Cool. I don't particularly enjoy bickering with people and I really appreciate reading the different views here, especially those composed from careful reading and thinking. Which is the reason I joined.

Frankly, I can't help what I beleive. I have read enough to know something of what's out there and I was for many years connected to the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, so it's not like I sit with Dawkins.

For me, philosophy is not so much a search for truth or reality but a search for models and ideas that I can justify. Sure this is fraught. But so are most other approaches.

Frankly, I can't help what I beleive. I have read enough to know something of what's out there and I was for many years connected to the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, so it's not like I sit with Dawkins.

For me, philosophy is not so much a search for truth or reality but a search for models and ideas that I can justify. Sure it's fraught. But so are most other approaches. — Tom Storm

Sure you can. Adjusting your own beliefs is a primary goal of philosophy. The alternative is Blind Faith in an adopted model devised by others. My goal is to construct a belief model of my own. It's similar to some others, but also different.

In college I looked into Theosophy. Like Masonic philosophy, I can see the appeal of the general worldview. But I don't have any experience of Mysticism, so I can't relate to the ecstatic communion with God.

Dawkins has been described as an "angry atheist", but I found him open-minded enough to admit that Deism was not contrary to Science. :smile:

It's a pretty carefully put-together OP, but on an unpopular topic. — Wayfarer

The OP was intended to be a book review blog post, for an almost non-existent audience. But at the last minute, I thought, hey why not stir-up some controversy on the Philosophy Forum? At least I get more feedback that way. Unfortunately, most of the feedback is of the Ad Hominem and Straw Man type, as I expected. Consequently, I haven't learned much so far. :smile:

PS___Although I don't agree with Meyer's religion, I find his scientific summaries to be very well done.

The monkey case is not an article of faith. It's just an upshot of the probabilities.

It is not an article of faith that if you toss a coin long enough, you'll eventually toss 10 heads in a row. The same applies to the monkey and the typewriter: add enough time and the monkey will eventually type something indistinguishable from the works of Shakespeare.

It misses the point to think that Hume's point is undermined if the odds are longer than previously thought. All Hume's point requires is that it'll happen eventually and that this is the simplest explanation of why we observe an ordered universe. The odds are irrelevant.

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning.

First, for any number of ways the universe could have turned out to be, the intelligence could have designed the universe in that way. So if there are 10 trillion ways the universe could have turned out, then there are 10 trillion different designs an intelligent designer could have been working to. For any given way the universe could turn out, is a way an intelligent designer could have wanted it to turn out.

Well, now the odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out the way it actually did, is 1 in 10 trillion. And that is the same probability that it would just turn out that way by chance. (And again, it does not matter what the odds are, the odds are the same either way).

Thus, no explanatory advantage comes from positing a designer. The odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out that way is the same as the odds that chance would produce it.

Some other methodological Naturalists are so dogmatic that I don't waste my time dialoging with them. :smile: — Gnomon

Funny how those same naturalists see through your bullshit and don't hesitate to call you on it.

It's not dogmatism, it's just that there is so much evidence which proves that you spew bullshit, and I happen to know somewhat about such evidence.

You're inviting scorn quoting Discovery Institute entries on this site, most people won't even look at them. I'm wary of them also, even though I agree with ID proponents about the philosophical shortcomings of naturalism and I do look at that site from time to time. I've read the reviews of Signature in the Cell and I don't think it's all bullshit. It's more that I find their reading of the Bible more problematic than the science.

Thomas Nagel had this to say in the beginning of Mind and Cosmos:

In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture from a very different direction: the attack on Darwinism mounted in recent years from a religious perspective by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair.

Those who have seriously criticized these arguments have certainly shown that there are ways to resist the design conclusion; but the general force of the negative part of the intelligent design position—skepticism about the likelihood of the orthodox reductive view, given the available evidence—does not appear to me to have been destroyed in these exchanges. At least, the question should be regarded as open. — Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (pp. 10-11

In that, I agree with him (and you!)

