Does the universe need intelligence to order it?

[Robert.Evans]

This is a question that Physicist G. Schroeder asks:

Q: Very occasionally monkeys hammering away at typewriters will type out one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

A: Not true, not in this universe. But it is a popular assumption that the monkeys can do it, a wrong assumption that randomness can produce meaningful stable complexity. But let's look at the numbers to see why the monkeys will always fail. I'll take the only sonnet I know, sonnet number 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day …” All sonnets are 14 lines, all about the same length. This sonnet has approximately 488 letters (neglect spaces). With a typewriter or keyboard having 26 letters, the number of possible combinations is 26 to the exponential power of 488 or approximately ten to the power of 690. That is a one with 690 zeros after it. Convert the entire 10 to the 56 grams of the universe (forget working with the monkeys) into computer chips each weighing a billionth of a gram and have each chip type out a billion sonnet trials a second (or 488 billion operations per second) since the beginning of time, ten to the 18th seconds ago. The number of trials will be approximately ten to power of 92, a huge number but minuscule when compared with the 10 to power 690 possible combinations of the letters. We are off by a factor of ten to power of 600. The laws of probability confirm that the universe would have reached its heat death before getting one sonnet. We will never get a sonnet by random trials, and the most basic molecules of life are far more complex than the most intricate sonnet. As reported in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, when the world’s most influential atheist philosopher, Antony Flew, read this analysis of complexity and several analyses related to the complexity of life brought in my third book, The Hidden Face of God, and Roy Varghese’s excellent book, The Wonder of the World, he abandoned his errant belief in a Godless world and publically apologized for leading so many persons astray for the decades that his atheistic thoughts held sway. (Gerald Schroeder Home Page
~~~~~~~

In my own humble way, I could have said that monkeys would not have done that, no matter how much time they had. Time was at one time seen as the ''hero''. But monkeys are monkeys!

Yet time does not always mean there will be sufficient change in order to facilitate the change needed in the first place. Why do we think it does?

So, my question is this: If that is so unlikely for monkeys to do... then, if the multiverse exists, how can we even be sure that they would all be different universes, thus giving us sufficiently correct odds that our universe could develop the way it did. I don't see we have licence to expect such a positive result.

Now there are those who say that this universe might be the proverbial bouncing ball, forever coming into existence and then dying only to be reborn. If so, why should we think that would be any better with the odds?

In other words, if it is so difficult to do, how is time going to help?

A dice with six sides is one thing.... eventually we know that the six will come up. But what of the dice with a trillion sides. Is a six going to come up then?
It is hard to say it ever would, there are just too many chances of it falling onto another number. It might never do! Are we mistakenly thinking it would have to do, just because of an allegiance to some kind of worldly thinking?

And why does probability act the way it does anyway? What drives that?

It appears without intelligence involved in creation, we have no right to expect anything positively happening at all.

 

[Acintya_Ash]

It appears without intelligence involved in creation, we have no right to expect anything positively happening at all.

The Universe has a spirit and The intelligence involved is intrinsic.
this Video will help you in having a better worldview:

regards,
Ash

 

[Koldo]

This is a question that Physicist G. Schroeder asks:

Q: Very occasionally monkeys hammering away at typewriters will type out one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

A: Not true, not in this universe. But it is a popular assumption that the monkeys can do it, a wrong assumption that randomness can produce meaningful stable complexity. But let's look at the numbers to see why the monkeys will always fail. I'll take the only sonnet I know, sonnet number 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day …” All sonnets are 14 lines, all about the same length. This sonnet has approximately 488 letters (neglect spaces). With a typewriter or keyboard having 26 letters, the number of possible combinations is 26 to the exponential power of 488 or approximately ten to the power of 690. That is a one with 690 zeros after it. Convert the entire 10 to the 56 grams of the universe (forget working with the monkeys) into computer chips each weighing a billionth of a gram and have each chip type out a billion sonnet trials a second (or 488 billion operations per second) since the beginning of time, ten to the 18th seconds ago. The number of trials will be approximately ten to power of 92, a huge number but minuscule when compared with the 10 to power 690 possible combinations of the letters. We are off by a factor of ten to power of 600. The laws of probability confirm that the universe would have reached its heat death before getting one sonnet. We will never get a sonnet by random trials, and the most basic molecules of life are far more complex than the most intricate sonnet. As reported in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, when the world’s most influential atheist philosopher, Antony Flew, read this analysis of complexity and several analyses related to the complexity of life brought in my third book, The Hidden Face of God, and Roy Varghese’s excellent book, The Wonder of the World, he abandoned his errant belief in a Godless world and publically apologized for leading so many persons astray for the decades that his atheistic thoughts held sway. (Gerald Schroeder Home Page
~~~~~~~

