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Intelligent Design

PartSkeptic said:
I am going to focus on one aspect at a time in the hope of getting away from the tactic of "Use the facts, when the facts fail, use logic, and when logic fails confuse the debate".

The Sub-topic here is The Fine Tuned (for Life) Universe argument.

A point has been made that the probability that the fundamental constants of the universe are what they are is 1.

Which expert atheist presents this argument? Thus avoiding any probability analysis. Please give me references.
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The probability that any given truth is true is 1, by definition.

Now, if you'd want to argue that there is a reason for this, and that the reason is our existence... that's your claim to support.
 
PartSkeptic said:
Which expert atheist presents this argument? Thus avoiding any probability analysis. Please give me references.
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Are you trying to bait someone into making an Argument from Authority?

In which case, the Expert Atheist (one of the most known and vocal of the last century) is Douglas Adams.
 
PartSkeptic said:
A point has been made that the probability that the fundamental constants of the universe are what they are is 1.

Which expert atheist presents this argument? Thus avoiding any probability analysis. Please give me references.
Click to expand...

You're asking for an appeal to authority, which suggests that you're trying to lay a trap. There doesn't need to be an expert opinion to understand the self-evident, in fact definitive, observation that the a posteriori probability of something that has already happened, given that it has happened, is 1.

It's also worth pointing out that the term "expert atheist" is an absurd one, and that only someone so blinkered by their religious world view, in which everything must be derived by an appeal to authority, could see as defensible. There is no expertise required to lack a belief, nor is there any onus on any particular atheist to adopt wholesale the exact views of another atheist.

If you want to know the a priori probability that the fundamental constants of the universe are within the bounds necessary to be capable of producing life, I suggest you ask half a dozen cosmologists, then spend a long and fruitless part of your life trying to reconcile the seven fundamentally different answers you'll get.

Dave
 
I am not trying to bait anyone. No trap.

I did some (brief) research into probability of universal constants and could not find the argument presented. Namely a probability of 1:1.

I thought I would get some clarification of the principles involved.

You already know that I challenge the concept of certainty AFTER the event.

So let me give a simple example of probability and see what answers I get.

A man is sentenced to death by firing squad. There are three scenarios.

1. He is put in front of the squad and is shot dead. Probability before and after is 1:1.

2. He is given a box and told if he chooses to open the box and follow the instructions he may have a better chance than 1:1. He opens the box and told if he rolls anything but a six, he will live. The dice has six sides, each with a six on them. What are the odds before and after?

3. He is given two boxes and told if he chooses to open one box and follow the instructions he may have a better chance than 1:1. Inside box one is the dice with only sixes, and in box two is a dice an ordinary dice with numbers 1 to 6. anything but a six he lives. What are the odds before and after?
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Are you trying to bait someone into making an Argument from Authority?

In which case, the Expert Atheist (one of the most known and vocal of the last century) is Douglas Adams.
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No argument from authority. I just want principle so I can be precise.

Douglas Adams. He of Puddle-Hole Thinking notoriety. His argument implies a probability of 1:1 but where does he argue that? And thinking puddles - the ultimate in anthropomorphics!
 
PartSkeptic said:
Pretend I am six years old and explain your point to me.
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You dropped my favourite mug on the floor, and now it's broken. There's no point saying "Well, maybe I didn't," when I saw you drop it and you're looking at the pieces. Now go to your room, and next time I'll take the cost out of your pocket money.

Dave
 
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PartSkeptic said:
I am not trying to bait anyone. No trap.

I did some (brief) research into probability of universal constants and could not find the argument presented. Namely a probability of 1:1.

I thought I would get some clarification of the principles involved.

You already know that I challenge the concept of certainty AFTER the event.

So let me give a simple example of probability and see what answers I get.

A man is sentenced to death by firing squad. There are three scenarios.

1. He is put in front of the squad and is shot dead. Probability before and after is 1:1.

2. He is given a box and told if he chooses to open the box and follow the instructions he may have a better chance than 1:1. He opens the box and told if he rolls anything but a six, he will live. The dice has six sides, each with a six on them. What are the odds before and after?

3. He is given two boxes and told if he chooses to open one box and follow the instructions he may have a better chance than 1:1. Inside box one is the dice with only sixes, and in box two is a dice an ordinary dice with numbers 1 to 6. anything but a six he lives. What are the odds before and after?
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Really? Are you being serious? Is this the best you've got, because it's ridiculous.