There are many alternatives to the Discovery Institute. One is Biologos, which is mainly staffed by scientists with Christian convictions - generally described as advocating 'theistic evolution'. Theistic evolution is the belief that God manifests the process of evolution. It integrates mainstream evolutionary science with a theistic worldview, maintaining that natural processes (e.g., natural selection, mutation) are not in conflict with God's creative plan. Theistic evolutionists typically do not seek to identify direct divine interventions in biological processes.

Classical theists including D B Hart and Edward Feser are generally critical (sometimes extremely so) of ID theory on the basis that it is reductionist in its own way. Hart argues that the ID movement tends to depict God as a kind of cosmic engineer—a being within the system of causation who intervenes to design complex systems or solve problems that natural processes cannot (J B Haldane's 'the Lord has an inordinate fondness for beetles'). This, he believes, reduces God to a finite agent within the created order, akin to a super-engineer or craftsman. Such a view is incompatible with classical theism, which understands God as the ground of being itself (ipsum esse subsistens), beyond the dichotomy of natural and supernatural. Likewise see Aquinas v Intelligent Design for a critique from a Catholic perspective.

I've often thought that the fundamentalist believers and new atheists kind of mirror each other in a way - Richard Dawkins was called a 'secular fundamentalist' by Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame).

Finally, there's The Third Way, a group of dissident, but mainstream, biological theorists and academics, who reject both neo-darwinian materialism and fundamentalist creationism:

The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process.

They have an impressive list of contributors and a diversity of views. I'm particularly drawn to Steve Talbott's essays on philosophy of biology, as published on The New Atlantis.

But it's all food for thought and grist for the mill, to mix metaphors. I do think the argument from biological information is quite persuasive, and that the proposal that DNA kind of just spontaneously ravelled itself into existence, which a lot of people seem to take for granted, is far-fetched.

Some other methodological Naturalists are so dogmatic that I don't waste my time dialoging with them.
— Gnomon

Funny how those same naturalists see through your bullshit and don't hesitate to call you on it.

It's not dogmatism, it's just that there is so much evidence which proves that you spew bullshit, and I happen to know somewhat about such evidence. — wonderer1

:100:

@Gnomon spews that as if 'methodological Supernaturalists' like him are not "dogmatic" and do not spectacularly fail in every instance to produce testable, explanatory models of natural phenomena.

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning. — Clearbury

:up:

Also, given that only a vanishingly insignificant fraction of the volumn of the observable universe is hospitable to any form of life that we can recognize as such, "the fine-tuning argument"^ is not sound. Like "the cosmological argument"^ which is unsound as well insofar as the universe (i.e. spacetime) had developed from a planck radius of (eternal) a-causal, or random, activity. Such medieval dogmas^, in fact, amount to nothing but 'god-of-the-gaps' appeals to ignorance, of which the OP is a pseudo-scientific, "creationist" specimen. :sparkle: :eyes: :pray:

To wit:

Thomas Nagel had this to say ... — Wayfarer

:roll: And 'mysterian¹ apologetics' gets us where?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_closure_(philosophy) [1]

(vide CS Peirce re: abductive reasoning²)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning [2]

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning. — Clearbury

We only have evidence for one Big Bang and a single Singularity. So, are you placing your Faith in an imaginary chance-driven infinite series of bangs (Multiverse) to try-out all those alternative settings? Sounds like a new twist on a medieval Scholastic theory for the same old eternal creator deity, except presumed to be blind, deaf & dumb (e.g. Tychism) instead of cosmically intelligent.

Another enthusiastically postulated alternative explanation to avoid the implications of deliberate (non-chance) tuning of Big Bang settings was the 26 dimensional String Theory, which blossomed into dozens of weird variations, none with any supporting physical evidence. Would you believe that String Theory was motivated, not by scientific inquiry, but by the discomfort of scientists with the design implications of Big Bang fine-tuning? ST was supposed to fix the "flatness problem". Yet, as Meyer said in the book : "both the homogeneity and the flatness problems are only considered problems by those who regarded the existence of fine tuning a problem".

