If your theory is that your god created this universe and an infinite number of other universes why would your specific god exist in the first place? Maybe your particular god is a result of natural evolution in a previous universe?
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Do we live in a fine tuned universe
- Thread starter whirlingmerc
- Start date
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- Tags
- astronomy. design
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
Not impossible. My money is not on a multiverse though, rather just this one universe, with humanity as it's primary beneficiaries.
But if there were a multiverse, then yes I think ID is still the better explanation for this universe.
Which gets to the larger point, ID has no need to banish natural mechanisms from the playing field, in order to win out as the best explanation.
The same cannot be said the other way around. we can only deduce that the gambler played 10 royal flushes in a row by sheer luck, if we can be utterly sure nobody could have cheated
And if ID is "the best explanation" what is your best explanation for the existence of this Intelligent Designer in the first place? Natural mechanisms? ID?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
a little bit of both, I see no need to rule either out
siti
Well-Known Member
I love this - the universe is as it is because an intelligent designer that evolved naturally designed to be that way...this is almost like Paola Zizzi's "Big Wow" - the idea that the early universe may have experienced a moment of (quantum) computational complexity (consciousness?) in which the parameters for the future evolution of the universe were selected. Hmmm!
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
That's one possibility I suppose, ID in whatever form, would solve the need for an infinite probability machine/multiverse to achieve the same task.
siti
Well-Known Member
Except that it doesn't solve that problem at all. Nothing solves that problem except either an infinite deity or an infinite universe and they both amount to the same thing - infinite probability machines - one is unreal and supernatural and the other is real and natural, but both 'explanations' attempt to explain (away) the problem of an infinite regression of cause and effect (in 'this universe') by positing an eternally existing 'entity'. Neither is satisfactory IMO and the most plausible answer is just to accept that there may indeed be an infinite regression of cause-effects and that 'this universe' is probably therefore both infinite and eternal. The advantage of that is that we actually know that 'this universe' exists and we have no way of proving or disproving the existence of either an intelligent designer (unless it is a natural one like the 'Big Wow' or my own preferred metaphor for the inherent unceasing creativeness of nature - the 'eternal process pandeus') or a multiverse. All of which is to say: if there is 'design' in the process of evolution it has emerged from within rather than being imposed from without. (IMO)
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
I take your point, we can make a distinction between two separate paradoxes here though
what I'd call the first cause paradox- applies to either explanation, (where did THAT come from?) and so it's a wash, and a moot point, because here we are, it's obviously solvable one way or t'other
The other paradox is creation without creativity, and this is unique to a spontaneous as opposed to creative agency- whereby natural laws must be infinitely underwritten by more natural laws to support them.
Yes I'd agree we can call our creative intelligence 'supernatural' in that it can achieve what nature alone never can, and that is exactly what gives it the superior power of explanation, because otherwise the laws of nature must ultimately be written by.... those very same laws
Creative intelligence is the only phenomena we know of, that can solve this paradox, because it can genuinely create truly novel things- unrestrained by an otherwise infinite regression of cause and effect.
And 'supernatural' as may be, it is also an entirely observable phenomena within the universe. So we have no special reason to omit it from the range of possible explanations.
Which gets to the larger point. Naturalism must banish ID from the playing field altogether, in order to be permitted to accidentally score a goal eventually.
While ID has no such need to remove natural laws to win out as the best explanation.
siti
Well-Known Member
Well - I guess you win that one - you have indeed created an argument out of absolutely nothing! I'm still struggling to see any intelligent design in it though!
Anyway, building on your argument as if there were some substance to it, what laws determine what the Intelligent Designer can create? (Please bear with me a question at a time - this is going somewhere).
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
okay, I'll take it!
The intelligent designer is not bound by the laws of his own creation -(e.g. any restraints of time/space/energy/mass as we recognize them) And it's not clear that our creativity is ultimately limited by anything either, I'd say perhaps only the will, desire, purpose of a creator ultimately determines can be created...
Still waiting for an explanation why and how this Intelligent Designer exists in the first place.
siti
Well-Known Member
So there are no limitations (as far as we know) on what kind of universe God could choose to create? Potentially, God could have created a universe with any set of any number of parameters that determine how space/time/energy/mass...etc. might be 'restrained'? And all of that potentiality would have to be, as it were, in the "Mind of God" - otherwise God could not have chosen this or that particular one to actually create? So philosophically, categorically, conceptually...what's the difference between the "Mind of God" and the "multiverse"? We can't prove either and all we know if either are true is that the one actual universe we are in happens to be the one that has these (as opposed the those - any other) characteristics. So what's the difference?
But the chances of a gambler playing any configuration is just as improbable -- four times more, in fact, considering the four different possible suits.
A hand is dealt favoring a particular interest, and the interested parties insist it was intentionally dealt to favor them? Does that make sense?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
But the chances of a gambler playing any configuration is just as improbable -- four times more, in fact, considering the four different possible suits.
it's the same probability, any particular possible series of 50 cards from the 10 deals
they are all equally & extremely improbable, right?
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Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
OK. I am your Intelligent Designer but I haven't bothered to design anything yet so I exist completely alone. So if I ask myself: "Why and how do I exist? Why am I here? How come I exist? What is my reason for existing? What is my purpose?" then the answer is "love"?what's the best motivation, explanation for anything?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
correct
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The world we are living is neither fine tuned nor roughly made, its just made to enjoy and suffer based on one's karma, thats all. If all we do is bad, the world will evolve into a choas, if we do alll good karma,heaven can be brought right up here. Evolution is nothing but reaction of our actions...
The world is just there. It chanced to be in a particular orbit and composed of a particular package of stuff. The chemistry chanced to be amenable to the development of certain self-replicating molecules and polymers. These chanced to proliferate.
Had we been in a different orbit, or on a different sized or composed planet, we would not have developed, or something completely different might have developed.
The fine tuning hypothesis confuses chance with design. It's a statistical non-sequitur. It puts effect before cause.
Had we been in a different orbit, or on a different sized or composed planet, we would not have developed, or something completely different might have developed.
The fine tuning hypothesis confuses chance with design. It's a statistical non-sequitur. It puts effect before cause.