Is Atheism Dead ?

@sonship said
Some people believe that there are "laws of logic".

Let me ask you a curious question. Do you believe that laws require a legislator?

Or do you believe that laws can simply be - having no origin and being eternally existent?

I lean towards believing that there probably are laws of logic.
What I wrestle with philosophically is whether mind preceded laws of logic or did laws of logic precede mind.

Do you have any thoughts on that matter?

Just because we use the same word - 'law' - to describe legislative principles and natural principles does not make them the same thing. The laws of nature which you are trying to equate to legislative principles are consequent to the make-up of our reality. We call gravity a law, but really it's just a description of the way matter and energy behave in relation to each other. No legislator required.

@sonship said
@BigDogg

Are the known constants of physics 'tunable' in the first place? If so, how does the 'tuning' happen?

HOW is a good question.
I don't see anyway around the HOW Includes someone's knowledgeable and wise designing. SOMEONE!
That there are many such finely calibrated constants is a fact.
It has many minds perplexed and astounded.

One ...[text shortened]...
Apathy to me suggests something else may be being avoided by the one suggesting "Yawn. So what ?"

We have not yet established that these constants are tunable in the first place.

If they are not, then the 'fine tuning' argument is moot.

That was the point of my first question.

@avalanchethecat

I specifically stated that I have no idea whether the universe was created or whether it is all a sequence of happy accidents. I was just pointing out that logically, the fine-tuning of the universe is a non-starter as a position to argue from.

Two responses:

Saying "I have no idea WHATSOEVER" does not prevent you from forming an inference to the best explanation.

One does not need absolute proof to decide this or that is probably more likely to be on the right track for a best explanation.

Secondly, while I do not appeal to an ad populum argument, your insistence that exquisitely calibrated multiple constants is a "non-starter" for theism or at least ID I think is not a prevailing viewpoint. I would consider it maverick to some of the most informed theorists.

You can certainly hold the position. Don't pretend that everybody assumes it is so obvious.

I consider similar to saying " I know there are four human faces of great US presidents on Mt. Rushmore. But that the wind and rain and erosion did that is probably the better explanation. That they were intelligently and purposely CARVED is . . . a non-starter."

@sonship said
@avalanchethecat
Secondly, while I do not appeal to an ad populum argument, your insistence that exquisitely calibrated multiple constants is a "non-starter" for theism or at least ID I think is not a prevailing viewpoint. I would consider it maverick to some of the most informed theorists.

I consider similar to saying " I know there are four human faces of great US p ...[text shortened]... y the better explanation. That they were intelligently and purposely CARVED is . . . a non-starter."

No, you are wrong. The position I have been outlining to you is known as the weak anthropic principle, and it is most certainly not a 'maverick' position.

Again you have offered a completely inappropriate analogy.

@avalanchethecat

Previously I responded directly to your WAP "weak anthropic principle" in the analogy of the firing squad.

The weak anthropic principle involves stating an obvious truism - ​Ie. "So what if there are a large number of finely tuned factors in the universe permitting us to live? If they weren't there, we would not be existing here to notice anyway. "

This statement explains nothing. Sure - for human beings to observe human-life-permitting conditions, those necessary conditions must have existed. Otherwise we wouldn't be here to wonder about it. The firing squad analogy explains that the improbability of the conditions is not explained by this tautology. You're expressing the problem in other words.

It is the improbability of the life-permitting constants being so finely set that is what many seek to explain. And not just to state the situation in other words as a tautology. "Otherwise we wouldn't exist" is the weak anthropic principle. I think it is a dodge to the problem of the improbability of the tuned factors themselves.

The factors themselves raise philosophical questions which strongly demand contemplation of WHY it is so. Obviously we wouldn't ask if we did not exist.

The man supposed to be executed by 100 marksmen who missed wonders WHY they all succumbed to such an improbable situation. He doesn't shrug and say "Well, if they had killed me, as was so probable they would, I would not be alive to ask why they missed."

@BigDogg

We have not yet established that these constants are tunable in the first place.

If they are not, then the 'fine tuning' argument is moot.

That was the point of my first question.

You are saying that we have not established that they could be otherwise.
Perhaps it is of NECESSITY that these constants be so exquisitely set at their values.

So we imagine that these constants of necessity HAD to be what they are, that they cannot be otherwise or TUNED other than what they are. They are not tunable. There could have been no probability that they anything else. That's your scenario.


Then doesn't that cause one to ask WHY of necessity they could not be otherwise?
For one that theory discards with the multiverse hypothesis, I think.

And it still is unfathomably strange that the constants HAD to be (untunable wise) set at the big bang so that life and human life would exist. I mean space wise there seems a vast amount of area in which life DID NOT arise. So why was the entire cosmos tuned so that in this little tiny corner of the universe WE ARE HERE?

There is far more non-life is seems in the available space than there is life.
Untunable constants that just happened to be so exquisitely (and some cases
astronomically so) calibrated for us to arrive, has to cause us to wonder.

Who legislated that un-tunable constants permit humans to exist?
Okay, WHAT legislated that un-tunable so astronomically luckily permit us to
exist?

@sonship said
@BigDogg

We have not yet established that these constants are tunable in the first place.

If they are not, then the 'fine tuning' argument is moot.

That was the point of my first question.

You are saying that we have not established that they could be otherwise.
Perhaps it is of NECESSITY that these constants be so exquisitely set at their va ...[text shortened]... st?
Okay, WHAT legislated that un-tunable so astronomically luckily permit us to
exist?

I am not sure if the 'tuning' is possible, or not. Perhaps you do not know the answer to the question, either.

I would expect proponents of the FT argument to have looked into this.

