Cool. Thanks!

Not sure that it implies that anything requires an explanation? Heavy metals are "rare" due to the way that they are formed (with respect to the rest of the cosmos) and likewise fulfill the rare functions that they fulfill because of their "ontological matrix". — Pantagruel

Humans are likewise rare for the same reason. But one could make a fine tuning argument that the fundamental constants must have been finely tuned so that X would be produced, because X is otherwise very improbable. (for X=heavy metals or humans).

Nevertheless, this is different than the case of Mary. There must be some explanation why she would live rather than die.

I think assuming teleology is unwarranted, but also perhaps unnecessary. A carbon atom is no more mysterious than a hydrogen atom, but opens up a whole universe of new possibilities.

I agree.

What is it that you refer to as ‘I’? What information are you basing that ‘certainty’ on? And how are you certain of that information? — Possibility

I regard it as an innate, incorrigible believe that is unanalyzable in terms of a priori principles. In short: it a basic belief, a foundation for every other belief. The "certainty" is nothing more than the incorrigibility.

Because we can trace evidence of informing interaction back as far as the Big Bang. — Possibility

No one was being informed at the time of the bog bang. There is no ontological connection to our epistemic inferences about the big bang.

Is there no contradiction? We're more or less opposed in our views; let's suppose we contradict each other. Does it make sense then there could be someone who supports both of us? — TheMadFool

And still be rational? Not if the contradiction is truly present.

Aren't you implying that the existence of heavy metals doesn't require an explanation for their existence, and therefore neither does life? Arguing with analogies (which I often do) always leaves an escape hatch: simply identifying what's different between the two cases.

So, although I agree with you about this, I revised my Op to remove that escape hatch. I provide a general basis for rejecting the premise that there is an explanatory gap for either heavy metals OR life.

Not only that, but scientists generally assume that the laws of nature as we observe them operating today have always operated that way; or at least, that they have operated that way ever since very soon after the alleged Big Bang. What justifies this assumption? Why not consider the alternative that the laws of nature have evolved over time, and perhaps are still (very slowly) evolving? What would count as evidence either way? — aletheist

That's of course possible, but what's the motivation to propose that? It seems to me the motivation is the premise that our improbable existence entails an explanatory gap that must be filled. The purpose of my Op was to dispute that, and I revised it yesterday to identify a principle that distinguishes between cases where explanations are required, and where they are not.

The real context here is not theist vs. non-theist, but one group of physicists (and not a group of theists) arguing with others. FT came out of non-theist physicist concerns that the chance of a universe right for life seemed so radically small it bothered them. Right or wrong it seriously bothered a group of non-theist physicists. And it bothered other physicists enough to try to find a rebuttal, some of these along with some of the first group thinking that a multiverse offered an elegant solution. Later theists heard about FT and used it also. — Coben

That's a reasonable description, but I submit the source of the problem was the perceived explanatory gap that I rebutted in my Op: the premise that life should be "expected". That premise is not derived from Physics. The false premise has been characterized and rebutted in a variety of ways, but I haven't seen it rebutted in terms of an epistemological principle as I did in my (revised) op.

Which was an aristotilian deity, outside the chain of being and some sort of pure intellect. I don't think we need either the implied dualism or this kind of pure intellect. Perhaps we do, perhaps it would entail a separate creator, but I can't see how this could be demonstrated. (given my own beliefs, which are theist, I don't have a problem with the conclusion, I just think whatever the argument would be speculative and likely carry assumptions out of our everyday lives into cosmological issues.) I don't think Hawking's cosmology which is FT based is theistic or even deistic. (though I will concede in advance I am not sure I truly get it. But I see no diety in there.) — Coben

I believe the Aristotelian deity entails a first cause, so it wouldn't be outside the chain of being. This at least was Flew's interpretation, and I believe this is what is entailed by the FTA if it is true.

I'm glad to have a theist respond to this thread. Tell me if you embrace the claim that the improbability of our existence entails an explanatory gap. Some versions of the FTA depend on there being such an explanatory gap. My Op was intended to falsify this claim.

[

We can be certain only that ‘something’ exists, and that ‘something’ is aware of existence. All other information or intelligence attempts to build on this basic certainty, as what matters. — Possibility

I'm certain I exist, and I'm aware of my existence. However, I'm also certain the universe was around before me to be aware of it. What makes you think there was awareness 5 seconds after the big bang?

might not even entail a creator, just some kind of universal desire for life. — Coben

That's a minimal definition of a creator: having a desire, and the ability to act on that desire. This is the sort of deism Antony Flew ultimately embraced.

