(April 4, 2014 at 7:52 am)Alex K Wrote:

(April 4, 2014 at 7:45 am)Heywood Wrote: What is meant by "catastrophic". Is the catastrophe the non existence of a daughter universe or does it mean it exists but not in a state where emergent complexity can arise?

I think they mean the at least latter - no atoms etc, but also possibly more severe, e.g. recollapse before there is sufficient time to form solar systems etc.

Also are they talking about it being probable that just 1 parameter will be near the catastrophic boundary(which we aren't even sure what that is) or are they talking about it being probable that all or most of the parameters will near the catastrophic boundary?

Correct me if I am wrong here, but it seems to me that you provided this paper as evidence that in multiverse models....most daughter universes will still be capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity.

I don't think this paper shows this at all.

Again we are back to having no objective reason to favor B over A while indifference remains stoically objective.

(April 4, 2014 at 8:08 am)Heywood Wrote: Correct me if I am wrong here, but it seems to me that you provided this paper as evidence that in multiverse models....most daughter universes will still be capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity.

No I didn't, I never mentioned daughter universes. Here the argument is rather that you have a huge ensemble of universes with varying properties (they aren't necessarily daughter universes) with parameters distributed according to certain rules. If you then apply a "complexity filter" as a I kind of loose anthropic principle, you can do statistics with the set of universes that pass this filter, and see which properties are more likely than others.

(April 4, 2014 at 8:18 am)Alex K Wrote: No I didn't, I never mentioned daughter universes. Here the argument is rather that you have a huge ensemble of universes with varying properties (they aren't necessarily daughter universes) with parameters distributed according to certain rules. If you then apply a "complexity filter" as a I kind of loose anthropic principle, you can do statistics with the set of universes that pass this filter, and see which properties are more likely than others.

I don't think the paper damages my case.

Do you agree the paper says nothing about how many of all possible universes are capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity?

My intuition is telling me that of all possible universes....very few would be capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity. What does your intuition tell you?

(April 4, 2014 at 8:30 am)Heywood Wrote:

(April 4, 2014 at 8:18 am)Alex K Wrote: No I didn't, I never mentioned daughter universes. Here the argument is rather that you have a huge ensemble of universes with varying properties (they aren't necessarily daughter universes) with parameters distributed according to certain rules. If you then apply a "complexity filter" as a I kind of loose anthropic principle, you can do statistics with the set of universes that pass this filter, and see which properties are more likely than others.

I don't think the paper damages my case.

Do you agree the paper says nothing about how many of all possible universes are capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity?

My intuition is telling me that of all possible universes....very few would be capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity. What does your intuition tell you?

There is possibly an infinite number of possible universes, so you'd have to be more specific what you mean by few.

(April 4, 2014 at 8:34 am)Alex K Wrote:

(April 4, 2014 at 8:30 am)Heywood Wrote: I don't think the paper damages my case.

Do you agree the paper says nothing about how many of all possible universes are capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity?

My intuition is telling me that of all possible universes....very few would be capable of producing long chains of emergent complexity. What does your intuition tell you?

There is possibly an infinite number of possible universes, so you'd have to be more specific what you mean by few.

If all possible universes could produce long chains of emergent complexity the universe would not appear as being fine-tuned to produce emergent complexity. Emergent complexity would then just be an artifact of any coherent universe.

"Few" can be defined as any amount less than the amount needed to give the universe an appearance of not being fine-tuned for emergent complexity.

Do you agree the apparent fine tuning of the universe demands some sort of an explanation?

(April 4, 2014 at 9:29 am)Heywood Wrote: Do you agree the apparent fine tuning of the universe demands some sort of an explanation?

I would agree that the universe doesn't appear fine tuned to begin with.
And if our universe is what qualifies as 'fine tuned', then I would also agree that 'fine tuning' appears to be a half assed, shitty job.

(April 4, 2014 at 9:29 am)Heywood Wrote: Do you agree the apparent fine tuning of the universe demands some sort of an explanation?

I'm on the fence, tending towards yes. And I just gave you one.

(April 4, 2014 at 9:56 am)LostLocke Wrote:

(April 4, 2014 at 9:29 am)Heywood Wrote: Do you agree the apparent fine tuning of the universe demands some sort of an explanation?

I would agree that the universe doesn't appear fine tuned to begin with.
And if our universe is what qualifies as 'fine tuned', then I would also agree that 'fine tuning' appears to be a half assed, shitty job.

There doesn't exist a better example of an emergent complex system....the universe is the best there is.

(April 4, 2014 at 9:29 am)Heywood Wrote: If all possible universes could produce long chains of emergent complexity the universe would not appear as being fine-tuned to produce emergent complexity. Emergent complexity would then just be an artifact of any coherent universe.

"Few" can be defined as any amount less than the amount needed to give the universe an appearance of not being fine-tuned for emergent complexity.

What do you mean by "appear as being fine-tuned" ? The constants are what they are, what is it you see that "appears" one way rather than another?

For example, suppose I'm patching a hole in my roof. I get done and go inside. During the night, there is a storm. I awake to find one of the roofing tiles blew off and landed exactly on top of the stack of spare tiles that I had left over. Does this result "appear" fine tuned? What is it specifically that makes it appear fine tuned? Does this imply that the placement of the blown off tile was designed? Can I conclude that it didn't land there by accident and was picked up and placed there?

(April 4, 2014 at 9:57 am)Alex K Wrote:

(April 4, 2014 at 9:29 am)Heywood Wrote: Do you agree the apparent fine tuning of the universe demands some sort of an explanation?

I'm on the fence, tending towards yes. And I just gave you one.

If A and B both have a 50% probability of being true then the probability of the existence of a creating intellect goes above 50%.

The reason this would be the case is because 50% of the time A is true and by necessity of it being true a creating intellect exists.

However if B is true the multiverse itself could still have been created by an intellect. Unless you can show the existence of a multiverse positively excludes the existence of a creating intellect, you have to acknowledge there is some probability, call it X, that a creating intellect exists. X might be exceedingly small...but it is not 0.

If A and B are equally likely, the probability of the existence of a creating intellect is 50% + X.