1. There are things we don't know about the universe. [me: I agree]
2. Therefore, it must be like this. [me: uh.... wait;.. what?] — jajsfaye

I don't recall basing any claim on things we don't know about the universe. Could you be specific?

There is speculation that evidence of multiverses may be found — jajsfaye

It seems that you're the one relying on what we do not know. To be falsifiable, a theory must make a prediction that can be tested. Speculation about an unobserved possibility is not a prediction. If a theory predicted that we will find a specific feature of CMB radiation that is otherwise unexplained, then if we didn't find that feature, we'd know the theory was false. Any theory that does not provide such a definitive test is mythic, not scientific.

We cannot make any assumptions without additional information. — jajsfaye

Exactly. So, multiverse speculation is not a rational answer to the fine tuning argument. Let me be clear. I don't think the fine tuning argument proves anything. Still, it makes a very strong case in the legal sense. Evidence-free speculation about a multiverse with varied constants is not a rational rebuttal to that case. It is only an excuse for continuing to be an atheist in the face of overwhelming evidence of intelligence.

Let's be fair, since the fine-tuning argument is not a deductive proof, it can be ignored in good faith, but the reasons for doing so aren't scientific. They are usually an extra-scientific commitment to metaphysical naturalism. Letting ones faith-commitments influence one's science is no more rational for atheists than for creationists.

However, if we do come up with a good reason to conclude the universe was intentional, then that implies the universe is only part of a larger realm of which includes the entity that caused the universe as it intended. But then we just moved the original question (is universe intentional or random) to this larger realm. — jajsfaye

Yes, and no. It would be larger in a conceptual sense than that assumed by metaphysical naturalists. It need be no larger in a physical sense if the intelligence acted immanently, as suggested by Aquinas, inter alia.

Why continue stating falsities? — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it false to say that what motivates a scientist may not be what motivates those funding her research? Based on personal experience, I would say not. My interest in physics was always to come to a fundamental understanding of nature -- to know, purely for the sake of knowing. Funders have their own reasons. Sometimes, as with the funding of colliders and space telescopes, they do not expect any short-term return on investment. Other times they do.

the predictive capacity of the model does not rely on knowing that certain things are true. — Metaphysician Undercover

I beg to differ. I suspect that our difference is not on facts, but on our understanding of "truth." I said in my original post in this thread, "Following Isaac ben Israel and Aquinas, I take truth to be the adequacy (not correspondence) of what is in the mind to reality." I went on to explain that adequacy is an analogous term. What is adequate to one need may be inadequate to another.

Since Thales succeeded in his goal of predicting the eclipse, clearly his understanding of astronomic cycles, of his place in those cycles and of the relevant mathematics was adequate to the reality of concern to him (when the eclipse would occur). So, by definition, his knowledge was true. If he had an inadequate knowledge of astronomical cycles, his place in them, or the relevant mathematics, his knowledge would have been inadequate and so false.

You seem to fault Thales for supporting geocentrism. I think this is based on facts not in evidence; however, let's assume he did. How did his belief in geocentrism make his knowledge inadequate to the requirements of eclipse prediction? It did not. The fact is that the Ptolemaic model provided more accurate predictions than the heliocentric model throughout the 18th century -- up until La Place published his Celestial Mechanics.

Go ahead, insist that there is no such thing as "truth" in this matter, declare that it's all reference dependent, you are only arguing against your own claim that we need to know that certain things are true. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're not grasping what I'm saying. Going back to Isaac ben Solomon Israeli (ca. 855–955), and seconded by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), truth has been defined as the adequatio (approach to equality) between intellect and reality. Approach to equality is not a univocal concept, but depends on our contextual need. How close to reality do our mental representations need to be? Close enough for the purpose at hand -- a concept reflected by the modern term "adequacy."

