Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer

[Starlight]

if you banned him in the OP that would be one thing. banning him because you dont like him, then letting him back in and banning him again is abusing the privilege.

Wow. I guess that would be weird had I done any of that. You're so completely full of it that it's hilarious.

[element771]

Okay, fair enough. If you wanted to name the ones you find compelling I would be interested to see what they are, or you could start a thread in this forum laying one of them out in detail.

Thanks for the kind words.

I will say from the start that I don't have a silver bullet type of argument. It is more like a puzzle in that each argument slowly puts the picture together. Furthermore, it is a choice as to what makes more sense to me. I believe that if you dig down deep enough into any of the arguments, it becomes a choice.

Our existence would be one argument. What I mean by that is everything in the universe "follows" a set of laws that allowed matter to form, which lead to hydrogen forming, which eventually lead to carbon forming, which eventually lead to primordial life to form, which evolved to higher and more complex life forms, which culminated in a being capable of contemplation of its own existence.

IMO, it makes no sense to think this just happened by accident (i.e. the laws that govern things just so happened to funnel things toward consciousness). I may be wrong and I can see how others would disagree with me but ultimately, this is what I couldn't get past when I was trying to become an atheist.

[Starlight]

Our existence would be one argument. What I mean by that is everything in the universe "follows" a set of laws that allowed matter to form, which lead to hydrogen forming, which eventually lead to carbon forming, which eventually lead to primordial life to form, which evolved to higher and more complex life forms, which culminated in a being capable of contemplation of its own existence.

IMO, it makes no sense to think this just happened by accident (i.e. the laws that govern things just so happened to funnel things toward consciousness).

As I'm sure you are aware, there's a couple of possible explanations that atheists commonly point to in explanation for this:

1. The many-worlds hypothesis. One explanation of quantum mechanics suggests that there are an infinity of parallel universes where every possible quantum-mechanical outcome occurs. What this means in practice is that the vast vast vast majority of universes are utterly devoid of any life or consciousness. But a very small percentage of the universes are such that they are suited to the rise of higher life-forms, like ours, and hence life exists.

2. An infinity of big bangs and crunches. The idea that the universe repeatedly (over an infinity of years) collapses under gravity into a singularity and then explodes again with quantum-mechanically 'random' settings to its laws of physics. In the vast majority of cycles nothing remotely interesting happens, but in a very very small percentage of cycles such as ours, the laws of physics happen to be right to allow stars to form and higher lifeforms to evolve.

In addition to those, there's a couple of other theories that have gained popularity over the last couple of years, which you may not yet have come across. They are, in a strict sense, 'deist' explanations, though they are atheistic with regard to all traditional religions and generally advocates of them describe themselves as atheists rather than deists:

3. The universe is a computer simulation. This idea is that a highly advanced civilization somewhere (perhaps humanity in the future), decided to run a detailed computer simulation of a universe, perhaps their own universe to try to understand it better or to understand their own species' past history. Since there are probably multiple highly advanced species in the universe and any such species would have potential reason to run not merely one but multiple such simulations, it follows that the existence of a single 'real' universe would probably give rise to at least one simulated universe but more likely thousands of such simulations. So, probabilistically, if we find ourselves in a universe it is highly likely it is a simulated universe rather than the 'real' one, because there are far more of them.

4. The universe is a computer game. This is a variant on the previous view. It notes that massively-multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) are extremely popular, and that highly immersive virtual reality technology is becoming better and more popular. In any highly advanced civilization where medical science had solved aging, and the people lived for millions and billions of years, they would inevitably get bored and want to play a lot of computer games, and the more immersive the better. So they would have both the technology and the will to create dozens or thousands of such virtual worlds where their people could enter into and live thousands of different lives. For each billion-year long life a person in that civilization lived in the 'real' world, they might live more than a million different lives in immersive reality computer games. Again, probabilistically, for any given life being lived, it is more likely to be being lived within a game because there are a million times more game-lives than 'real'-lives.

As a computer-gamer, I'm kind of partial to option 4, plus it coheres well with my general tendency to think consciousness is non-material and thus hold a dualist or idealist view of the mind-body problem.

[shunyadragon]

As I'm sure you are aware, there's a couple of possible explanations that atheists commonly point to in explanation for this:

1. The many-worlds hypothesis. One explanation of quantum mechanics suggests that there are an infinity of parallel universes where every possible quantum-mechanical outcome occurs. What this means in practice is that the vast vast vast majority of universes are utterly devoid of any life or consciousness. But a very small percentage of the universes are such that they are suited to the rise of higher life-forms, like ours, and hence life exists.

2. An infinity of big bangs and crunches. The idea that the universe repeatedly (over an infinity of years) collapses under gravity into a singularity and then explodes again with quantum-mechanically 'random' settings to its laws of physics. In the vast majority of cycles nothing remotely interesting happens, but in a very very small percentage of cycles such as ours, the laws of physics happen to be right to allow stars to form and higher lifeforms to evolve.