Today, String Theory has been abandoned by most physicists because it was leading them down the rabbit hole. Beside, some of its essential predictions (supersymmetry) have failed to materialize over 20 years. So, the fine-tuning evidence remains a problem for those who prefer an accidental universe. Has your alternative produced any plausible evidence, besides elaborate estimates of cosmic odds? :smile:

The Greek goddess Tyche is the goddess of chance, fortune, and fate. ___Google AI overview

The "flatness problem" in the Big Bang theory refers to the observation that our universe appears to be very close to perfectly flat, which would require incredibly precise initial conditions in the early universe, making it seem like a strange coincidence that the density of matter was just right to achieve this flatness; essentially, if the density had been slightly higher or lower, the universe would be significantly curved instead of flat today. ___Google AI overview

String theory is a complex theory that has been the subject of much debate and skepticism. While it has passed many mathematical and theoretical tests, it has not yet been proven to be the fundamental theory of nature. Some say that string theory has been superseded by other theories, while others say that the theory has been extended but not progressed much in understanding the physical world. ___Google AI overview

You're inviting scorn quoting Discovery Institute entries on this site, most people won't even look at them. I'm wary of them also, even though I agree with ID proponents about the philosophical shortcomings of naturalism and I do look at that site from time to time. I've read the reviews of Signature in the Cell and I don't think it's all bullshit. It's more that I find their reading of the Bible more problematic than the science. — Wayfarer

Oh, yes, scathing scorn is the default philosophical argument for faithful Naturalist/Materialists. And they don't seem to be aware of the deficiencies of their own alternative explanations. You seem to be unafraid to go against the grain of this forum. Why do you even bother? As long as their slings & arrows are made of information & ideas instead of mass & matter, I will survive.

I knew going in that I would get knee-jerk responses to Intelligent Design arguments. But the Discovery Institute is careful to present arguments that could make sense, not just to true-believers, but also to those with some extensive knowledge of modern science. And Meyer's book is exemplary in its appeal to reason instead of faith. There is no "reading of the Bible" in the book. And there is no "come to Jesus" chapter. It's just a thorough presentation of atheist arguments in favor of a random Chance world, along with counter-arguments to refute them.

Atheist Physicist Leonard Susskind --- A Chorus of Big Bangs ---is quoted saying "without any explanation of nature's fine tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the the ID (intelligent design) critics." So, Stephen Meyer has provided a comprehensive summary of the questions to be answered. He also gives several scientists an opportunity to respond, so you can see both sides of the design controversy, presented rationally and without rancor.

I have never bothered to read the various Intelligent Design books, in part because I was raised to believe in the designer they are defending. Now I'm looking for evidence of a different kind of designer : one who designs with intelligent Information instead of thus-saith-the-lord. Causal Information (e.g. physical energy) is the kind of creative Intelligence that my non-religious science-based worldview is grounded upon. So, on that point, I am in agreement with Susskind*1. :smile:



*1. Leonard Susskind said Information is indestructible. What kind of information does he mean?
Information is key in the universe. The universe needs to constantly "compute what the present must be like".
https://www.quora.com/Leonard-Susskind-said-Information-is-indestructible-What-kind-of-information-does-he-mean

Oh, yes, scathing scorn is the default philosophical argument for faithful Naturalist/Materialists. — Gnomon

There are dogmatists on both sides, although I think the overall atmosphere has changed since the early 2000's and the heyday of New Atheism.

As for Meyer - I think his negative arguments against reductionism are OK, but I'm sceptical of the personalist God that American Protestants advocate. If they interrogated me, they'd probably decide I was atheist, even though I'm not. Here's a critical review of his Signature in the Cell by a believing Christian, but one who doesn't buy into Intelligent Design arguments.

By the way, my take on the so-called fine tuning is simply this: that the process which gave rise to intelligent sentient beings didn't begin on Earth, but with stellar reactions billions of years prior. And even those reactions were dependent upon very specific characteristics of the way the Universe emerged from the singularity in the first place (per Martin Rees and Paul Davies' books). Nobody will ever have an explanation for that, in my view, but I wouldn't make it grounds for a polemical argument, either.

It remains entirely possible that we are merely the recipients of extraordinary luck.