I'd like to get back to the issue I raised in the Op, because I think I have a solution.

Intuitively, Mary's luck needs to be explained, but John's luck doesn't. Can we make sense of this intuition? I'd like to propose what the relevant difference is.

In Mary's case, there were two possibilities: either she would live (be lucky) or die (be unlucky). We need to explain why she fell on the side of the dichotomy that she did. Similarly for the unlucky who died.

In John's case, there is no such dichotomy. A non-existent John isn't unlucky, because luck (whether good or bad) applies only to things that exist.

So I propose the relevant difference is this dichotomy. A person 's good luck only needs to be explained if he could have had bad luck.

I agree that an objective may imply a prior intelligence, but an underlying creative impetus does not - and neither does it imply ‘luck’, despite the unlikely arrangement of conditions. This is the point I’d like to make. — Possibility

Please explain what you mean by a "creative impetus." What are it's identifiable characteristics?

hypothetically speaking, Croatians are killing each other negates the very generous offer of assistance from an interested party. God fine-tuned the universe for life only so that life could devise ingenious ways of snuffing itself out. Intriguing! — TheMadFool

You're assuming too much. The FTA, if it were successful, would only entail a creator who wanted life. It does not entail a creator who gives a damn what they do to each other.

Not so much an objective as an impetus, but why not think that? — Possibility

Because there can only be an objective if an intelligence is behind it. I'm open to this possibility, but the case mist be made. The FTA purports to make such a case, but obviously if it depends on the assumption of an intelligence the argument is circular.

America Croatia first.

That's the problem in my opinion. Suppose the fine-tuned physical parameters for life are like a set of conditions imposed on a group of people. If these conditions didn't favor any one member of the group wouldn't it be the heights of foolishness to say the conditions favored the group as a whole. The exact logic applies the the fine tuning argument. — TheMadFool

I don't follow. One can favor Croations without favoring individual Croations.

I think the real hidden value that should be questioned here is why life is considered so different than other physical processes. — schopenhauer1

Yes, and that's related to my Op. Consider the enormous (infinite?) number of possible things that would exist if other universes had existed instead of ours. Each type of thing had the same, infinitesmal chance of coming into being. Consider the odds against YOU coming to be, vs the enormous number of possible people that weren't so "lucky".

Well, it seems the FTA has a flaw. It claims that the universe is fine tuned for life as a whole but that would mean the universe was fine tuned for microbial pathogens as well as humans but these two examples of life are counterexamples of the universe being fine tuned for either. I mean microbial pathogens shouldn't exist if the universe were fine tuned for humans and humans shouldn't exist, with their antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and all, if the universe were fine tuned for microbes.

Since all life maybe reduced to such mutually harmful relationships, I would think twice before suggesting any fine tuning for life. Perhaps it has an evilish entertainment value as a paradox: the universe is fine tuned for life but not fine tuned for the living. — TheMadFool

The claim is not that the universe is tuned for each specific type of life - that entails a complex set of objectives. It's just the broad claim that it seems "tuned" for life - because no kinds of life would be possible had the constants had different values.

There is no reason to assume that life as we know it was the specific target. The creative process itself is open-ended, and not so much an application of power and influence from ‘above’ towards a specific design objective, but rather an interaction aimed at whatever increases awareness, connection and collaboration overall. It’s initially an unselfish and undirected process, exploring possibility and potential within material limitations. — Possibility

You seem to be claiming there was an objective to "increase awareness, connection, and collaberation." Why think that?

↪ Who says life can't adopt as many different forms as existent universes? Maybe life can exist in many possible universes. The "laws" of physics are based on models of our universe, not every possible universe. — Enrique

I understand, but here's their perspective: the textbook laws of physics are our best guess at the actual laws of nature, so they are a reasonable basis for analysis.

Why the obsession with life? So what if life is only possible in this universe? How is that a problem?

Proponents of the modern fine tuning argument accept that life in this universe is fully explainable. What they argue is that life-permitting universes should not be expected. This is because there are fundamental constants in the laws of physics (like the cosmological constant, the mass of the Higgs boson, the gravitational constant...) that appear to be "fine-tuned" for life: had any of these constants differed by even a small amount, such things as chemistry would not be possible (there would not exist atoms that could form chemical bonds). They argue that these constants are finely tuned to allow life.

