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Strong Anthropic Principle vs Creationism
#21
RE: Strong Anthropic Principle vs Creationism
(July 15, 2014 at 2:47 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:
(July 15, 2014 at 1:53 am)DaFinchi Wrote: My problem with the weak anthropic principle is that it doesn't address the issue of potentially varying universal constants.

It is, of course, possible that somewhere down the line we'll figure out why everything has to stack up exactly as it does and why no other possible configurations can exist, but at present (and this doesn't necessarily mean much) cosmologists are drawing a blank.
Sure, it doesn't answer WHY but if a sensible answer to that even exists we're probably still a long ways off--and creationism offers no solution to that basic question either.

Quote:The strong principle - or rather, the variant of it that calls on multiverses - seems to be the only one that addresses a regular theist argument - i.e. that the chances of the physical constants of the universe happening to exist in a configuration capable of supporting life are infinitessimal.
I thought this was the weak version; basically that our existence is simply one result of many possible configurations, while the strong held that intelligence in the Universe was compelled or in some sense integral to the fundamental constants. Have I got it wrong?

No, you got it right and I got it mixed up. Sorry *^_^*

(July 15, 2014 at 10:52 am)Esquilax Wrote:
(July 15, 2014 at 9:48 am)DaFinchi Wrote: In, as far as we know, all of them but this one, life couldn't exist. So it's less like drawing four aces and more like rolling a '1' on a billion-sided die.

"As far as we know," is a dangerous phrase. Just so long as you keep in mind that our knowledge on this issue isn't complete, so there could in fact be multiple "life" sides on that billion-sided die.

Agreed absolutely. In fact, it's very likely. Thing is, most of the other combinations of constants involve pretty huge differences in how the universe is put together - even the tiniest variation in any of the four forces would prevent matter from cohering or cause a big crunch. Hard to imagine "life" in whatever configuration prospering in those circumstances - though as you point out, we really don't know.

Quote:
Quote:That life results is not, per se, significant - it could be any equally unlikely result - the key thing is that life appears to be very, very, very unlikely. Hence multiverse or God.

Why the false dichotomy? Multiverse or god? How about neither? Like I said, the current state of the universe, as a result, isn't necessarily significant, and so there's no need to form an explanation for why it shook out to form life, as opposed to not. There's no problem here that needs solving (in a theism/atheism debate sense, I mean. I fully accept that we should attempt to find out just as an investigative measure.)

You asked in your OP whether it takes the same sort of leaps of faith to believe in the multiverse as it does to believe in god, and my first reaction is, why believe in either? Accept them as possibilities, sure, but I don't really know why you keep bringing up the unlikelihood of life as though it entails one or the other, especially when we don't even know the likelihood of life to begin with.

Quote:Saying "who'd notice?" - yeah, I know, if we weren't there, we wouldn't be able to ask where the universe comes from. But that still ignores the infinitessimal probability that in the single instance of the universe we know of, the constants did end up in this configuration.

What's the issue you're actually having with the probability, here? Because I'm really not seeing it. Thinking

Yeah, I'm getting that, but I really don't know how to explain myself any more clearly and I just don't understand what it is about my probability issue you're not grasping.

If you randomised all physical constants in the universe the chances of the resulting universe surviving long enough or containing stable enough matter for live to evolve is tiny.

Let's leave life aside. Let's assume we're talking about any configuration of universal properties that is extremely rare (yes, I agree, the rarity of life supporting universes is an assumption, but just roll with that for now). I dunno... everything's purple... stars look like donuts... The Phantom Menace was a really good movie... something absurdly unlikely.

The probability of that possibility happening in the single universe that exists is very small.

That means, to my mind, that either something picked that possibility, or that all possibilities exist.

(July 15, 2014 at 4:25 am)FreeTony Wrote: Just so we are using the same terms, according to wikipedia:

Strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow and Tipler states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, for conscious life to eventually emerge. (Tipler is a Theist btw and has come up with some real nonsense).

Weak anthropic principle (WAP) which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias: i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing any such fine tuning, while a universe less compatible with life will go unbeheld.