Could you please tell us why you included the word sceptic in your forum title?
 
Against my better judgment...

The lottery drawing is Saturday.

PartSkeptic is deciding on Friday whether the odds - 14,000,000 to 1 - support his buying a ticket. Based on the payout, he buys a ticket.

Naturally, his particular ticket doesn’t win. And assume that’s common knowledge.

Now, on Sunday, he wants to sell his ticket. Would anyone buy it? Could it still be a winner, albeit at infinitesimal odds?

No. At the moment of the drawing the odds of the ticket winning “collapsed” from 1 in 14,000,000 to zero. I put “collapsed” in quotes, because it’s borrowed from the quantum world, but it seems to apply here.

As a thought exercise, run the above - except with a winning ticket - and see where it leads.
 
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I believe the misunderstanding is whether the universe necessarily had to turn out the way it did.
And the answer is, of course - no. Tiny perturbations in the chaotic system that is the cosmos can lead to vastly different outcomes.
No one is saying that Homo Sapiens was a pre-determined outcome of the Big Bang

All we can say with 100% certainty is that, in hindsight, things must have happened in such a way that allows for us to communicate this way, here and now.
 
PartSkeptic said:
I am going to focus on one aspect at a time in the hope of getting away from the tactic of "Use the facts, when the facts fail, use logic, and when logic fails confuse the debate".

The Sub-topic here is The Fine Tuned (for Life) Universe argument.

A point has been made that the probability that the fundamental constants of the universe are what they are is 1.

Which expert atheist presents this argument? Thus avoiding any probability analysis. Please give me references.
Click to expand...

Well you confused the debate as I don't understand your point. If you wanted to say that earth at this moment in time is fine tuned for life, I agree, but the universe doesn't seem to be or at least the rest of our solar system isn't. But this is not evidence of a creator.

But one cannot honestly calculate odds post hoc. Because it is more accurate to say that the odds of the earth producing intelligent life is not some astronomical number. It is 100 percent because it did.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Against my better judgment...

The lottery drawing is Saturday.

PartSkeptic is deciding on Friday whether the odds - 14,000,000 to 1 - support his buying a ticket. Based on the payout, he buys a ticket.

Naturally, his particular ticket doesn’t win. And assume that’s common knowledge.

Now, on Sunday, he wants to sell his ticket. Would anyone buy it? Could it still be a winner, albeit at infinitesimal odds?

No. At the moment of the drawing the odds of the ticket winning “collapsed” from 1 in 14,000,000 to zero. I put “collapsed” in quotes, because it’s borrowed from the quantum world, but it seems to apply here.

As a thought exercise, run the above - except with a winning ticket - and see where it leads.
Click to expand...

Well said Eddie. The odds that is the winning ticket is 100 percent since it matches the numbers. Post hoc, the odds can only be 0 or 1.
 
When I'm explaining prior and after probability to someone I often use Richard Feynman's example
“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!”
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Or - you see it's starting to rain. You calculate the prior probability that any given set of rain drops can land on any given spot on your lawn as near zero, so you stay outside as the rain can't hit you. Turns out you get wet anyway because you don't understand probability.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I believe the misunderstanding is whether the universe necessarily had to turn out the way it did.
And the answer is, of course - no. Tiny perturbations in the chaotic system that is the cosmos can lead to vastly different outcomes.
No one is saying that Homo Sapiens was a pre-determined outcome of the Big Bang

All we can say with 100% certainty is that, in hindsight, things must have happened in such a way that allows for us to communicate this way, here and now.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, the butterfly effect. I'd agree with this. That said, the game never stops. Play enough poker games a Royal Flush is dealt at some time. Personally, I don't believe life is rare in the universe. Clearly, this seems to be the only planet at this speck of geological time that seems to have life. But even our vast solar system is but a microscopic point in the universe. There is a vast amount of matter and energy in the universe constantly reacting to their conditions.
 
Wudang said:
When I'm explaining prior and after probability to someone I often use Richard Feynman's example


Or - you see it's starting to rain. You calculate the prior probability that any given set of rain drops can land on any given spot on your lawn as near zero, so you stay outside as the rain can't hit you. Turns out you get wet anyway because you don't understand probability.
Click to expand...

Feynman was an idiot. ;)






(Just in case someone takes that seriously....I'm joking)
 
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