In my own humble way, I could have said that monkeys would not have done that, no matter how much time they had. Time was at one time seen as the ''hero''. But monkeys are monkeys!

Yet time does not always mean there will be sufficient change in order to facilitate the change needed in the first place. Why do we think it does?

The chances that any particular state of affairs would exist is statistically equal ( for instance, the sonnet 18 with a different last word is as probable as the sonnet 18 as is ) considering the example you are bringing up. Which makes the whole analogy and argument of no practical relevance.

 

[viole]

A: Not true, not in this universe. But it is a popular assumption that the monkeys can do it, a wrong assumption that randomness can produce meaningful stable complexity.

Well, we have an obvious counterexample. Randomness, in tandem with other mechanisms, can create stable complex systems. Life for instance, according to evolution by natural selection. Actually, randomness is the only source of new (local) information we know of, no matter whether it can be used/selected or not. This is obvious: if a process is not random, then the end product cannot contain more information than its source.

It appears without intelligence involved in creation, we have no right to expect anything positively happening at all.

Questions for you and all proponents of the fine tuning theory.

How is that supposed to work if God did not exist? Are you assuming a random process that generates Universes from some pre existing material or probabistic law so that the end result is, very likely, a random mess if not controlled by a conscious guide?

One is for sure. Nobody can use the "why is there something instead of nothing" and the fine tuning argument at the same time. For, assuming a random generation of messy universes presuppones always a naturalstic something, which is then used to defeat it.

And why do you think God needed effort or intelligence to fine tune the Universe?

We need a lot of work to make complex working things because we live in a Universe in which things tend to get messy if we do not create more mess somewere else. Entropy can be decreased locally only if we more than increase it somewhere else. This is the second law., which is pretty inescapable. Without a repository of order that can be turned into a mess, we could not do anything.

Therefore, everytime you use analogies that show intelligence to make things like computers or cars, you should be consistent and realize that if God introduced order here than He must have created mess somewhere else. Exactly how intelligence works here.

If you do not that, you use a false analogy. Everytime.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Robert.Evans]

The Universe has a spirit and The intelligence involved is intrinsic.
this Video will help you in having a better worldview:

regards,
Ash

Thanks for that. Do you know if there is a transcript of it? It costs a lot to watch vid's for me.
Though I agree with your thoughts.

 

[Robert.Evans]

The chances that any particular state of affairs would exist is statistically equal ( for instance, the sonnet 18 with a different last word is as probable as the sonnet 18 as is ) considering the example you are bringing up. Which makes the whole analogy and argument of no practical relevance.

Not in this universe it's not

 

[Robert.Evans]

Well, we have an obvious counterexample. Randomness, in tandem with other mechanisms, can create stable complex systems. Life for instance, according to evolution by natural selection. Actually, randomness is the only source of new (local) information we know of, no matter whether it can be used/selected or not.

Hello Viole,#
The example you give that randomness can in tandem with other mechanisms or processes is just an acceptance of something physical creating some result. My point is, why should it even do that? Why should things that are random assemble themselves in such a way? It appears to be an acceptance of the natural being able to do all things. But can it?
And natural selection has to work on random mutations to start with, which luckily bring up the kind of mutations that we need to exist. The argument that if they did not, we would not, is not much of a counter-argument.