The WAP is the Anthropic principle as I remember it being briefly mentioned at university. You don't need multiverses to support either. In fact I'd go as far as to say that the idea of multiverses is neat to a physicist as it provides a sort of symmetry often seen in nature. But it remains at the hypothesis stage for now.

If the universe is fine tuned for humans, then whatever did it didn't do a brilliant job.

Agnostic Atheism is the default position. You don't need to now anything about fine tuning, multiverses, even any physics at all to be an Agnostic Atheist.

Have changed my mind again. The idea that a universe's configuration could only develop in one way and that way supports life is just as unlikely as it being able to develop any way and doing so to support life in our instance. So SAP is back off the table.

Very good point indeed about the universe not being optimised for human life. I guess just being able to support life at all seems at this point pretty unlikely. But yeah, I'm not arguing for the possibility of a creator who gives a flying fornication about humans Smile

(July 15, 2014 at 12:40 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:
(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: Hi all,

This is a question that's been bothering me for a while. I'd be interested to read your thoughts.

Don't the assumption that there's a multiverse in which all possible combinations of physical constraints exist, and the assumption that some form of timeless deity created the universe, both require the same number of unprovable assumptions?

Not all assumptions are created equal. You can't just count them to determine whose position is most unreasonable. It depends on what the assumptions are.

Now in the case of a multiverse, it was not proposed to explain fine tuning, it was proposed to explain scientific findings. As a rule, scientific rationalists do not assume the multiverse, they just recognize it as a viable option given current knowledge. The multiverse hypothesis has one big advantage over the deity proposal: while it may not currently be falsifiable in practice, it is at least falsifiable in principle. There is possible evidence that we may someday be equipped to detect that could tend to support or disconfirm it. Even if the deity proposal is correct, apparently that is something we never get to have with it.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: I'm not talking about belief - by belief, I'm an atheist (I found the site intro's breakdown of atheists into agnostic and gnostic very useful) - but I'd like to think my perspective is based on logic and reason. And applying Occam's Razor, it's hard to pick the strong anthropic principle over creationism (specifically, I would hope it goes without saying, a creator that sets everything in motion then stands back and is entirely noninterventionist) because they both require an untestable assumption.

Most here don't agree with the strong anthropic principle, the weak anthropic principle is the most that it seems justified to accept.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: Without a logical preference for either option, I have to resign myself to agnostic atheism, which seems a poor option as it's as much based on belief as a theist's position (no offence, you theists).

By definition, atheism is at least about what you don't believe. But an agnostic atheist can believe scientific explanations are more likely than supernatural ones. At least they have math that works.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: So please, point out my logical fallacy...

False dichotomy, I think.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: Apologies if I've misunderstood the anthropic principle, or if this is a well-discussed topic - a quick search turned up a couple of general threads about universal origins with hundreds of posts.

All the best,

DF

Welcome to the forum, I hope you like it here. You bring up an interesting topic.

(July 15, 2014 at 1:53 am)DaFinchi Wrote: My problem with the weak anthropic principle is that it doesn't address the issue of potentially varying universal constants.

Nothing really does. That the constants are actually variables that would be different if the universe was being re-started is a fun thought experiment, but we don't actually know that they could be anything other that what they are, that is, we don't know that they aren't what they are by necessity. Just because we don't know why they have the values they do doesn't mean it folloows that they are arbitrary. With a sample size of one, we aren't justified in making assumptions about different possible constants because we don't really know they're possible. It's a 'what if' exercise. The conclusions of thinking about what might be the case IF the constants were different, IF they vary by certain amounts, IF their values aren't related to each other...aren't something you can take and claim that 'therefore the universe we find ourselves in is vanishingly unlikely'. It's only that unlikely if all the ifs are actually the case.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: It is, of course, possible that somewhere down the line we'll figure out why everything has to stack up exactly as it does and why no other possible configurations can exist, but at present (and this doesn't necessarily mean much) cosmologists are drawing a blank.

Which means we have no way of actually estimating the odds, which means we can't presume they're slim.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: The strong principle - or rather, the variant of it that calls on multiverses - seems to be the only one that addresses a regular theist argument - i.e. that the chances of the physical constants of the universe happening to exist in a configuration capable of supporting life are infinitessimal.

