RE: A fined tuned argument.....Heywood style.
April 4, 2014 at 3:23 am
(This post was last modified: April 4, 2014 at 3:43 am by Heywood.)
(March 27, 2014 at 4:21 am)Alex K Wrote: * Even if I accept all your premises, we don't get 50% each by a looong shot. This is because for those two propositions, observations very strongly favor B over A: The Universe looks exactly as you would expect an anthropically selected universe to look: if you have a priori probability distributions with strong dependences on the parameters, you expect to have many parameters of your theory pushed towards catastrophic boundaries, but barely on the anthropically favored side. Here's a published paper where this is explained:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.2783.pdf
Alex, I don't find this critique meaningful because any universe would look exactly as you would expect a universe to look if B were true. This artifact of B isn't sufficient cause to favor B over A.
The only reason to favor B over A is if somehow you concluded objectively that the universe does not look like A. I don't think you can come to that conclusion objectively. Just because you would have designed the universe differently isn't sufficient reason to dismiss A. What you find elegant and beautiful , another intellect might not. If you designed the universe you might make the cosmological constant exactly 0. If I designed the universe, I might make the cosmological constant very close to 0....but not 0.
If you set aside your bias and personal feelings about what a designed universe should look like, there is no objective reason to favor B or A.
(March 27, 2014 at 1:22 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Exactly.
The question theists have to answer is, could an omnipotent god create a universe of any description he wanted, even one that should not be able to support life, and yet have life thrive in it?
Your question rephrased is, Could an omnipotent God create a sterile/not sterile universe.
Your question is nonsensical.
Why should theists have to answer nonsensical questions?
(March 27, 2014 at 6:00 am)Esquilax Wrote: Now demonstrate that the universe was designed to be as it is now; if you can't demonstrate a designer in the first place than the idea that it arose even out of random chance isn't a problem for anyone. It's like demanding that there must be a designer for a rockslide because the chances of all those rocks just landing in those exact spatial positions is very low; you're technically correct about the odds, but you've not shown why the rocks being in those particular positions is the "success" state for them.
The probability of A being true can never exceed the probability of the existence of a sufficient intellect.
The probability of B being true can never exceed the probability of the existence of a Multiverse which creates/created daughter universes.
Your point doesn't give us any reason to favor B over A because neither the sufficient intellect nor the multiverse have been observed by us.
