Or, our luck is the residue of our luck.

It is objectively true that the Universe was either designed, or it was not.

That neither option is verifiable does not mean the option devolves to some Great Spook.

Precisely.

What a farce.

Humans are so lucky that they were not born on the moon, because they wouldn't have had air to breathe. Being born 100 miles below the surface of the sun would have been kinda hot(but there's more plasma to add to our potted plants,) and the pressure exceeds that at the 'bottom' of the Mariana Trench. Gosh, we're soooo lucky!

I myself believe in God for reasons of personal faith. Also, IMHO the "God hypothesis" should be given a slight edge because (at least semantically) it is less of a violation of Occam's Razor than an infinity of universes which are aparently necessary to allow at least one universe like ours to arise by random chance after the Big Bang.

There at at least three problems with the Many Worlds theory as an explanation for our statistically unlikely universe. First, since these other universes by definition can never be visited or observed, their existence will forever remain (like the belief in God) a non-falsifiable hypothesis. Second (except for possibly sequential universes) a universe spun off from a parent universe, either as a parallel or baby universe, would share the same physical characteristics as its parent - carrying these characteristics over into its new existence. As such, they would appear to be unable to provide an explanation for our (or any other) finely tuned universe. Thirdly, evoking a near infinity of parallel universes to explain the conditions in our universe is an apparent violation of Occam's Razor.

Besides, "Did God create the universe?", is the wrong question from square one. The true question (IMHO) is "Does the universe have meaning or a purpose?". If only a random result of the initial conditons of the big bang, the universe has no *reason* for existing, its all just an accident. If created by a deliberate act, it implies a purpose or goal for the universe. Discovering that purpose could be a joint effort between faith and reason, hence my hope for a convergence between the two someday.

Mr. duffy:

It also fails the Fermi Paradox: where are they? Suppose infinite universes--one at least should have figured out how to communicate with us or else there aren't infinite.

Branch Rickey would be proud of you, Orrin.

Nah, I could never hit the curve.

When did the anthropic principle become science?

I have never seen it treated as anything but philosophical speculation. There's a reason it isn't called the anthropic theory.

It is not a meaningful question, so far. Possibly the Big Spook will come out and explain it all to us.

I have a Big Spook Theory: In a multiplicity of Universes of his own creation, he would not have to hide in any of them.

Dan,
I am curious as to how you would design an experiment to discover "purpose". What is the unit of measure for it?

Hide? Open your eyes.

Robert:

Put a child over a tank of Great White Sharks and ask people if it matters whether you drop him in or not.

Robert,

Meaning and purpose cannot be measured by science. Science deals exclusively with mechanism ("how" questions). Philosophy/theology deals exclusively with teleology ("why" questions). And the twain shall not meet (see Gould's "Rocks of Ages" and his concept of Non-Overlapping Magesteria).

What science can do is provide data that allows for informed teleological speculation.

It's not as if this teleology vs. mechanism argument is something new. IIRC it goes at least as far back as the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato and Socrates being on the side of teleology and Epictetus and Democritus being on the side of mechanism. The argument is never going to end and its a silly argument to begin with. Its like arguing over which blade of the scissors is the most important. Teleology and mechanism, or ends and means, are not mutually exclusive in any system or process. Unless of course you're a "fundamentalist" of either the religious or atheistic persuasion and are therefore in possession of the one and only exclusive truth. In this sense Jay Gould's description of Dawkins as a atheist version of a fundy is dead on accurate.

One other point on the many world's hypothesis. The many worlds hypothesis is is not "elegant", as most successful physical theories are. Its a crude blunderbuss approach requiring a near infinity of universes to explain a few basic forces and characteristics, epistemological over kill. God is a much simpler explanation. Oddly enough, in this case, Occam's Razor works in God's favor.

The notion that "falsifiability" is a "basic requirement" of "science" is, as far as I have ever been able to tell, a construct of those who dabble in "philosophy of science" and needed a definition of "science" so they could argue about it. "Science" is what scientists do.

oj:

It's quite possible that another civilization in our own universe is trying to communicate with us, or that something from an alternate universe is trying to communicate with us, and we just can't yet intercept their message.

Radio waves are flying all about our planet and solar system, but we don't recognize it until we obtain a radio.

brian:

Not quite, a "scientist" that isn't using the scientific method is an alchemist, astrologer, or philosopher.

Michael:

If infinity then one of them would figure it out.

Not if they're like me and don't care.

"Put a child over a tank of Great White Sharks and ask people if it matters whether you drop him in or not."

That will prove that the child's life has meaning to the people. But does it have meaning to the universe? Will the universe protect the child from the sharks?

Meaning, as far as we know, belongs to people alone.

Dan,
Except that profligacy is a feature of the universe as we see it. As is it's fractal nature, patterns repeating at ever larger levels of scale. The birch tree in my back yard puts out uncountable seeds every spring in order to ensure that maybe one seed in a decade will produce a sapling that will grow to adulthood. There are billions of galaxies, each composed of tens or hundreds of billions of stars.