In addition to those, there's a couple of other theories that have gained popularity over the last couple of years, which you may not yet have come across. They are, in a strict sense, 'deist' explanations, though they are atheistic with regard to all traditional religions and generally advocates of them describe themselves as atheists rather than deists:

3. The universe is a computer simulation. This idea is that a highly advanced civilization somewhere (perhaps humanity in the future), decided to run a detailed computer simulation of a universe, perhaps their own universe to try to understand it better or to understand their own species' past history. Since there are probably multiple highly advanced species in the universe and any such species would have potential reason to run not merely one but multiple such simulations, it follows that the existence of a single 'real' universe would probably give rise to at least one simulated universe but more likely thousands of such simulations. So, probabilistically, if we find ourselves in a universe it is highly likely it is a simulated universe rather than the 'real' one, because there are far more of them.

4. The universe is a computer game. This is a variant on the previous view. It notes that massively-multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) are extremely popular, and that highly immersive virtual reality technology is becoming better and more popular. In any highly advanced civilization where medical science had solved aging, and the people lived for millions and billions of years, they would inevitably get bored and want to play a lot of computer games, and the more immersive the better. So they would have both the technology and the will to create dozens or thousands of such virtual worlds where their people could enter into and live thousands of different lives. For each billion-year long life a person in that civilization lived in the 'real' world, they might live more than a million different lives in immersive reality computer games. Again, probabilistically, for any given life being lived, it is more likely to be being lived within a game because there are a million times more game-lives than 'real'-lives.

As a computer-gamer, I'm kind of partial to option 4, plus it coheres well with my general tendency to think consciousness is non-material and thus hold a dualist or idealist view of the mind-body problem.

You need not go this far into the hypothetical of 'other universes,' to provide a simple scientific explanation concerning how life arose from abiota (inorganic matter) and evolved naturally. There is no reason at present to doubt the science of abiogenesis as result of natural processes. "Accident" is a bad descriptive of what can come about naturally, and natural processes do not occur by "accident."

We are finding similar solar systems near by with planets that are possible life forming rocky planets. Considering millions if not billions of galaxies in our universe you need not consider the possibility for life and intelligent life beyond our universe.

Simply, if God exists, God Created by natural methods. I believe in God and find such arguments against the natural explanation that argue any version or variation of the necessity of 'ID' a waste of good minds trying push square pegs in round holes.

[Starlight]

You need not go this far into the hypothetical of 'other universes,' to provide a simple scientific explanation concerning how life arose from abiota (inorganic matter) and evolved naturally.

My answer was an answer to the "fine-tuning" argument - "why is it that the fundamental laws of physics in our universe happen to be such that they allow the formation of stars, chemical elements, complex life etc, rather than merely causing our universe to be a very uninteresting place where it just collapses back in on itself or generates no chemical elements beyond hydrogen - as would happen if some of the fundamental physical constants were a bit different?" I believe this was the argument Element was touching on in his post.

Given an appropriate universe the formation of stars, planets, and life is now fairly well-explained by science, with cosmological models and evolutionary ideas. Thus the god-of-the-gaps has shrunk back from "you can't explain the creation of man and animals without God!" and "you can't explain the existence of our planet without God!" to "You can't explain how it happens that our universe happens to have exactly the right physical laws that would lead to life coming to exist without God!" The obvious possibilities are that (a) lots and lots of universes exist due to whatever forces generate them, but only a small proportion of them have the right physical laws to lead to life, (b) some intelligent entity somewhere (a god, a computer game maker, a scientist in a lab) made a deliberate decision to cause this particular universe to have the life-favorable laws it does, (c) it was actually completely random and by chance, and/or we don't really truly understand the physical laws well enough to realize that the situation we find them in was inevitable and/or there are actually a lot more settings for them that lead to life arising than we realize and our universe is not really all that 'fine-tuned' at all.

We are finding similar solar systems near by with planets that are possible life forming rocky planets. Considering millions if not billions of galaxies in our universe you need not consider the possibility for life and intelligent life beyond our universe.

Obviously. But that was not the issue I was discussing, and I do not think it was what Element was referring to.

[element771]

You need not go this far into the hypothetical of 'other universes,' to provide a simple scientific explanation concerning how life arose from abiota (inorganic matter) and evolved naturally. There is no reason at present to doubt the science of abiogenesis as result of natural processes. "Accident" is a bad descriptive of what can come about naturally, and natural processes do not occur by "accident."

We are finding similar solar systems near by with planets that are possible life forming rocky planets. Considering millions if not billions of galaxies in our universe you need not consider the possibility for life and intelligent life beyond our universe.

Simply, if God exists, God Created by natural methods. I believe in God and find such arguments against the natural explanation that argue any version or variation of the necessity of 'ID' a waste of good minds trying push square pegs in round holes.

Go away shuny, the adults are having a conversation.

I never said anything about the evolution of humans being an accident, I am referring to the laws that govern everything.

