[Ian] Try "finely balanced" (rather than perfect or tuned) - I'm OK with that. I didn't intend to imply any sentient teleology, as I felt sure you would already know.
[Arlo] I know you did not, but there are many who do. I'm just cautious of those words, I suppose. [Ian] I was just expressing interest in understanding them, and keeping open mind on acceptance or denial. [Arlo] And I said, my jury is still out too. [Ian] The tuning, sorry balance, says life is to be expected in this universe. Our lack of contact so far is an entirely separate issue, surely ? [Arlo] I suppose its the (apparent) jump from speculation to definity that I am responding to. We are speculating the cosmos is balanced for life, but we are basing that speculation on hypothetical thinking about the ubiquity of life. Something like this (and correct me where this is wrong)... Life exists here. Therefore life must exist out there. Thus the cosmos is perfectly balanced to support life. This draws its theoretical conclusion using an unevidenced assumption (no matter how "logical" or desired that assumption may be. Instead, I say this. Life exists here. Despite effort and desire, we have little evidence to date that life exists anywhere else. Therefore the cosmos seem to be not balanced to support life. Do I think we need to keep looking? Absolutely, as we both agree that logically life should be "out there" in some form. As to what form that life will take, whether it will be Betazed counselors on starships or intelligent hydrogen clusters sans "meat", is a fascinating debate. On that note, FYI, the "squares trying to perceive spheres" comes from (as I'm sure you know, but just passing it on for others who may not) the novel "Flatland" (Abbot, 1884) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland). For those who have not read it, an interesting theme like that is found in Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five). Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
