it was designed based upon the specifics of its characteristics. That's the point. If you don't have any evidence that the characteristics could vary, you don't have evidence specifically that it was designed. That doesn't mean it wasn't designed, only that you aren't justified in inferring design from the characteristics being what they are.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: A red herring is a diversionary tactic, either in writing or conversation, that distracts from the main issue by introducing an irrelevant topic or clue. It's used to mislead or confuse, often to avoid answering a direct question or shifting the focus of a discussion

Quoting the definition doesn't explain your reasoning behind concluding that I have introduced a red herring.

(April 11, 2025 at 8:25 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: The main issue is scientists tell us the universe is fine-tuned for life. In part for this reason they invoke multiverse theory. I don't care if my response satisfies you.

In part, some scientist propose a multiverse theory to offer a natural explanation for the seeming improbability if the characteristics could have been different. Since providing evidence that the characteristics could have been different is the issue here, that scientists propose a hypothetical in which the characteristics are assumed to have the potential to vary is not evidence that the hypothetical's assumptions are fact. If I offer the hypothetical that I were to get up and go to the fridge and select something to drink, I am not asserting that I am getting up, only that if I were to do so such questions would arise. Hypotheticals do not entail the necessary truth of their assumptions; they're offered to explore what might be in the case said assumptions are accurate, not that such assumptions are accurate. All this shows is that scientists propose hypotheticals.

Quote:Perhaps there are some connections between these numbers. At the moment, however, we cannot predict any one of them from the values of the others. Nor do we know whether some ‘theory of everything’ will eventually yield a formula that interrelates them, or that specifies them uniquely.

Martin Rees. Just Six Numbers.

In other words, "we just don't know."

(April 11, 2025 at 4:11 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: Is there some reason you'd rather it was unintentionally caused? Do you have a stake in that belief?

I believe that you've hit the nail on the point with this one. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you seek out atheist websites and wander about objecting that we don't believe as you do. If you're looking for dogmatic validation of your beliefs, then you've come to the wrong place.

I'm late to this thread. Did he prove it? I mean, cause if he did... like fucking a, stop the presses this needs to get out! Since it's not in my news feed I'm guessing not so much?

Do religious people not realize how big a deal it would be of their god was scientifically validated? I mean, holy shit, literally. Or maybe they do and that's why we get all this voodoo woo woo science... fuck just bummed myself out.