This is obvious: if a process is not random, then the end product cannot contain more information than its source.

But if the universe is a closed system completely automanous, then it would not need to be fully random, rather following something already existing. That would explain why mutations mutate enough beneficial ones for us to exist in the first place.

Questions for you and all proponents of the fine tuning theory.

How is that supposed to work if God did not exist? Are you assuming a random process that generates Universes from some pre existing material or law so that the end result is, very likely, a random mess if not controlled by a conscious guide?

Yes. Chaos is chaos, and stays that way. For it to form any patterns (which it does) there must be something in the universe that makes it order, as all other things seem to do, even the assebling of atoms in the early universe.

One is for sure. Nobody can use the "why is there something instead of nothing" and the fine tuning argument at the same time. For, assuming a random generation of messy universes presuppones always a naturalstic something, which is used to defeat it.

they are both valid arguments... whether they can be used at the same time matters not. Anyway, i answered the above as an answer, not because it would exist. Nothing exists without God. What you see is the divine expressed in physical terms.... - keeping it short.

And why do you think God needed effort to fine tune the Universe?

I don't. I think God is evolving consciousness and this is the physical side of it. But it shows us something in this realm that we need intelligence to order it.

We need a lot of work to make complex things because we live in a Universe in which things tend to get messy if we do not create more mess somewere else. Entropy can be decreased locally only if we more than increase it somewhere else. This is the second law., which is pretty inescapable.

Entropy is a good example. Why should all things seem to move to a worse state if left (such as coffe going cold) and yet the universe evolve into something which appears to be quite the opposite. It orders.

Therefore, everytime you use analogies that show intelligence to make things like computers or cars, you should be consistent and realize that if God introduced order here than He must have created mess somewhere else.

If you do not that, you use a false analogy. Everytime.

Ciao

- viole

Why is it necessary to create mess somewhere else?
As God, as we think of him, is evolving consciousness, the ''mess'' started as soon as we departed from the Source. After that, all things went inevitably down hill. That is why we have gravity... it is how it is seen in physical terms.

Please explain the ''mess'' point at the end.

 

[Acintya_Ash]

Thanks for that. Do you know if there is a transcript of it? It costs a lot to watch vid's for me.
Though I agree with your thoughts.

Here's a comment which almost gives a good explanation of the subject matter discussed in that video:
A persons identity does not exist if there are no other people for identity is comes from relationships, this can also be applied to any object. A rock is recognised as a rock, it too has an identity. If no humans exist, in fact nothing exists. Quantum physics now shows this. If there is a flower it is beautiful even if nobody is looking at it. If the flower exists it is fundamental that it has an identity for merely commenting on it. I totally agree with Satish that people have failed to understand this world view. Beauty is intrinsic as it has objective value. Love, happiness, beauty, art, most importantly good are all objective. Things like Halloween, pleasure, drugs, and most importantly evil are subjective. Dawkins failed to understand the definition of existence. Matter is matter, it is physical. By definition spirit is not physical but it does exist, I think therefore I am. As long as it is objective, it does exist.

One must understand matter is physical, that is it. How can something that is not matter take a physical form? Matter by definition is what is physical. It is not to say that spirit does not exist for spirit is objective. Love, happiness and all that is good has intrinsic value, it is universally preferable to follow these values. This is called virtue. Evil is irrationality, it is something synthesised in our minds and is in fact, subjective. So when we refer to spirit, we are referring to something that has a universal value therefore it exists. Let's take an example of an art, The Art of Magic; materialistically, it is just a puzzle. Magic is a quality of the Art of Magic, an audience does not solve it like a puzzle but is amazed. From there we have happiness and this is another quality. So you see this quality/spirit is within our relationship between everything in the universe. Believing in God is much like believing that the identity of other humans exist. Identity can actually be in anything as Satish has shown. Identity is what is created from relationships. So God actually the identity of the whole. Believing in God is like believing other humans you speak to every day are conscious, we have no evidence that they are yet we still believe this and nobody is called deluded for believing that. As I have shown all Good is objective, I believe all good is love for that is the highest virtue. God is Love, God is all that is good. To be a materialist you would have to in fact deny that good or evil exist, that identity does not exist, that spirit does not exist even though it has been shown to be objective. Even if humans did not exist we still have intrinsic beauty and is evidence that God exists.

regards
Ash

 

[Koldo]

Not in this universe it's not

How so?