As I just mentioned to Sophisticat, this assumes life was a target - a design objective.

There has been a lot of discussion along these lines. John Leslie offered a now well-known firing squad analogy: You face a firing squad of trained marksmen. Shots are fired, but to your immense surprise, you find that they all missed. Are you justified in inferring that the marksmen intended to miss? Leslie argues that a similar scenario in the case of the universe's fundamental constants suggests two alternative explanations: God or multiple universes. Objections have been put forward in terms of gambler's fallacy and observation selection effect, among others. You can find many such debates under the heading of anthropic reasoning (see also SEP entry on fine-tuning). Although I believe that the considerations that I gave above preempt any such debates with respect to the universe as a whole, I still think that they are instructive. — SophistiCat

One of my hobbies (or obsessions) is to debate theists on their Fine Tuning Argument for God (here's my current one - I'm called, "Fred"). I've read a number of papers, including the SEP article, and I've read debates and seen videos where its defended. I have observed that the most common rebuttal to it is the multiverse hypothesis. I don't think that's the best approach because it concedes too much - in particular, it concedes that life needs to be explained.

Awhile back, someone on this forum posted a link to this paper: The Fine Tuning Argument. The author (Klaas Landsman) argues that the existence of life is not a good reason to infer either a designer OR a multiverse. My reasoning is based on that paper, so have a look if you're interested.

Consider the firing squad you mention. The shooters have a target. Why should we treat life as a target? Here's an outline of my reasoning:

1. There are many possible universes with a different set of values for the fundamental constants
2. Each possible universe has the same low probability of existing
3. Therefore there’s nothing remarkable about any specific universe existing (i.e. the universe is a lottery winner: someone was going to win despite every ticket holder having a low probability of winning - all had the same chance).
4. The winning universe happens to support life, but every universe begets consequences that would not obtain in the others so that has no relevant implications.

Are Americans really this stupid? — VagabondSpectre

I've never understood how people can be so confident that their opinions are true, that it implies all contrary opinions are the product of stupidity.

Such arrogance.

Agreed, but can you identify a relavent contradiction?

The notion of luck is rendered irrelevant if adequate time is available and by "adequate" I mean time in terms of googol years or larger. Even events with near-zero probabilities will actualize given the right amount of time, no? — TheMadFool

Yes - that's one way to address it, but it depends on the assumption that there is some sort of infinity of possibilities (infinite past, infinite space, infinite universes). That can be debated, and I'm tired of theists claiming I'm using the multiverse as a means to "escape" the obvious conclusion ("god").

My issue seems more straightforward - cutting the FTA off at the knees. Assume one universe: the "luck" of our existence is meaningless - no conclusions can be drawn from it.

A failure of the FTA does not prove God's non-existence. But if the FTA is a failure, it's one less reason to believe there is such a thing. I'm focusing on the alleged "luck" issue that I've seen bandied about - we're (supposedly) lucky that the fundamental constants happened to result in a life-permitting universe, and the argument is that it entails such a high degree of luck that it can't be the product of chance. If there were some meaningful probabilities involved, that might be reasonable. But it's no more meaningful than the improbability of us existing as individuals.

The way Stephen Hawking put it in "A brief history of time" if over X time you roll a trillion sided die a trillion times you'll eventually roll an 18 if you desired to roll an 18.

I don't think probability is the best way to argue for religion. — christian2017

Lots of people think the FTA is the very best way to prove God. I don't think so, and that's why I'm pondering this issue.

Hawking's right, but for the sake of discussion, I'm assuming there is exactly one roll of the dice - where each die represents a fundamental constant, whose many sides are the possible values it can take. My take on it is that there are no preexisting players who "win". Each roll is as likely as any other, and the consequences of a roll are irrelevant. The consequences are the sorts of thing that exist in the universe. These consequent existents weren't players, any more than were WE players in the procreation lottery.

The "probability" of John being born as a result of chance circumstances is a rather iffy concept: you have to make a pretty arbitrary choice of random variables and their distributions in order to estimate it. But at a stretch one can perhaps make some sense of it. — SophistiCat

Sure, the denominator of the probability is still finite - but it's so large that it makes it surprising that any actual person is alive. On the other hand, it's imminently reasonable that SOME people exist. This is the tension. It's erroneous to apply this to individuals to "prove" they shouldn't be expected to exist, because we should expect SOME people to exist.