But if what it take for us to be here is extraordinary luck, then that we are here shows how we were lucky. While it is unlikely that some particular person won last week's the lottery, it is certain that someone did. Whoever that winner is, they can justifiably think themselves lucky, but they can not justifiably think it lucky that someone one.

It happened to be us. So what?

:up: :up:

(2022) re: @Gnomon's occult teleology (aka "seeing faces in the clouds")
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/770004

Thus, no explanatory advantage comes from positing a designer. The odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out that way is the same as the odds that chance would produce it. — Clearbury

Actually, that is a key difference between my notion of a cosmic designer and Stephen Meyer's. His creator is the God of Genesis. Mine is not. I have no revelation about what the designer wanted, but I do see signs of intention in such features of the world as Fine Tuning of the original Singularity state. So, lacking any specific information about the designing/programming entity, I simply call it the Cause of our Cosmos.

"Design" is a philosophical inference from data (such as fine tuning) not an observed fact of Physics. Even "Fine-Tuning" is an inference, and "fine" relative to what? So you can feel free to draw your own conclusions from the sparse available evidence. My inference from the contingency of Ontology is that the finite world is not self-existent. Hence, some pre-existing Cause is a logical deduction.

Which is why cosmologists have imagined a variety of non-God alternative Cosmic Causes (e.g. Multiverse ; Many Worlds) for which there is no physical evidence, but only metaphysical inferences. Long story short : I don't think the Cause of the Big Bang "wanted the universe to turn out that way". Instead, the initial conditions of the universe --- like the computer settings of Evolutionary Algorithms*1 --- were intended to be loosely bound and open to a variety of outcomes.

In other words : Free Will (maybe Schopenhauer's Will). So, the intention of the Programmer was to allow the universe to find its own state path through a limited set of possibilities. Hence, homo sapiens was just one instance of a googleplex of possibilities, not the apple of god's eye. :nerd:

*1. An evolutionary algorithm is an evolutionary AI-based computer application that solves problems by employing processes that mimic the behaviors of living things. As such, it uses mechanisms that are typically associated with biological evolution, such as reproduction, mutation and recombination.
https://www.cognizant.com/us/en/glossary/evolutionary-algorithm

Well, now the odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out the way it actually did, is 1 in 10 trillion. And that is the same probability that it would just turn out that way by chance. (And again, it does not matter what the odds are, the odds are the same either way). — Clearbury

You seem to interpret the probabilities to be in favor of random chance. But Roger Penrose --- Nobel laureate and certified mathematical genius --- reached a different conclusion. His Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis*2 used the notion of a negative "Censor" (a suppressor of something) instead of a positive "Designer" (creator of something) to characterize the "unimaginably precise fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe". He showed that there were 10^10^101 possible configurations of mass-energy, but only one actual arrangement (the singularity/seed) that cosmologists have inferred to be the origin of space-time and everything we now experience.

So, "the number that Penrose calculated -- 1 in 10^10^123 -- provided a quantitative measure of the unimaginably precise fine tuning of the initial conditions of the universe". Does that sound like a dumb accident to you, or an intelligent intentional censorship of zillions of possibilities to allow the design of a cosmic system with only a single pattern of 26 cosmic & physical constants? :smile:


*2. According to Roger Penrose's theories, the possible entropy values for the universe at its initial state are considered to be extremely low, bordering on a state of near-perfect order, which is a key component of his "Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis" and the idea of a "low-entropy initial condition" for the universe. ___Google AI overview

I think there is another, quite independent, way of undermining the argument from fine-tuning.

First, for any number of ways the universe could have turned out to be, the intelligence could have designed the universe in that way. So if there are 10 trillion ways the universe could have turned out, then there are 10 trillion different designs an intelligent designer could have been working to. For any given way the universe could turn out, is a way an intelligent designer could have wanted it to turn out.