So, I'm not saying there is no truth about frames of reference. Rather, many frames can give adequate representations. (Remember, frames of reference are not aspects of nature, but means of representation -- just as quantum phenomena can be represented by matrices or wave equations.) Still, some frames are more adequate to specific needs than others. Thus, in the 18th c, the Ptolemy's geocentric model was more adequate to prediction, while the Newton's heliocentric model was more adequate to the dynamics.

the "reality" of what is being modeled depends on the model. — Metaphysician Undercover

This misunderstands of one of the central insights of 20th c. physics: Features that depend on our choice of representation are not features of nature. For example, there is nothing wrong with assuming the earth is at rest, or the center of the universe, as long as we recognize that these things are subjective choices rather than physical facts.

How can there be a veridical appearance when how things appear depends on the frame of reference? — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, you are misunderstanding. Appearances (phenomena) do not depend on what frame of reference we choose -- mathematical representations do. Phenomena are aspects of how the cosmos acts on us. It is only after the cosmos has acted on us (or our instruments), when we describe the data mathematically, that we choose a frame of reference. There is nothing irrevocable in the choice -- we can transform data represented in one frame into another frame whenever we want.

the trend in modern science, due to the way that scientific projects are funded, is toward usefulness, and that is mostly found in predictive capacity. — Metaphysician Undercover

How we frame things for funding purposes is not evidence for our personal motivations.

Thales predicted a solar eclipse based on models which had the sun and moon orbiting the earth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thales could not have predicted a solar eclipse without assuming truth of the body of astronomical knowledge he received. He need to know the observed cycles (the scientific laws of his day) and where in those cycles he was when he made the prediction (aka the initial conditions).

Whether we think of the sun orbiting the earth, the earth orbiting the sun, or both orbiting the galactic center depends on which frame of reference we chose to employ. None is a uniquely true frame of reference, only more or less suited to our present need.

You seem to think that we must know everything to know a data set adequate to our needs. Of course, we do not. Truth is the adequacy (not exhaustion) of what we think to the reality we are encountering.

appearance is not necessarily truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, but when appearances are false they're useless to physical science. Only veridical appearances (observed phenomena) are of use in the study of nature.

A few observations.

First, time neither exists as such outside of the mind, nor is it a mental fiction. Aristotle was dead-on when he defined time as the measure of motion (aka change) according to before and after. So, it is based on the reality of change, yet, it is not change itself, but the result of a humans processing (measuring) change.

Second, atomist prejudices aside, there is no reason to think that the cosmos is made of particles. Quantum theory uses wave equations to describe the nature of things, with so-called "wave-particle duality" resulting from an unwillingness to give up the old dogmas.

Third, our best cosmological theories do not see the universe as ending in collapse, but in an ignominious heat death. Thus, the idea of cycling is passe.

Fourth, while many cosmologists speculate about a multiverse,
a. A multiverse is not entailed in any accepted theory. (We have no accepted theory of quantum gravity.)
b. The multiverse hypothesis not falsifiable (since other universes are, by definition, dynamically isolated from ours), and therefore not scientific, but mythological.
c. Even if there were other universes, there is no reason to believe that their physics (including their fine tuned constants) would be any different from ours.
i. The most parsimonious assumption is that they do not differ in any fundamental way from ours.
ii. We have no theory explaining why our physical constants have the values they do. Absent such a theory, we can say how they could have different values, and cannot rationally predict that they will have different values in other universes.
iii. If we could deduce the existence of other universes (we cannot presently), our deduction would be based on the physics learned in this universe. But, if another universe had different physics (to avoid fine tuning in that universe), the physics learned in this universe would be in applicable, and the deduction would break down.
d. The reason given for the existence of other universes is explicitly atheological -- not scientific.

Fifth, we know that there are laws of nature that physics studies and tries to describe. if these laws had no ontological reality, physics would be a species of fiction, not a science.
a. These laws are immaterial -- it is a category error to ask what they are made of.
b. They are also intentional. Franz Brentano determined that the defining characteristic of intentionality is "aboutness." Ideas are about their potential instances. Acts of will are about the states they seek to instantiate. In the same way, the laws of nature (as opposed to their approximate descriptions, the laws of physics) are about the states they bring to pass.

Thus, physics reveals that our universe is fundamentally intentional, both in its laws and in the values of its constants.

