that’s if you can prove that something cannot exist eternally, but to do that, you would have to prove that existence came into being out of non-existence, or rather, the non-potential for existence to be. — TheGreatArcanum
meditate on it a little more; what both exists, yet isn’t tangible, and both contains itself and does not contain itself simultaneously? — TheGreatArcanum
agreed, there is no actualized infinite. meaning that there is no set of all sets, or there is. — TheGreatArcanum
if the set of all sets in nature has ontological value, and both contains itself and does not contain itself at the same time and in the same respect, there is no contradiction. — TheGreatArcanum
...is therefore identical to the set of all sets. — TheGreatArcanum
Show how this set's winning is more unlikely than all other possibilities. Do so without assuming life is a design objective. — Relativist
Consider a lottery on which a billion people have exactly one ticket. A ticket is drawn, and there is a winner. His chances of winning were 1 in a billion, and yet he won. Does his low probability of winning imply the lottery was rigged? — Relativist
The "Fine Tuning Argument" leads one to believe there is some "coincidence" that demands explanation, but a coincidence entails two or more facts that unexpectedly "coincide." A set of constant values does not constitute a coincidence, nor does a consequence of the values being what they are: If A causes B, B causes C, and C causes D - it is not an unexplained coincidence that A is "D permitting." — Relativist
Richard Feynman once said, “You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” — Relativist
Any particular set of values for the "fundamental constants" is low probability. As Feyman implies: low probability things happen all the time. — Relativist
With today's cosmology pretty solidly thinking galaxy expansion is increasing, then the whole massive framework of when will the crunching happen, is I take it not yet provable. — Chuck Beatty
It doesn't apply right here. There's no reason at all to think that the correct sample space is the number of possible values you can think of. Why would it be? Why would it have anything at all to do with what you're capable of thinking of? — Isaac
How do you know that it is possible for the expansion rate to be any other value? Certainly it's not because the laws of physics allow it, they obviously don't. It's not because maths allows it, maths allows it to be an infinite amount of values, which would mean any value is infinitesimally unlikely, which, by your own definition of infinity, is the same as undefined. So what is your reason for choosing some very large number (but not actually infinity) for the sample space of all the possible values the expansion rate could have? — Isaac
Like with the cards example. It turns out it was a magic trick, the number of cards in the deck was not the correct sample space from which to extrapolate the probability of my card being on top — Isaac
Why would god have created a universe where we could conflate its existence with delusions, or where delusions of any kind exist? — Harry Hindu
Yes I understand. A particular phase in the chaos could last billions of years. Just think of it in terms of human history. There are periods of peace (order) but actually these are just intervals between war (chaos) which I'm suggesting as the true nature of reality. — TheMadFool
You're committing the same fallacy with fine-tuning. You're presuming that the sample space for the event {the universe being fine-tuned for life} must be {all the values you can imagine these variables could have}. Just like at first glance you presume that the sample space for the event {the top card is mine} was all the cards it could be. — Isaac
So with the universe. How are you justifying you selection of the sample space {all the values I can imagine these variables having}? — Isaac
If the time involved was 13.8 billion years (current estimated age of the universe) I'd be very cautious about inferring a better chance for it being a joke over just plain simple luck. — TheMadFool
A side note: I personally don't believe in the multiverse theory. I believe that the universe naturally fine tunes itself into a stable condition, and stable conditions (big surprise) happen to support life. (But hey, what do I know.) — Purple Pond
I'm not a musician. I like music but am not a musician. However, if I were to sit in front of a piano and press the keys at random long enough I'm sure I could play some sections of Beethoven or Motzart. In other words the supposed order, ergo the anthropic principle, is just a phase in the chaos that is the true nature of the universe. What I mean is there is no order, therefore no fine-tuning. We've all seen order/patterns in random numbers I believe. — TheMadFool
From the point of view of mathematics, the only relevant thing is that the axioms that we invented are not inconsistent (i.e. not contradictory: they are satisfiable in some model). If the axiom of infinity is not inconsistent, there should be some model in which it is true; so in this model the axiom doesn't diverge from reality. — Mephist
Yes, so in my opinion euclidean geometry has an objective underlying reality, even if it doesn't correspond to the physical space-time. — Mephist
So my idea is that the axiomatization of mathematical ideas is invented, but our axiomatizations are based on some underlying objective facts of nature that are discovered. — Mephist
A mathematical concept is discovered (and then based on an underlying objective reality) if the same concept is present in the mathematics of other intelligent civilizations that evolved independently from ours. — Mephist
You've got to be joking. — Terrapin Station
Some are born into unimaginable hell and die too young to be cognizant of anything but pain — Michelle71
No such thing as "parallel universes" except for SciF — Terrapin Station