Re: The fine-tuning argument
On 16 Aug 2012, at 16:42, Roger wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal Nothing is for sure, all I can quote are probabilties. The improbability of life (based on Hoyle's argument about the humungous improbability of the C atom being created by chance) suggests to me at least that a comp is highly improbable if it is to emulated a living brain. No problem. It just means that you believe that the brain cannot be replaced by a computer, even in principle. But maybe there still exist simpler possibilities. Unlikely, but I'll grant that. I thought that Hoyle's argument, succeeded by the fine-tuning of the universe argument, was well known. Here's just one version of it, from http://www.godsci.com/gs/new/finetuning.html The Big-bang The explosive-force of the big-bang had to be fine-tuned to match the strength of gravity to one part in 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. This is one part in 10^60. The number 10^60 = 1 followed by 60 zeros. This precision is the same as the odds of a random shot (bullet from a gun) hitting a one-inch target from a distance of 20 billion light- years. Epistemic probability: 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 The usual atheist argument against the above is that God just kept inventing universes until he got one that worked. I think it odd that only such an improbable universe would support life (which needs carbon in our case). Further, that the more improbable something is, the more likely it is that it was more likely created by some sort of intelligence rather than by chance. The fact that our universe contains life also is in accord with Leibniz's Best Possible Universe aregument. With all my respect, that argument is weak for this list, as this list is based on the idea that "everything" is more simple than anything selected in the everything. It is the common point between all of us, but we tolerate the exceptions, actually. This everything idea suits very well comp, because, by a sort of miracle in math (Church's thesis), we do have a very solid notion of everything, which is both rich and non trivial: the universal dovetailing. The price is that the "selection" occurs all the time, and that it might lead to a physical reality too much rich. But the use of computer science self-reference prevents the working of that last argument, which does not prove comp, but makes its refutability more complex. And QM confirms that self-multiplication. Advantage: we got an explanation of the origin of the divergence between quanta and qualia, + the physical laws. Weakness: it transforms a problem of philosophy/theology into math, and current philosophers (or perhaps all of them since day one) hate when scientists walk on their territory, and they are unprepared to do the math for themselves. Bruno Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/16/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-15, 04:36:42 Subject: Re: Positivism and intelligence On 14 Aug 2012, at 19:46, Roger wrote: Hi meekerdb You're right, random shapes do not show evidence of intelligence. But the carbon atom, being highly unlikely, does. This is amazing. Carbon is a natural product (solution of QM) by stars. All atoms are well explained and predictable by QM, itself predictable (normally, with comp) by arithmetic. Bruno Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/14/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." - Receiving the following content - From: meekerdb Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-11, 18:20:16 Subject: Re: Positivism and intelligence On 8/11/2012 5:56 AM, Roger wrote: Positivism seems to rule out native intelligence. I can't see how knowledge could be created on a blank slate without intelligence. Or for that matter, how the incredibly unnatural structure of the carbon atom could have been created somehow somewhere by mere chance. Fred Hoyle as I recall said that it was very unlikely that it was created by chance. All very unlikely things in my opinion show evidence of intelligence. How likely is the shape of Japan? In order to extract energy from disorder as life does shows that, like Maxwell's Demon, some intelligence is required to sort things out. Life extracts energy by increasing disorder. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You receive
Re: The fine-tuning argument
On 8/16/2012 7:42 AM, Roger wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal Nothing is for sure, all I can quote are probabilties. The improbability of life (based on Hoyle's argument about the humungous improbability of the C atom being created by chance) Hoyle's argument had nothing to do with carbon being produced by chance. Hoyle predicted that C12 must have an excited state 7.7Mev above the ground state in order that carbon have been produced in stars (Hoyle et al, "A State in C12 Predicted From Astronomical Evidence" PhysRevLtrs 92, 1953). The value was confirmed by experiment to be 7.656Mev. It is often incorrectly asserted that this value is 'fine-tuned'. In fact any value between 7.337Mev and 7.933Mev would result in the production of carbon (Livio et al "The Anthropic Significance of the Existence of an Excited State of C12" Nature 340, 1989 pp281-84). suggests to me at least that a comp is highly improbable if it is to emulated a living brain. But maybe there still exist simpler possibilities. Unlikely, but I'll grant that. I thought that Hoyle's argument, succeeded by the