Well, now the odds that there would be a designer who wanted the universe to turn out the way it actually did, is 1 in 10 trillion. — Clearbury

I don't think that last part follows. I think the intelligent design proponent can claim that the designer is a living intelligent being. As such, the designer will probably be interested in universes with complex structure and life and stars and galaxies and all that. There is a high likelihood a designer will design universes like ours, with lots of interesting stuff and life in it, instead of boring universes where, for example, atomic nuclei never form. In Bayesian terms, the probability of a universe like ours (E) given the existence of an intelligent designer (H) is very high: Pr (E/H) > .9

Actually, that is a key difference between my notion of a cosmic designer and Stephen Meyer's. His creator is the God of Genesis. Mine is not. I have no revelation about what the designer wanted, but I do see signs of intention in such features of the world as Fine Tuning of the original Singularity state. So, lacking any specific information about the designing/programming entity, I simply call it the Cause of our Cosmos.

"Design" is a philosophical inference from data (such as fine tuning) not an observed fact of Physics. Even "Fine-Tuning" is an inference, and "fine" relative to what? So you can feel free to draw your own conclusions from the sparse available evidence. My inference from the contingency of Ontology is that the finite world is not self-existent. Hence, some pre-existing Cause is a logical deduction. — Gnomon

Interesting point of view. Personally, I see no signs of intentionality or teleology. My impression is that those who believe they see it, are basing it on a retrospective analysis of the chain of events that resulted in our existence. Such an analysis shows that our existence is grossly improbable. Why should that matter? Improbable things are bound to occur in a vast, old universe.

What do you mean by "the contingency of ontology"? It seems to me that the fundamental ground of existence is metaphysically necessary (whatever it is), and the only contingency in the world is quantum indeterminacy.

Interesting point of view. Personally, I see no signs of intentionality or teleology. My impression is that those who believe they see it, are basing it on a retrospective analysis of the chain of events that resulted in our existence. Such an analysis shows that our existence is grossly improbable.
Why should that matter? Improbable things are bound to occur in a vast, old universe.

What do you mean by "the contingency of ontology"? It seems to me that the fundamental ground of existence is metaphysically necessary (whatever it is), and the only contingency in the world is quantum indeterminacy. — Relativist

Ontology is the philosophical & metaphysical science of Being, the Why of Existence. If that question does not interest you, then you do you, and I'll do me. Obviously, Roger Penrose's interest has been piqued by the improbability of our existence. So, he has taken the time to put a number on that near impossibility. If the calculated odds of 10^10^100 to 1 do not sound like a miracle to you, then you may be impervious to philosophical curiosity.

When Richard Feynman became frustrated with quantum physicists dabbling in philosophy, he quoted Mermin : "shut up and calculate". Unsurprisingly, Penrose, a mathematical physicist, did just that. And he concluded, not from a "retrospective analysis", but from analysis of gravitational singularities --- such as the Big Bang --- that our actually existing Cosmos is extremely contingent : an unpredictable Chance event, or a miracle?.

Then he, perhaps jokingly, referred to the Cause of that "grossly improbable" existence as the work of a Cosmic Censor. That reminds me of Darwin's hypothetical Selector who censored (to weed out) the unfit random possibilities put forth by the Evolutionary mechanism, allowing only the fittest to go on to the next stage. You can choose your own analogy for an ontological censor. Most people call it "God". I call it Primordial Cause.

Yes, improbable things do happen in our ancient world. Yesterday, my alma mater's pitiful football team beat the odds to defeat a team supposedly bound for the national playoffs. Yet Penrose's odds do not apply to our space-time world, but to a hypothetical time before time. If such fortuitous events don't matter to you, that's OK with me. Just don't tell me that I shouldn't speculate or conjecture about the original ontological event on a Philosophy Forum. :smile:

PS___ I may address the Intentionality question in another post.

Cosmic censorship hypothesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_censorship_hypothesis

Yes, I think that's what they'd try and argue.....but I don't think they're entitled to make those moves.

It's true that when we look at the intelligences that exist in this world, we can note general truths about them and on that basis make reasonable inferences about what another intelligence may want.

But we aren't entitled to do that when we're talking about the intelligence that kicked everything off. The proponent of intelligence design is not entitled to assume anything at all about the psychological dispositions of the grand designer. They're not entitled to assume they're approximately the same in terms of desires and so on as one of us. All bets are off on that front.