In terms of the FTA, life (or intelligent life) is one sort of existent, but there infinitely many sorts of existent. So IMO the analogy holds.

I'm wondering if this can be described mathematically.

I was hoping for a succinct way to say it, and you gave it to me. Thanks!

I've almost always got music playing in my mind, and if I'm in a good mood and by myself and not doing anything else linguistic (which, these days, is a rare confluence of conditions, limited only to solitary hikes on particularly good days) I love to sing by myself. — Pfhorrest

Same here. Even when I'm not alone, I sometimes start singing to myself at a low volume. It annoys my wife.

I don't know how many people are like us, but I've always assumed we were pretty common. Maybe I was wrong.

Granted that materialism is true and the mind is nothing more than the brain doing its thing, what concerns me is our tendency to identify ourselves and others with the beliefs and ideas (mind-stuff) that we hold. We seem to completely ignore that we're physical beings - our bodies being considered simply as loci of ideas and beliefs, the mind-stuff. More people have died for their beliefs than their physical appearance; it gives me the impression that people consider identity and being as more mind than body., — TheMadFool

Most people are not materialists, so you can't say they're ignoring it. It seems to me it's natural to think of ourselves in mental terms. It's reasonable on cold, objective terms: at distinguishes us from one another. But more importantly, mental processes motivate us to act - we act intentionally, and we do (or try to do) what we want to do.

It seems to me that it is correct to view ourselves in this way. I am not JUST physical - I am process. A corpse is not a human person because there's an absence of process. Process is produced by the physical, but it is not identical to the physical.

It's unfortunate we die for reasons associated with brain processes, but that consequence is not a reason to abandon our natural tendency.

You do need eyes to hallucinate visually otherwise the impulses are very weak, you couldn't compare it to sight — wiyte

I agree.

NDE's entail someone being outside their body and observing some things going on around them. How can things be seen and heard without eyes and ears, and the neural networks that process the inputs? If this physical equipment really isn't necessary, why are there people who are blind and deaf?

I'm referring to a paradigm of phenomenal consciousness expounded by Michael Tye. He suggests that qualia, like redness, are mental experiences (mental phenomena). They correlate with aspects of the world (e.g. wavelengths of reflected light), and thus provide us with a capability to discriminate among the objects of the world.

When one considers the physical mechanisms of sight, I expect it would be possible to physically intervene, and artificially produce the nerve impulses that lead to the phenomenal experience, but even so, the mental phenomenon seems irreducible. We can consider it something like a hallucination, but it is a hallucination that correlates with the world.

(a) Does such a person experience redness non-consciously? (b) Could such a person experience redness non-consciously? — InPitzotl

I don't think it makes sense to say we can have non-conscious experiences. The quale "redness" IS the experience, according to the paradigm anyway.

For instance, should we say abstract objects are not composed or composable, hence are not decomposable, and that all perceptible things, and all or nearly all physical things, are composed and composable, hence decomposable?


Does it help us to understand colors, to say that our experience of colors has subjective features that are "not decomposable"? Does it help us to understand dogs, to say that our experience of dogs has subjective features that are "not decomposable"? — Cabbage Farmer

We can't fully understand redness without having experienced it. Suppose you'd never experience either red or blue, but you knew all the physical aspects of these colors (the physics of reflected light, wavelengths, the mechanisms of visual perception...). I present to you 2 balls: a red and a blue. Can you identify which is which?

Dogs are a bit different. You could learn enough about the characteristics of dogs that you could pick one out of a lineup. The difference is composition: dogs can be uniquely described by a set of properties you can recognize.

Some abstractions are decomposible, others are not. Squares can be decomposed; a point cannot.

The wording in the survey was problematic. These 2 questions were asked:
1* Do you trust the political news you are getting?

2* When they write or talk about President Trump, are most reporters trying to help the president pass his agenda, block the president from passing his agenda, or are they simply interested in reporting the news in an unbiased manner?

Consider a Democrat who believes political news reporting is not fully trustworthy. (answers "no" to the first question), but does not believe "most reporters" are either helping to pass, nor helping to block, Trump's agenda AND they believe there is some bias in the media.

There's plenty of bias in the media, in both political directions but also in terms of sensationalism. That bias toward sensationalism helped Trump get elected: every bombastic thing he said as a candidated received air-time.

Inspiring words from our beloved leader:

"President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise..."
-- March 29, Trump's twitter

No need to obsess on infection rates and the potential for overwhelming our healthcare system. Instead let's cheer his ratings success! Way to go, Donald!