You don't even understand abiogenesis nor the science that underlies it. You continue to make a mockery of the science that you use to argue via weblink. You won't even pick a paper to discuss. I hesitated to even start this because I knew you would come in and derail any discussion that we were having as you usually do. Starlight understood my point as I intended. He doesn't need your help (if that is what you call it.)

As such, this will be the last response from me to you on this thread. Responding to your inane ramblings is a waste of my time.

[shunyadragon]

My answer was an answer to the "fine-tuning" argument - "why is it that the fundamental laws of physics in our universe happen to be such that they allow the formation of stars, chemical elements, complex life etc, rather than merely causing our universe to be a very uninteresting place where it just collapses back in on itself or generates no chemical elements beyond hydrogen - as would happen if some of the fundamental physical constants were a bit different?" I believe this was the argument Element was touching on in his post.

Given an appropriate universe the formation of stars, planets, and life is now fairly well-explained by science, with cosmological models and evolutionary ideas. Thus the god-of-the-gaps has shrunk back from "you can't explain the creation of man and animals without God!" and "you can't explain the existence of our planet without God!" to "You can't explain how it happens that our universe happens to have exactly the right physical laws that would lead to life coming to exist without God!" The obvious possibilities are that (a) lots and lots of universes exist due to whatever forces generate them, but only a small proportion of them have the right physical laws to lead to life, (b) some intelligent entity somewhere (a god, a computer game maker, a scientist in a lab) made a deliberate decision to cause this particular universe to have the life-favorable laws it does, (c) it was actually completely random and by chance, and/or we don't really truly understand the physical laws well enough to realize that the situation we find them in was inevitable and/or there are actually a lot more settings for them that lead to life arising than we realize and our universe is not really all that 'fine-tuned' at all.

Obviously. But that was not the issue I was discussing, and I do not think it was what Element was referring to.

He referred an "accident" MO, it makes no sense to think this just happened by accident (i.e. the laws that govern things just so happened to funnel things toward consciousness).

The 'fine tuning argument' and Intelligent Design go hand and hand, but he reference 'just happened by accident,' which refers more to the need for an 'Intelligent Designer' necessary for life to arise and evolve toward(?) consciousness.

[element771]

Thanks for the response starlight. I am on my phone and will respond when I get to my computer as that would be a lot more efficient.

I think I will start a new thread tomorrow and ban shuny posting so we can have a conversation without his constant misrepresentations and ignorance.

[Starlight]

Incidentally I just ran across this interesting 2-hour conversation from 9 months ago, which I am currently listening to, in which Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with 5 other scientists and philosophers about the hypothesis that the universe is some sort of computer simulation / computer game / Matrix etc.

The talking starts at 7:08.

[shunyadragon]

Incidentally I just ran across this interesting 2-hour conversation from 9 months ago, which I am currently listening to, in which Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with 5 other scientists and philosophers about the hypothesis that the universe is some sort of computer simulation / computer game / Matrix etc.

The talking starts at 7:08.

I prefer to say, our universe may be modeled as a computer simulation, or a game(?), but natural processes could not be modeled as a game of human choices or decisions. This remains highly hypothetical and anecdotal as to the ultimate nature of a universe.

[Bisto]

I've got just one quick thought. The video game/computer simulation theories sound fun, but, wouldn't that just move the question to "How did their universe come to have the laws to host them?" (I can imagine an infinite regression of Big Bangs and Crunches or whatever, but I cannot imagine an Inception-meme-style infinite regression of simulations )

[shunyadragon]

I've got just one quick thought. The video game/computer simulation theories sound fun, but, wouldn't that just move the question to "How did their universe come to have the laws to host them?" (I can imagine an infinite regression of Big Bangs and Crunches or whatever, but I cannot imagine an Inception-meme-style infinite regression of simulations )

I could not 'imagine an infinite regression of Big Bangs and Crunches or whatever,' because that would define all possible universes as within a set of all possible universes, and that is unrealistic.

[Bisto]

I could not 'imagine an infinite regression of Big Bangs and Crunches or whatever,' because that would define all possible universes as within a set of all possible universes, and that is unrealistic.

In case it wasn't too evident, it was a very loose paraphrasing of option #2 in SL's post #153, and broadly referring to the usual naturalistic models (i.e. I can understand how one could go with his options #1 and 2). If you want to be nitpicky with my terminology, go ahead if that makes you happy

[shunyadragon]

In case it wasn't too evident, it was a very loose paraphrasing of option #2 in SL's post #153, and broadly referring to the usual naturalistic models (i.e. I can understand how one could go with his options #1 and 2). If you want to be nitpicky with my terminology, go ahead if that makes you happy

The question is not being picky, It concerned how the concept of 'actual infinity' was used.

[Bisto]

The question is not being picky, It concerned how the concept of 'actual infinity' was used.

It wouldn't be a surprise if it wasn't correct, this isn't my field. I'm just sharing my thoughts and I'm pretty sure you and others can understand what I meant.

What do you think about the question?