For an analogy, to allow the proponent of intelligent design to rig the personality of the designer at the outset is no different from the proponent of chance rigging the odds so that it turns out that the chance of a universe like this one arising is 1.

Ontology is the philosophical & metaphysical science of Being, the Why of anomalous.

... When Richard Feynman became frustrated with quantum physicists dabbling in philosophy, he quoted Mermin : "shut up and calculate". Unsurprisingly, Penrose, a mathematical physicist, did just that. And he concluded, not from a "retrospective analysis", but from analysis of gravitational singularities --- such as the Big Bang --- that our actually existing Cosmos is extremely contingent : an unpredictable Chance event, or a miracle?. — Gnomon

Yes, I'm discussing ontology- specifically the ontology of contingency. What accounts for contingency in the world? Classical physics is deterministic- there's no real contingency. Quantum mechanics entails indeterminacy, and this accounts for contingency in the world. Is that Feynman's basis for his analysis?

"Extremely" contingent? Doesn't that just mean extremely improbable? How is that different from what I said? There are many different ways the universe could have evolved, and each of them is improbable. When all possibilities are equally improbable, it's a certainty that the outcome will be improbable, so it's not anomolous (and not "miraculous").

For an analogy, to allow the proponent of intelligent design to rig the personality of the designer at the outset is no different from the proponent of chance rigging the odds so that it turns out that the chance of a universe like this one arising is 1. — Clearbury

I think they would argue that the personality of the designer is an extrapolation of the designers we know and there is some basis for assuming a universe designer would prefer non-boring universes. If all you knew was that there was a universe designer, and you were shown this universe, would you be surprised by it? Not surprised at the particulars (e.g., the moon is that exact size and Saturn is exactly X amount of miles from the sun), but rather surprised the universe the designer designed is full of complexity and life?

For me, philosophy is not so much a search for truth or reality but a search for models and ideas that I can justify. — Tom Storm

Imho you have said a whole great lot in a few words. Many, maybe most, discussions that on their surface seem a search for some truth or reality actually are a failure to understand that these things are defined, and the argument actually over definitions and the contexts from which they came.

For the current discussion, the substance of which recurs like a chronic infection, I have one question. Before asking it, a definition of knowledge: that by and to the presentation of which a reasonable adversary accedes.

So to theists of every stripe the question, What do you know? Not for a moment to be confused with any question about your beliefs. And it is clear that theists know nothing. I'm keeping this brief: any theists thinking they know something are welcome to reply with whatever it is they think they know. But please do not waste our time and display your ignorance by proving you do not know the difference between knowledge and belief.

In Bayesian terms, the probability of a universe like ours (E) given the existence of an intelligent designer (H) is very high: Pr (E/H) > .9 — RogueAI

Consider:
Pr(x/H)>Pr(x), for all x.

That tautology is not grounds for thinking all x are designed.

I think it's less probable that a designer just happens to exist (uncaused) than that a universe such as ours just happens to exist (uncaused/undesigned).

"Extremely" contingent? Doesn't that just mean extremely improbable? How is that different from what I said? There are many different ways the universe could have evolved, and each of them is improbable. When all possibilities are equally improbable, it's a certainty that the outcome will be improbable, so it's not anomolous (and not "miraculous"). — Relativist

No. Actually, "contingent" means dependent on some outside force*1. The contingent state, absent some causal input, is indeed "improbable", in the sense that nothing changes. A static state has indeterminate possibilities, and no probabilities. This unchanging state is "anomalous" in the sense that it has no properties, no probabilities, and nothing to relate to.

Imagine a hypothetical pre-big-bang state, whose only property is an arbitrary definition (like Zero or Infinity), and in which all alternative states (patterns of properties) are equally possible --- and "equally improbable" --- because none are actual. Then input some outside force to upset the balance of non-existent internal forces. The effect of that input is to cause a new state, a pattern change. And the new state is contingent upon the causal force*2. Therefore, the new state --- in this case a new world --- is contingent upon some Aristotelian First Cause*3.