Real Truth is inaccessible to us because of physical and mental filters between us and the real world, namely biological, cultural, and psychological. — Kaiser Basileus

Of course this is meaningless in the absence of a definition of "real truth" as opposed to faux truth. Fr me, truth is the adequacy of what is inthe intellect to reality. Adequacy is a relative concept, depending on contextual need.

Further, you seem unaware that all knowledge is both subjective and objective. There is always some known object and some knowing subject. Further, the objective content we know has both an objective object, and a subjective object. If we see an apple the objective object is the apple and the subjective object (the data about the knowing subject) is that we can see, see these colors, etc. Thus, there is no biological, cultural, or psychological distortion -- there is only biological, cultural, and psychological data admixed with data on the objective object. If someone is too unreflective to recognize this, that can be corrected if the person is open-minded.

There is no a priori knowledge, no logical necessity independent of metaphysical necessity. What we call a priori is a posteriori with resect to our learning experiences, and the only "a priori" thereafter because it is constrained by our experiential understanding of being. Logic is not about laws of thought, but about laws of thought applicable to reality. I can think <square circle> but I can't make a real square circle, nor can I instantiate an image of a square circle. These are ontological, not conceptual limitations. The ideas <square> and <circle> are abstracted form experience, not granted from on high. So, logical necessity isn't an independent category, but something we grasp by experiencing reality.

Finally, as we have no way of measuring subjective certainty, assigning it a mathematical value is only a way of clothing subjective bias in mathematical garb.

8. God created this world instead of a world of free willed beings that do not sin.
9. Therefore God chose a world with needless pain and suffering.
10. Therefore God is not omnibenevolent. — Relativist

This is a fallacious. It assumes that God could know, independently of actually creating, what free-will creatures would choose. This requires that free will choices can be known independently of the existence of the agents making them. That is contrary to the nature of free-will agency.

The existence of free-will is convertible with the existence of creatures who are responsible for at least some of their own acts. But, no one is responsible for acts that must occur independently of their actual existence. So, in order to know what a free-will agent chooses, the agent must actually choose it. If this were not so, the agent would be pre-determined to the choice, and so not free -- at least not in the sense that would underwrite responsibility.

Thus, while God can create a creature who does not choose to sin, God cannot know that the creature does not choose to sin in the absence of creating that creature. This does not contradict divine omniscience as God still knows all that actually is, and all that it is in His power to do. Note that God does not know creation by prediction, but by His self-awareness in holding creation in being throughout the space-time manifold.

Exactly!

I am an Aristotelian.

1. I reject the correspondence view of truth.
a. While it works in many cases, it is flawed. Nothing corresponds to universal ideas or negations. There is no one-to-one mapping between what we think and reality. Reality is much more coomplex than our limited experience and abstractions reveal.
b. The definition of Isaac ben Israel, adopted by Aquinas is much better: Truth is the adequacy of intellect and reality. Adequacy is a relative concept. What is adequate to one requirement need not be adequate to another. It is not lying to teach Newtonian physics to civil engineers, even though it is woefully inadequate in quantum and relativistic contexts. This means that truth is an analogous concept -- partly the same and partly different depending on context. What is adequate for physics may be inadequate for metaphysics.

2. I think knowledge is not a species of belief.
a. I define knowledge as awareness of present reality. Reality is present by acting on us, My knowledge of my keyboard is due to it acting on my sensory system, and my awareness of some of the effects it has wrought. Things can be cognitively present directly (by acting on me) or indirectly (by having acted on others, who act on me).
b. A belief is completely different. It does not require awareness of the presence of the object of belief. Instead it is a commitment to the truth of a proposition which is the object of belief. So, while knowing is an act of intellect (our capacity to be aware), believing, as a commitment, is an act of will. So, while Descartes knew he was in his chamber (because it acted on him via his senses), he chose (for methodological reasons) not to believe he was in his chamber. This act of will (Cartesian doubt) was completely orthogonal to his knowledge, and so, no reason to question what he knew.