If at any time they didn't play that important part of the recording for context it was a falsehood. It gives the condemnable words context, and without them it sounds worse. Leaving it out so it sounds worse is spreading a falsehood. — DingoJones

Right...the words taken out of context sound worse than warranted by in the context of his total conversation. And that conversation just sounds like an anomaly if you ignore the context of his general behavior toward women.

No one got a false impression about Trump's character. Trumpists like you nitpick to avoid confronting that reality. Trump is a rude, arrogant, mysogynist asshole. Embrace the policies you like, but stop fooling yourself about his character.

You asked for an example of him being misrepresented in the news, which I provided. — DingoJones

You claimed it was misrepresentative to only play a portion of the pussy-grabbing audio. I pointed out that I had heard the entire audio on CNN, so you are either misrepresting it yourself, or you are referring to some occasion in which only a portion was played. Notice that you object to playing only a portion of the audio out of context, while you wish to set aside the general context I brought up. Omitting that portion of the audio, on occasion, does not result in someone getting a false impression of his character. Shouldn't that be what's important?

Lol, yes! That is their job, not going “we hate this guy, lets just go with close enough”. Its actually very important to get it as accurate as possible, to recognise distinctions between lies, errors, ignorance etc.

Those are important distinctions and again, not being accurate or open about those distinctions is costly for any kind of anti-trump agenda. It plays into his hands, it lets him accurately claim “fake news”, which obscures the truth and any lies Trump actually does tell. It allows Trump To muddy the waters. — DingoJones

Distinguishing truths from untruths is generally objective. Trying decipher what kind of untruth it was is subjective. Personally, I think it's a mistake to label all untruths "lies", but that's what's done on all sides. Obama was charged with making the "lie of the year" when he said we could keep our current health insurance. It was not a statement he made to intentionally mislead; it was an inaccurate prediction and therefore in hindsight, it was an untruth. In politics, all untruths get labeled "lies" - that's just the way it is. That's not different with Trump; the only thing that's different with him is the sheer quantity. And because the quantity is so enormous, Trump supporters delude themselves by cherry picking some statements that were not intentional lies, and then complain Trump is picked on.

A good example is “pussygate”. I felt like the incident was pretty thoroughly misreported on CNN and most other media. First, they left out what proceeded his actual pussy grabbing comment which was “...when youre a celebrity, they LET you do whatever you want” or something close to that. That part is always left out and clipped so it can be misrepresented as sexual predation. Within a week it went from suggesting it meant he thought it was fun to sexually assault women to calling him an admitted rapist.
It seemed pretty dishonest to me, and was spreading a falsehood. — DingoJones

I heard the entire audio on CNN, and it included everything you said. No one has ever suggested that this isolated clip shows he's a sexual predator, but it does add context to the looooong list of sexual misconduct : he's cheated on every wife he's ever had numerous times (including Melania shortly after giving birth); there are numerous allegations of unwelcome sexual advances; he felt entitled to visit the Miss Universe contestants while they were dressing....the list goes on. His behavior toward women is indefensible. If you don't accept that, then you're burying your head in the sand.

Another common thing I see is the conflation of jokes or hyperbole as factual claims. They do it all the time, going with the worst possible interpretation of something Trump said. I mean, I get it, Trump will hide behind hyperbole or jokes or actually lie but thats exactly why its so important not to tell lies or misrepresent what he said. Once you do that, people can say the media is misrepresenting or lying and be totally correct. Then Trump can call it fake news, and be 100% right. This provides cover for the actual problematic things he says and does. — DingoJones

Trump utters an enormous number of falsehoods.
Some are downright lies (intentional untruths), some are repeating nonsense he's heard from idiots like Alex Jones, some is just pure stupidity, and yes- some is hyperbole, and much of that is inappropriate (e.g. telling police officers it's ok to rough up the people they arrest). Is it CNN's job to analyze each false utterance and discern which category they belong to? Discerning fact from fiction seems sufficient, and Trump could avoid the negative interpretations if he'd strive to make factual statements.

Nevertheless, I see the difference between opinion and facts. My steady diet of CNN has not impaired that. Contrast that with die-hard Trump supporters who are in denial of any negative reporting about Trump. I can respect a Trump supporter who likes his policies, if they are realistic about what sort if man he is. I have zero respect for someone who make excuses for everything he does.