The Contingent Cause is "miraculous" in that it comes from outside the natural system that we have evidence for. It's "anomalous" in that it's unpredictable or unexpected : a bolt from the blue. It's "improbable" in that nothing changes without some input of Energy, Force, Causation.

Prior to the Big Bang theory, scientists could confidently assume that the universe itself was self-existent. But the undeniable evidence from Cosmology*4 is that our temporary world is contingent upon some external causation. Which philosophers for millennia have labeled as First Cause, Logos, or God. What would you call the Contingent Cause that precipitated the Big Bang and the emergence of space-time*4 from a background of who-knows-what?*5 The only alternative to space-time is Infinity-Eternity. :smile:


*1. The meaning of CONTINGENT is dependent on or conditioned by something else.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contingent

*2. A contingent cause is a cause that explains the existence of a contingent being, which is a being that could not have existed. The cosmological argument is a line of reasoning that uses the idea of contingent beings to argue for the existence of a necessary being. ___Google AI overview

*3. First Cause, in philosophy, the self-created being (i.e., God) to which every chain of causes must ultimately go back.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/first-cause

*4. According to the widely accepted Big Bang theory, spacetime began approximately 13.8 billion years ago when the universe rapidly expanded from a tiny, dense point known as a singularity, marking the start of both space and time as we understand them. ___Google AI overview

*5. The cause of the Big Bang is still a mystery, but scientists have many ideas:
Quantum physics shows that some events happen randomly and without a cause. This means that the Big Bang might not have had a cause, or that we might not be aware of it. ___Google AI overview
Note --- Those random events occur only within the context of space-time-matter-energy. Hence the mystery (miracle?) of an unexplained beginning to space-time. Your guess is as good as mine, and that's why Ontology is a perennial topic of debate for philosophers.

My claim is that the contingency in the world is due to quantum indeterminacy. Everything else that occurs is fully deterministic, and thus necessitated by it's cause(s).

In general, contingency can be accounted for as follows:
anything (E) that exists contingently, had a cause (C) such that C can cause (E or ~E).

Quantum indeterminacy fits this, but it seems applicable to any conceivable form of contingency.

I'm inclined to believe there is a "first cause" (F) - something that exists uncaused (i.e. its existence is brute fact). F is not contingent, because there is no prior cause to account for (F or ~F). Therefore F exists necessarily. This (assumed) fact of a first cause does not entail a being that acts with intentionality. As I said in my above post to RougeAI: It seems less probable that a designer just happens to exist (uncaused) than that a universe such as ours just happens to exist (uncaused/undesigned).

What is x and H in your equation?

What is x and H in your equation? — RogueAI

H=an intelligent designer
x=anything and everything

Example:

where x= the winning set of 6 numbers that were drawn in a powerball lottery
Pr(x/H)>Pr(x)

This suggests that any winning set of numbers is more likely to be due to design (i.e. cheating) than it is due to pure chance - but only if there is a designer (i.e. cheater). It tells us nothing about the probability that cheating is going on.

where x= the winning set of 6 numbers that were drawn in a powerball lottery
Pr(x/H)>Pr(x)

This suggests that any winning set of numbers is more likely to be due to design (i.e. cheating) than it is due to pure chance - but only if there is a designer (i.e. cheater). It tells us nothing about the probability that cheating is going on. — Relativist

That doesn't follow for the simple fact that there is almost no cheating in lotteries despite the existence of lottery designers. The designers want the games to be fair and so they are.

That doesn't follow for the simple fact that there is almost no cheating in lotteries despite the existence of lottery designers. The designers want the games to be fair and so they are. — RogueAI

When you said:" the probability of a universe like ours (E) given the existence of an intelligent designer (H) is very high: Pr (E/H) > .9"
I presume you were referring to a designer whose design was intended to produce this particular universe. Analogously, I was referring to a designer of a scheme to produce a particular lottery winner (i.e. a cheater) . The equation is correct: it is more likely that this winner would be produced, if we assume there was a cheater.

Of course, we don't just assume there was a cheater. Similarly, we don't just assume there's a universe designer. No specific outcome can constitute positive evidence that the outcome was intended.