 

[Robert.Evans]

As a riposte to another thread, we might also ask:

Please demonstrate that the creation of our universe was driven by luck.

 

[Brickjectivity]

The Universe has a spirit and The intelligence involved is intrinsic.
this Video will help you in having a better worldview:

Interesting. I watched the first 7 minutes about 'Wholism' and skipped around and finally landed on the little argument :minute 29: between Satish Kumar and the other two people who were insisting that beauty could not be considered intrinsic to an object while Kumar was saying that in his view beauty was an intrinsic (which he called 'Spiritual') quality. The other two weren't quite understanding what he was talking about, because they were stuck on the idea that beauty subjectively depended upon the observer.

What I think S.K. should have claimed in his conversation (but did not) was that Beauty is a property of order, regardless of our ability to perceive order. That might have helped the conversation move forward to the next objection.

 

[Robert.Evans]

How so?

You appear to be saying that each one of the 6 numbers on a dice can come up at equal odds. I agree. But, we do not want any of them, we want a six. That means it is more likely to not land on a six than to land on one, as there are five other possibilities. If there is a trillion possibilities, then it just won't happen. That is why the monkey experiment did not happen, there are too many other possibilities

 

[HonestJoe]

Given this whole thread is based on the last of five dishonest straw man arguments, it's somewhat moot. There is a key misquote of a philosophical concept which entirely changes its relevance to the point he is making. The concept actually has either an infinite number of monkeys or an infinite amount of time (or, rather pointlessly, both). It isn't claiming that any given possibility will happen, only that any given possibility could happen, however unlikely (as long as it's greater than zero).
Anyway, it must be possible for the universe to exists in the manner it does despite the apparent endless alternative possibilities because it does. Introducing some form of controlling intelligence actually increases the complexity of the universe and just adds the existence of that intelligence to the overall problem. On the basis of the extremely limited information we currently have available, the chance of there being some kind of controlling intelligence and the chance of there not being are equal.

 

[Acintya_Ash]

What I think S.K. should have claimed in his conversation (but did not) was that Beauty is a property of order, regardless of our ability to perceive order. That might have helped the conversation move forward to the next objection.

Yes right on spot!
And it is that Order which we can infer to as 'God/Divine'.

 

[Koldo]

You appear to be saying that each one of the 6 numbers on a dice can come up at equal odds. I agree. But, we do not want any of them, we want a six. That means it is more likely to not land on a six than to land on one, as there are five other possibilities. If there is a trillion possibilities, then it just won't happen. That is why the monkey experiment did not happen, there are too many other possibilities

Hold on. Since one result has to happen, why would you say that 6 just won't happen ( in one trillion )?
They all have equal odds, and one of them has to come up.

If we didn't get a 6 ( if our universe wasn't as it is ), you would be asking why we got a 7, or an 8, or a 9... or any other number that came up.
One of them has to come up, why not 6?

 

[viole]

Why is it necessary to create mess somewhere else?
As God, as we think of him, is evolving consciousness, the ''mess'' started as soon as we departed from the Source. After that, all things went inevitably down hill. That is why we have gravity... it is how it is seen in physical terms.

Please explain the ''mess'' point at the end.

Why is it necessary? Because of the second law of thermodynamics.

You cannot create order without a pre-existing order somewhere else that can be sacrificed and turned into a useless mess. You cannot have a creative thought without eating and burning useful ordered energy in the form of animals or plants. Everytime you have a nice idea, you accelerated the eventual doom of the universe towards heat death. The same when you ponder about the qualities of God or when you fall in love. Try that without eating.