3. As Aristotle pointed out, not all propositions can be proven. Some must be accepted without proof, i.e., as fundamental.
a. Fundamental propositions are knowable. Although we cannot prove them, we can know them experientially. For example "This apple is red." We know from experience that the phantasm (bound contents) that evokes the concept <this apple> is the identical phantasm that evokes the concept <red>. As the proposition's truth is based on identity of origin, the copula "is" denotes identity -- not of concepts, but of foundation in reality.
b. Once we have a population of fundamental, experiential propositions, we begin a constructive movement we can call "modeling." It adds to our experienced content new notes of intelligibility to "fill in the gaps." These constructive elements or gap fillers, are not known, but are believed. That does not make them unimportant, or even unreliable, as we test them in daily living. E.g., we expect objects to persist, even when we don't experience them. Many of these gap-filling beliefs are so reliable, that we are willing to say we "know" them -- even though we can't derive them from experience.
c. Considering Eddington's two tables, for example, we think of the table of everyday experience as continuous and not atomic because the construct of continuity is adequate to our everyday needs. Our dishes, knives and forks do not fall through it, onto the floor. We don't think it's continuous as a result of direct experience of its microstructure. So, while the notion of macroscopic continuity is experiential, adequate to our usual needs, and so true; that of microscopic continuity is a gap filler, and unreliable when consider the table's microstructure.

4. If our knowledge were merely a self-consistent set of beliefs, we would have no reason to think they would be applicable to reality. Why?
a. In order to apply our knowledge to reality, we need to recognize that we're dealing with an instance of something we know. For example, to apply "Coral snakes are dangerous," we must recognize that we are facing a coral snake. If the animal before us could not evoke the concept <coral snake>, we could never recognize it as one. But if sensing it can evoke the concept, then our knowledge is not merely a self-consistent web, but linked to reality.
b. Again, if our knowledge were merely a self-consistent web, experimental data could never change our knowledge. First, we would not know the results, because that requires experiential input, and second, what was self-consistent before would not become inconsistent. The only inconsistency is between what we used to think and the new, experiential data.

I myself am obliged to accept the reality of Platonic forms, essences and substantial being — Wayfarer

I wonder what so obligates you? I see no need for Platonic forms, only several concrete objects able to evoke the same concept. This gives our concepts an objective basis in the power of each token to evoke the same concept, but does not imply that there is some exemplar that is more or less perfectly reflected in each instance.

Positing a Platonic idea or exemplar implies, for example, that some individuals are more human (better reflect the exemplar) than others. This can only foster prejudice and injustice.

"That's pragmatism for you. It's why science has turned to prediction as its MO rather than truth. Prediction is useful, truth is just interesting ... but only to some."

Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover

To define my terms: Following Isaac ben Israel and Aquinas, I take truth to be the adequacy (not correspondence) of what is in the mind to reality. Tis definition makes "truth" an analogous, rather then a univocal term. In other words, it is often predicated in sense that are partly the same and partly different. The sameness lies in the element of adequacy, and the difference in the needs to which the mental representation is adequate. What is adequate for moral decision making may be inadequate to engineering purposes, and that again need not be adequate for metaphysical reflection. What is adequate for classical situations is inadequate for relativistic or quantum conditions.

That said, this is a mischaracterization of science. Science is, in part, descriptive of what is and has been, and so concerned with states of reality, not merely prediction. Biology, astronomy and oceanography provide numerous examples of objective description rather than prediction. Cosmology is at least as concerned with the origins of the cosmos as with its fate.

Second, unless we know that certain things are true, reliable prediction is impossible. We need a set of initial conditions (e.g., the present sate of reality), an adequate knowledge of the relevant dynamics, and, usually, a knowledge that they mathematics we are employing is adequate to the reality we wish to predict. Thus, whatever practical end our prediction msy seek to advance, our foundation needs be a firm grasp of truth.

Finally, recall Aristotle's bold opening claim in the Metaphysics: "All humans by nature desire to know." We find things interesting because knowing them brings satisfaction, and where there is satisfaction, there is a desire satisfied, The present discussion and those like it are not aimed at practical prediction, but at theoretical satisfaction.