But you concede that life has meaning, no?

Robert:

But only one produced Man.

oj:

We don't know that.
It's an open question.

Michael:

Sure it is.

Robert,

Your profligacy example has much in common with argument from design. Both extrapolate from known examples and apply them to larger scales. Both are non falsifiable and unscientific.

I disagree with your claim that an individual can find or create meaning in a universe inherently devoid of meaning or purpose:

"The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. Their answer was a qualified "Yes," advocating a formula of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism. In retrospect, it was an anecdote tinged with desperation because IN AN ABSURD WORLD THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO GUIDELINES, AND ANY COURSE OF ACTION IS PROBLEMATIC. PASSIONATE COMMITMENT, BE IT TO CONQUEST, CREATION OR WHATEVER, IS ITSELF MEANINGLESS. ENTER NIHILISM." (emphasis added) - from the internet encyclopedia of philosophy.

There is no escaping the nihilism inherent in atheism.

Dan:

"Also, IMHO the "God hypothesis" should be given a slight edge because (at least semantically) it is less of a violation of Occam's Razor than an infinity of universes which are aparently necessary to allow at least one universe like ours to arise by random chance after the Big Bang."

The God Hypothesis is as thorough a non-answer as there could possibly be. How did God come to be? If your answer is "God always has been," then Occams razor would suggest applying that same answer to the universe, as the result is the same, with fewer entities.

"The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish .... IN AN ABSURD WORLD THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO GUIDELINES, AND ANY COURSE OF ACTION IS PROBLEMATIC. PASSIONATE COMMITMENT, BE IT TO CONQUEST, CREATION OR WHATEVER, IS ITSELF MEANINGLESS. ENTER NIHILISM."

That is a great example of the Fallacy of Consequences. Atheism may well lead to nihilism, although answering every difficutly with "It is God's plan" doesn't seem like an improvement.

In any event, one (or none) of, atheism, deism, Christianity, Islam, ad nauseum. What you, or internet philosophers, think of the consequences, is utterly beside the point.

Jeff,

You keep responding to the wrong question. As I stated before, the question isn't whether or not God exists but whether existence has meaning. If the answer to this question is in the affirmative, then a Creator who designed and built the universe for a reason and with a purpose in mind is required. Accidents are by definition without meaning - they just happen.

In light or the real question, the query "Who made God" becomes a non sequetor. Meaning can not be created by an ininite regression of causes or even an infinite regression of gods. If the universe is believed to have meaining, then an uncreated Creator is required.

Which brings me back to the Anthropic Principle and the apparent fine tuning of our universe's physical characteristics as described in Martin Rees' "Just Six Numbers". Rees basically says that there are three responses to the statistically unlikely nature of the fine tuning and the incredible sensitivity of these values to the chance of matter or life forming:

A. Shrug of the shoulders, its trivial (implied by the weak anthropic principle)
B. Evidence of a Cosmic Design (implied by the strong anthropic principle)
C. There is an infinite number of parallel universes only a tiny fraction of which have, purely by chance, been created with the right physical constants to allow matter to form and life to develop. We just happen to be lucky enough to be in one that does (Many World theorem).

The first option is to merely accept the fact that we are here as a brute fact – displays a lack of curiosity which borders on the bovine. Besides, if a man were facing a 20 gun firing squad, and all the guns misfired allowing him to live, he’d be justified in asking why. I've already explained why I believe the third option (Many Worlds) is not viable.

This leaves belief in a creator God.

And I never said that atheism was wrong, only that it was nihilistic. What I was doing was responding to Roberts claim that life has meaning when "produced by man". I was hoping to show that this is not logically possible.

Dan, why is it logically impossible? You have proved nothing. As you admitted in your first reply, science can say nothing of meaning. There is no physics of meaning, no law of conservation of meaning. Meaning is a subjective perception, a state of mind. Just as pain and pleasure are. Are these traits necessarily bound into the fabric of the universe as a pre-requisite to our experience of them?

I am in agreement with Jeff on the inconsequentiality of internet encyclopedias. Appeal to authority won't win this argument for you, neither will comparing me to a cow. Your first option is the most operative, since 2 and 3 can never be proved. If you can find meaning in your life, then the answer to the question is inconsequential. It would be nice to know, everyone is curious, but in the end the answer is not forthcoming, and you have to get on with life.

There is another option - that the universe has meaning, but it's meaning has nothing in common with man's meaning. The meaning that a beef cow would assign to his life is not the same value that the ranch owner assigns to it, or the consumer. Be careful what you wish to find out. If god does exist and created man for a purpose, it may not be a purpose that you would want to fulfill. There is no logical reason that they must align.

Dan:

Don't blame me, you were the one who brought up Occam's razor.

With regard to Rees six numbers, any universe with any specific combination of those numbers is equally unlikely. That this particular one hosts us allows no conclusions whatsoever.