fine-tuning of the universe argument, was well known. Here's just one version of it, from http://www.godsci.com/gs/new/finetuning.html *The Big-bang* * The explosive-force of the big-bang had to be fine-tuned to match the strength of gravity to one part in 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. * This is one part in 10^60. The number 10^60 = 1 followed by 60 zeros. * This precision is the same as the odds of a random shot (bullet from a gun) hitting a one-inch target from a distance of 20 billion light-years. * Epistemic probability: 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Gerard t'Hooft has shown that the holographic principle implies that the energy density of the universe must (to a good approximation) have the critical value (arXiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9310026 Mar 2009). This does not explain the observed acceleration of the expansion of the universe, which may be due to a form of dark energy different from a cosmological constant, but it explains why the factor 10^60 is actually a number of order 1. I refer you to Vic Stenger's book "The Fallacy of Fine-tuning". The usual atheist argument against the above is that God just kept inventing universes until he got one that worked. Actually that's physicist Don Page's view, and he's a devout Christian who argues that this would be an elegant way for God to have created universe, by just creating all possible universes. I think it odd that only such an improbable universe would support life (which needs carbon in our case). Before you can say something is improbable you have to define a measure that assigns 1 to the set of all possibilities. I don't think anyone has done that. No one knows what the actual possible range of values of physical constants is. So long as it's finite, then it has measure zero relative to -inf to +inf. And besides, improbable things happen all the time. Further, that the more improbable something is, the more likely it is that it was more likely created by some sort of intelligence rather than by chance. So you reject evolution and because and Ebola virus is improbable, someone must have created it?? The fact that our universe contains life also is in accord with Leibniz's Best Possible Universe aregument. It's also evidence against an omnipotent God. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
The fine-tuning argument
Hi Bruno Marchal Nothing is for sure, all I can quote are probabilties. The improbability of life (based on Hoyle's argument about the humungous improbability of the C atom being created by chance) suggests to me at least that a comp is highly improbable if it is to emulated a living brain. But maybe there still exist simpler possibilities. Unlikely, but I'll grant that. I thought that Hoyle's argument, succeeded by the fine-tuning of the universe argument, was well known. Here's just one version of it, from http://www.godsci.com/gs/new/finetuning.html The Big-bang The explosive-force of the big-bang had to be fine-tuned to match the strength of gravity to one part in 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. This is one part in 10^60. The number 10^60 = 1 followed by 60 zeros. This precision is the same as the odds of a random shot (bullet from a gun) hitting a one-inch target from a distance of 20 billion light-years. Epistemic probability: 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 The usual atheist argument against the above is that God just kept inventing universes until he got one that worked. I think it odd that only such an improbable universe would support life (which needs carbon in our case). Further, that the more improbable something is, the more likely it is that it was more likely created by some sort of intelligence rather than by chance. The fact that our universe contains life also is in accord with Leibniz's Best Possible Universe aregument. Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/16/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." - Receiving the following content - From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-15, 04:36:42 Subject: Re: Positivism and intelligence On 14 Aug 2012, at 19:46, Roger wrote: Hi meekerdb You're right, random shapes do not show evidence of intelligence. But the carbon atom, being highly unlikely, does. This is amazing. Carbon is a natural product (solution of QM) by stars. All atoms are well explained and predictable by QM, itself predictable (normally, with comp) by arithmetic. Bruno Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/14/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." - Receiving the following content - From: meekerdb Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-11, 18:20:16 Subject: Re: Positivism and intelligence On 8/11/2012 5:56 AM, Roger wrote: Positivism seems to rule out native intelligence. I can't see how knowledge could be created on a blank slate without intelligence. Or for that matter, how the incredibly unnatural structure of the carbon atom could have been created somehow somewhere by mere chance. Fred Hoyle as I recall said that it was very unlikely that it was created by chance. All very unlikely things in my opinion show evidence of intelligence. How likely is the shape of Japan? In order to extract energy from disorder as life does shows that, like Maxwell's Demon, some intelligence is required to sort things out. Life extracts energy by increasing disorder. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