That's a claim, not an argument, and the only thing supporting it is speculation. And if it's true, only THEN is the multiverse argument relevant. And there's already some weak evidence that our universe has been impacted by others in the cosmic background radiation. Personally I suspect that there are multiple universes, and that universes like ours aren't that rare because the constants probably have to be close to what they are due to the necessity of an energy budget that adds up to zero.

(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: (That's not to say that other forms of life are impossible with other configurations, but as I understand it, even the tiniest variation would cause atoms to fail to cohere, stars to fail to form, the universe to crunch, etc).

Given an infinite number of possible configurations, there are an infinite number of stable configurations.

Yes, but (probably) a smaller number of stable configurations Smile

But that's nitpicking. I really like this answer, so thanks very much indeed for it.

Fundamentally, then, you're saying my (false) dichotomy rests on the significant assumption that life-supporting universes are rare, and there's just no evidence that this is the case.

So ultimately we're forced back to agnostic atheism because we're unable to determine how unlikely the existence of a life-supporting universe is, and therefore whether we need to account for a low probability.

Check. Thanks.

I'm very interested in what you say about a limited number of configurations leading to a zero energy budget - do you by any chance have links to further reading on that?
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#22
RE: Strong Anthropic Principle vs Creationism
(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: Hi all,

Don't the assumption that there's a multiverse in which all possible combinations of physical constraints exist, and the assumption that some form of timeless deity created the universe, both require the same number of unprovable assumptions?

I'm not talking about belief - by belief, I'm an atheist (I found the site intro's breakdown of atheists into agnostic and gnostic very useful) - but I'd like to think my perspective is based on logic and reason. And applying Occam's Razor, it's hard to pick the strong anthropic principle over creationism (specifically, I would hope it goes without saying, a creator that sets everything in motion then stands back and is entirely noninterventionist) because they both require an untestable assumption.

The difference is, of course, the assumptions of multiverse carries with it neither the threat of hell, nor any other demand for us here in this universe to accept any intellectual constraint in its service or perform any action in its behalf. As it is untestable, so it does not cojole or browbeat, or make demands against your intellectual integrity, unlike creationism.
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#23
RE: Strong Anthropic Principle vs Creationism
(July 15, 2014 at 7:29 pm)Chuck Wrote:
(July 15, 2014 at 12:36 am)DaFinchi Wrote: Hi all,

Don't the assumption that there's a multiverse in which all possible combinations of physical constraints exist, and the assumption that some form of timeless deity created the universe, both require the same number of unprovable assumptions?

I'm not talking about belief - by belief, I'm an atheist (I found the site intro's breakdown of atheists into agnostic and gnostic very useful) - but I'd like to think my perspective is based on logic and reason. And applying Occam's Razor, it's hard to pick the strong anthropic principle over creationism (specifically, I would hope it goes without saying, a creator that sets everything in motion then stands back and is entirely noninterventionist) because they both require an untestable assumption.

The difference is, of course, the assumptions of multiverse carries with it neither the threat of hell, nor any other demand for us here in this universe to accept any intellectual constraint in its service or perform any action in its behalf. As it is untestable, so it does not cojole or browbeat, or make demands against your intellectual integrity, unlike creationism.

As a previous poster pointed out, the multiverse theory is at least theoretically falsifiable too, which makes it preferable.

But I just want to drive a wedge between the Judeo-Christian and other ideas of a creator and, as it were, a 'pure' creator. I'm not arguing that the existence of any deity described in various human religious texts could be real, nor that any creator would threaten hell or require service - so I'm really in no way saying one of the religions could be right.

I'm just saying that based on the (it would appear flawed) assumption that life supporting universes are extremely rare, deliberate creation by an entity (that afterwards has nothing to do with its creation) or multiverse are the most satisfying options, because they take account of the probability issue.

Virtually all religions are demonstrably wrong, internally inconsistent and clearly human constructs. I can't think of one that isn't, but there might be one out there.
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#24
RE: Strong Anthropic Principle vs Creationism
You may be right but for the wrong reasons also.
What if our galaxy is just 1 small cog or enzyme in a greater "living" entity and our universe needs to be that way so the "whole" can function.

"Inner Space" came to mind just then...
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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