If the universe was fine tuned for our life...

[Anomalocaris]

I don't.

[Cyberman]

I don't think I'd go so far as to say most people want a god. Many people might want one, while many others might not; leaving a decent percentage who don't generally think of such things as important one way or the other.

[Heywood]

You will have to try harder.

You'd have to try awfully hard to be more condescending. And no, I don't have to try harder. The chameleon example stands. Their subrealities aren't the result of design.

First, I want to apologize if I offended you with the "you'll have to try harder" comment. Was it condescending? Yes...but it was just trash talk. If I had to name the brightest poster on any forum on which I participate or have participated, you'd be near the top of the short list.

I don't think a chameleon qualifies as a sub reality....but lets set that aside for now. For a chameleon to do something like this:



Requires perception, retention of knowledge and information, planning, and problem solving. It requires a minimum amount of intelligence. Can you give an example of a chameleon which doesn't have a nervous system or brain?

---

No, but your premise E and D are not in fact true - at least at the quantum level - unless you're able to demonstrate the cause of virtual particles coming into existence, or the cause of an individual atom's decay. AFAIK, those things to not have demonstrated causes (which is not quite the same as saying they are causeless, but it does negate your premises E and D below).

Premise E: We always observe effects having causes.
Premise D: We never observe effects not having causes.

Suppose we created a fine grained computer simulation of our world complete with intelligent conscious people and radio active decay. Scientist in that simulated world would discover apparently random radio active decay and Bell's theorem. Bell's theorem would tell them "No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics". Many scientist would conclude that on the quantum level....inherent randomness is just how their world works.

You however, are outside their world and would know that a random number generator determines if an atom in their world decays or remains stable. You would know that everything that ever happens in that simulated world....including atomic decay....has a cause. You would know that causality always holds in their world even though it is possible for the simulants to observe events without local causes.

Back to our world. You are correct. When we make observations at the quantum level it appears some events have no local causes. But causality tells us they have causes none the less. The notion that our reality is just a sub-reality of a larger reality is easier for me to accept than the idea that causality doesn't always hold.

[Angrboda]

I don't think a chameleon qualifies as a sub reality....but lets set that aside for now. For a chameleon to do something like this:



Requires perception, retention of knowledge and information, planning, and problem solving. It requires a minimum amount of intelligence. Can you give an example of a chameleon which doesn't have a nervous system or brain?

Like I said. You're expanding and contracting your definitions to include only what you want to include. That's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. A chameleon animal doesn't intentionally design the subreality which is what you were originally arguing for. First it was designed, then the product of intellect, then reduced to merely having a brain. You're rubber band man.

[Cyberman]

Probably a minor point but has anyone mentioned yet that chameleons change colour to reflect their mood, not their surroundings?

[abaris]

leaving a decent percentage who don't generally think of such things as important one way or the other.

Which is a good description of how I lived the largest part of my life. God simply wasn't important enough to either worship or deny.

[Anomalocaris]

That's because you don't live in a place where people who think the world is 6000 years old and science is one large conspiracy are not politely sheparded like the drolling and unbalanced retards they are to where they won't be seen by visitors.

[abaris]

That's because you don't live in a place where people who think the world is 6000 years old and science is one large conspiracy are not politely sheparded like the drolling and unbalanced retards they are to where they won't be seen by visitors.

There's that. I can't even imagine how it must feel to be jumped by some raving christer at every street corner.

[Cyberman]

We get a few of those round here sometimes, usually when the weather's ok. Like our resident faithful, they tend to communicate in caps lock. They must think they can make up in volume what they lack in credibility.

[abaris]

We get a few of those round here sometimes, usually when the weather's ok. Like our resident faithful, they tend to communicate in caps lock. They must think they can make up in volume what they lack in credibility.

By here, you mean in real life?

I have to say, here we only get some YW trouble occasionaly. But they're pretty easy to dodge and keep mostly to the subway stations selling the watchtower. I haven't even seen a single mormon missionary in my lifetime and evangelicals are the fringe of the fringe.