There may be come that allow you to sleep better at night, but that consequence has no bearing on the actual state of affairs.

"Besides, if a man were facing a 20 gun firing squad, and all the guns misfired allowing him to live, he’d be justified in asking why."

If there are enough firing squads, and a non-zero failure rate, such an outcome is inevitable. And if the intended victim had no knowledge of the rest, he could very well come up with all kinds of answers except the absolutely correct one:

S[tuff]t happens.

BTW--I omitted a clause in my previous post:

In any event, one (or none) of, atheism, deism, Christianity, Islam, ad nauseum is correct. What you, or internet philosophers, think of the consequences, is utterly beside the point.

"Are these traits necessarily bound into the fabric of the universe as a pre-requisite to our experience of them?"

Yes, if one wishes to avoid the void of nihilism or the indulging of solipcistic fantasies.

"Appeal to authority won't win this argument"

Your claim of "appeal to authority" is not a rebuttal so much as a red herring. If I had not placed the argument inside quote marks and referenced the encylopedia the force of the argument would still remain. So let me repeat it:

IN AN ABSURD WORLD THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO GUIDELINES, AND ANY COURSE OF ACTION IS PROBLEMATIC. PASSIONATE COMMITMENT, BE IT TO CONQUEST, CREATION OR WHATEVER, IS ITSELF MEANINGLESS. ENTER NIHILISM.

I should think this would be blatantly obvious, self evident and beyond discussion. An individual can no more create or find meaning in an inherently meaningless universe than a sailor at sea can find his way without a fixed navigation point like the North star or magnetic pole. He may think he is going somewhere, but that would be what you called a "subjective impression" divorced from reality. He'd be exchanging nihilism for solipcism. So yes, it is logically impossible.

"Your first option is the most operative, since 2 and 3 can never be proved."

And the first option (acceptance of the fine tuned universe as a brute fact, "we are here because we are here") is a tautology that solves nothing and answers nothing. This is the point of the original post, the weak anthropic principle is no more scientific than religious faith.

"With regard to Rees six numbers, any universe with any specific combination of those numbers is equally unlikely. That this particular one hosts us allows no conclusions whatsoever...If there are enough firing squads, and a non-zero failure rate, such an outcome is inevitable."

Sorry, but you've come back again to the Many Worlds hypothesis which is inherently non-falsifiable and unscientific - and violates Occam's Razor compared to the belief in a single Creator.

Mr. duffy:

Jeff has a specialized understanding of Occam's Razor. It goes like this: starting from the premise that faith is the least reliab;le explanation of anything and that science is 100% reliable, what is the simplest explanation for a given phenomena? Thus he prefers extraordinary levels of convolution, improbability, and inconsistency so long as it has a patina of science over any simple explanation that requires faith.

It's turtles, all the way down!

A universe can be nihilistic without being absurd.

Ours does not appear to be absurd but, so far as we have observed, tightly rule-bound. Nothing happens without a cause, but nothing happens for a reason.

What a strange place.

Yet not so strange as the place inside our heads, where David and Orrin claim the same heritage, but one risks his eternal future by eating pork and one doesn't.

Now, that's absurd but not nihilistic.

But someone wrote rules.

Dan:

You widely miss a couple points.

"I should think this would be blatantly obvious, self evident and beyond discussion. An individual can no more create or find meaning in an inherently meaningless universe."

You are taking as true that which is far from proven. The universe may well be completely meaningless, or completely meaningless with respect to humanity. That consideration is has nothing to do with groups of humans inventing all kinds of religions in order to supply that which is otherwise conspicuously absent. (E.g., when a tornado hits a brothel, it is an act of God; when it hits a church, it is an act of nature.)

So, contrary to your fervent desire, just because we can invent meaning does not have anything to do with whether meaning exists.

Regarding Rees numbers, my point has absolutely nothing to do with a many universes hypothesis. Even if there is only one, this one, the particular combination of numbers is just as likely as any other--the odds against each of them is precisely the same. Therefore, that we should be here to note the fact is no more or less improbable than any other set of universe circumstances.

You may wish to draw some meaning from this particular combination, but to assert that it de facto leads to some particular conclusion or another--for instance, some multipicity of universes--is wrong.

OJ:

Who wrote the someone who wrote the rules?

"...IN AN ABSURD WORLD..."

Hey, let's not bring up the notion of an absurd world.

It'll simply distract y'all from this set of absurd comments.

What a farce.

p.s. Take a look sometime at applying Piaget's Stage Theory of Cognitive Development(and derivatives by Fowler, Oser, etc.) It accounts for a significant amount of this taking-past-each-other, plus some of the B.S. from straddling various stages.

Robert:

[I]t may not be a purpose that you would want to fulfill.

Absolutely.

Most religious people don't even fulfill the purpose that they think we exist for.

LarryH:

Thanks so much for your contribution.

Perhaps, though, you could be more specific.