You cannot generate any sort of useful work without generating useless heat somewhere else that cannot be further used to create additional work.

This is also why you need cooling fans when your computer needs to compute a lot of information. For information is physical and strongly correlated with entropy and thermodynamics. They are basically the same thing. No intelligence possible without low entropy you can tap on.

Do you tink that God also has a reservoir of order He can tap on in order to be intelligent? Because if He hasn't, then His creative processes cannot in any way be made similar to the ones we follow in this Universe. Ergo, all arguments from design, which presuppone human intelligence toward a goal, fall apart.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Robert.Evans]

The Universe has a spirit and The intelligence involved is intrinsic.
this Video will help you in having a better worldview:

regards,
Ash

Okay, I watched a bit of the vid... he is good. Dawkins and friend are mechanical in their thinking, as one would expect.

 

[Revoltingest]

Q: Very occasionally monkeys hammering away at typewriters will type out one of Shakespeare's sonnets.
A: Not true, not in this universe.

The Shakespearean monkey story is only to illustrate something about probability, ie, given enuf trials, otherwise unlikely things will happen. It's better known as Murphy's Law.

But calculating probability depends upon assumptions. In this case, there is a single universe. But we don't know that. Were we to presume an infinite number of them, then even the most unlikely occurrence would happen somewhere some time.

Now there are those who say that this universe might be the proverbial bouncing ball, forever coming into existence and then dying only to be reborn. If so, why should we think that would be any better with the odds?
In other words, if it is so difficult to do, how is time going to help?

Time increases the number of trials for something to occur, thereby increasing the probability.

So, my question is this: If that is so unlikely for monkeys to do... then, if the multiverse exists, how can we even be sure that they would all be different universes, thus giving us sufficiently correct odds that our universe could develop the way it did. I don't see we have licence to expect such a positive result.

We can't be sure of anything we cannot observe in any way. If one cannot quantify any premises, then one cannot make a probability based argument.

But isn't it meaningless to talk about monkey's writing particular sonnets? No one's philosophy or theory rests upon such a thing.
Now, on to the bigger problem:
If one presumes an intelligence is necessary to explain the improbability of universe we observe, then how improbable is the existence of an even more complex intelligence?

 

[Yerda]

Hold on. Since one result has to happen, why would you say that 6 just won't happen ( in one trillion )?
They all have equal odds, and one of them has to come up.

If we didn't get a 6 ( if our universe wasn't as it is ), you would be asking why we got a 7, or an 8, or a 9... or any other number that came up.
One of them has to come up, why not 6?

My stastical intuitions are not great, but it's hard to see what is wrong with this.

On a trillion-sided die, if it were fair, we would expect a particular side to show once in every trillion tumbles. It can't be guaranteed but neither can it be guaranteed that a six will come up once in every six tumbles of a six-sided die. It would be astonishing if it never came up six (in continued attempts). I think there is a fundamental error in the OP.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Given this whole thread is based on the last of five dishonest straw man arguments, it's somewhat moot.

No it is not and they are not dishonest. You should be careful calling people that. Explain your men of straw.

There is a key misquote of a philosophical concept which entirely changes its relevance to the point he is making. The concept actually has either an infinite number of monkeys or an infinite amount of time (or, rather pointlessly, both). It isn't claiming that any given possibility will happen, only that any given possibility could happen, however unlikely (as long as it's greater than zero).

No it was not. Time was supposed to be the hero, that was the general idea

Anyway, it must be possible for the universe to exists in the manner it does despite the apparent endless alternative possibilities because it does. Introducing some form of controlling intelligence actually increases the complexity of the universe and just adds the existence of that intelligence to the overall problem. On the basis of the extremely limited information we currently have available, the chance of there being some kind of controlling intelligence and the chance of there not being are equal.

I would not say that it is equal. Intelligence answers the complexity and odds that we see, hence the OP. Complex things require explanation, and saying, naturaldidit, is not an answer. that is my point.