I still don't see how they're entitled to make that inference. For any universe that exists - whatever it may contain - it is possible a mind wished to create it and designed it just so.

So if there are 10 trillion possible universes that could have arisen, there are also 10 trillion possible desires that a possible designer mind could be in.

Imagine one of those possible universes contains lots of intelligences who love boring stuff. Well, then a design proponent in that universe would infer that any designer there may be probably loves boring stuff....and so designed this universe to satisfy their desire for boring stuff.

But that's clearly fallacious reasoning. We're talking about why this universe exists rather than one of the 10 trillion others. Each and every one of them could in principle have been designed to be as it is, for there is nothing incoherent in an intelligence having a desire for any particular one of them. And so what the proponent of the design thesis has to do is suppose that there are 10 trillion possible ways a designer could be and then ask "given that there are 10 trillion ways a designer could be, what are the odds that they would have the desire to create this universe?". And the answer to that question is 1 in 10 trillion. Which is the same odds that the universe just arose by chance.

So their case is hopeless, i think. It depends upon them mistakenly thinking they're entitled to stack the deck in their favour by inferring personality traits that their only evidence for would be based - queston beggingly - on the assumption that this is the approximately the kind of world an intelligence would design. It's only reasonable to suppose that an intelligence would likely want to create a world like this if one assumes already that this is what has happened - for the basis of one's case would be what intelligences in this world are like. It would not be based on what it is metaphysically possible for an intelligence to be like. There are a potential infinite number of ways it is metaphysically possible for an intelligence to be, and once this is recognized the intelligent design thesis becomes untenable.

Quantum indeterminacy fits this, but it seems applicable to any conceivable form of contingency.

I'm inclined to believe there is a "first cause" (F) - something that exists uncaused (i.e. its existence is brute fact). F is not contingent, because there is no prior cause to account for (F or ~F). Therefore F exists necessarily. This (assumed) fact of a first cause does not entail a being that acts with intentionality. As I said in my above post to RougeAI: It seems less probable that a designer just happens to exist (uncaused) than that a universe such as ours just happens to exist (uncaused/undesigned). — Relativist

I agree that Quantum Indeterminacy (randomness) is a factor in physical contingency : this before that. But the Ontological contingency of the whole world --- something from nothing --- would be a priori instead of a posteriori. Hence, the fundamental randomness of the physical world must be either an improbable accident*1, or something like an intentional act of a cosmic Designer, in order to allow free choice in both physics and in psychology. In other words, the existential path into the future is not pre-determined, but is post-determined by acts and choices within the world system.

Your probability estimate*2 would be plausible if the universe was eternal and exists (just happens to be) without any reason or cause. But the Big Bang beginning of space-time raises the question of what came before (e.g. timelessness, changelessness). And the odds of accidental creation of a dynamic universe*3, and questioning sentient creatures, would seem to be astronomically unlikely.

You said "first cause does not entail a being that acts with intentionality". That's true, the Big Bang could have been a cosmically destructive explosion, instead of the creative beginning of a world of living and thinking creatures. But the improbability of accidental existence of a 14billion-year-train-wreck, which produces sentient beings who act with intention, does imply an intentional act of creation. :smile:


*1. Improbable Accidental Existence : with no criteria for judging (posterior probability), such a conclusion would not qualify for probability or credibility.

*2. Bayesian probability criteria include:
Posterior probability: The updated probability after considering evidence
Prior probability: The probability before considering evidence
Likelihood: The probability of the evidence given the belief is true
___ Google AI overview

*3. The Accidental Universe :
Physicist Paul Davies gives a survey of the range of apparently miraculous accidents of nature that have enabled the universe to evolve its familiar structure of atoms, ...
https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Universe-P-C-Davies/dp/0521286921

The Accidental Universe :
Physicist Alan Lightman speculates, without evidence, on the prior eternal existence of an infinite Multiverse that blindly & accidentally spawned the living and thinking universe that we know and love. Mverse is a god-model without any redeeming features, other than winning the lottery once in a zillion years. A blind pig sometimes finds an acorn.
https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Universe-World-Thought-Knew/dp/034580595X