@sonship said
@BigDogg

We have not yet established that these constants are tunable in the first place.

If they are not, then the 'fine tuning' argument is moot.

That was the point of my first question.

You are saying that we have not established that they could be otherwise.
Perhaps it is of NECESSITY that these constants be so exquisitely set at their va ...[text shortened]... st?
Okay, WHAT legislated that un-tunable so astronomically luckily permit us to
exist?

It's not 'unfathomably strange' at all. The universe MUST be "tuned" (it isn't tuned, but that's the word you're using so ok) to allow us to exist. If one of the universal constants were slightly different so that we couldn't exist, and yet we were still here to ask the question, THAT would be unfathomably strange. How are you not getting this? It's just stubbornness at this stage, right?

It's not a dodge of anything. We don't know why these universal constants have the values they have. Those greater minds than ours that pursue these things may eventually come to a complete understanding of the birth (or otherwise) of the universe which will presumably involve an explanation for the nature of the constants which fox you so.

Your marksman analogy doesn't reflect the issue, as I said.

(guess I replied to the wrong bit, but I reckon you should be able to work out which post I was replying to)

@avalanchethecat

It's not 'unfathomably strange' at all. The universe MUST be "tuned" (it isn't tuned, but that's the word you're using so ok) to allow us to exist. If one of the universal constants were slightly different so that we couldn't exist, and yet we were still here to ask the question, THAT would be unfathomably strange. How are you not getting this? It's just stubbornness at this stage, right?

I feel ok about being "stubborn" in lacking the enthusiasm you hold for a rather minority and maverick WAP position. It is not nearly as enshrined in mainstream thought as you think.

"Why can't you see it?" is not too effective with me because I understand the WAP. And "There is nothing to be surprised about" is not the most heavily proposed attitude among scientists and philosophers contemplating fine tuning.

If one of the universal constants were slightly different so that we couldn't exist, and yet we were still here to ask the question, THAT would be unfathomably strange.

I think that what you are saying may be that you are jury rigging the discussion so that only a naturalistic answer can be considered. But that is begging the question in favor of only a naturalistic explanation.

You must be shocked that this question begging is not held by all, (not just all theists but even all agnostic scientists). You'll just have to get use to it that of the four or five major objections to fine tuning arguments suggestive of intelligent agency your question begging in favor of avoiding a Designer is no default or most popular position.

Life permitting conditions did not have to be the case.
Why do you insist that they had to be?

There is a panoply of exquisitely precise physical constants that necessary for our existence. It seems you said Evolution had to select for conscious beings who can know and adopt to the world. Do you think that makes Evolution random and chance driven or purposely programmed ?

I think if you say it had to come out that we are here you've done nothing to reinforce the standard view of wholly naturalistic Evolution as without goal, purpose, look ahead ability.

The more popular view of Evolution is that it is wholly without purpose or goal or intention. Proposing the constants could be none other than finely tuned for the arrival of human beings simply insures that Naturalism occupies any Supreme Being position.

That is not the best explanation imo. Every program I ever knew required a programmer. Every algorithm I've known to solve a problem required forethought from an intelligent source to look ahead to establish what needs to be done to arrive at the solution to the problem through many obstacles.

It's not a dodge of anything. We don't know why these universal constants have the values they have. Those greater minds than ours that pursue these things may eventually come to a complete understanding of the birth (or otherwise) of the universe which will presumably involve an explanation for the nature of the constants which fox you so.

Your marksman analogy doesn't reflect the issue, as I said.

I think it does. You put up a valiant effort to reject fine-tuning as evidence for a Fine Tuner to do such tuning. "Its no big deal" that there are these finely tuned constants does no favor to the science enterprise.

If what you say - "We should not be surprised" should be the expected reaction then so many scientists would not have expressed exclamation at the discovery of the fact of fine tuning.

You came along after the fact and followed some whose motivation was to avoid the implications of the improbability of fine tuning.

Its actually an apologetic for defending a ruthlessly dogmatic naturalism.

@sonship said


Life permitting conditions did not have to be the case.
Why do you insist that they had to be?

I haven't insisted any such thing. I totally agree and have done throughout this discussion, life permitting conditions did not have to be the case. Had they not been the case, you wouldn't be making these strawman arguments. You can't actually argue against the weak anthropic principle, because it's not something that can be argued. You can stubbornly pretend that you don't understand it I guess.

@avalanchethecat

An argument that cannot be argued against?
An atheist's daydream I would say.

So you are asserting an unfalsifiable truth?

The next time you want to say Intelligent Design detection is not science because it is unfalsifiable, remember you're doing what you object others are doing.

Ie. "I have a truth here that is impossible to argue against. There is no reason for surprise at specified calibration of physics for a life permitting universe."

Quite a few thinkers, scientists, and philosophers missed your memo.

You know Einstein said a man who can look at the cosmos without a sense of wonder is as good as dead. You seemed to have reversed it, that a sense of wonder at fine tuning from the beginning for life should be met with anti-wonderment.

@avalanchethecat

You can stubbornly pretend that you don't understand it I guess.

I would say you can stubbornly pretend that you have said something profound in a WAP.

Anthony Flew quite readily debated theists in public for years. Eventually he said he had to change his mind and follow the evidence to where it led.

He wrote of his acceptance of a deistic designer of the universe for life in his book There Is God to the horror of many atheists who were appalled that Flew abandoned your style of apathy at fine tuning.

Flew, a top atheist philosopher of the 20th century said he made no leap of faith. Rather "a divine Source" became apparent to have "emerged from science."
He wanted to "follow the argument where ever it leads."

Flew did not convert to Christian theism as far as I know. But he did re-consider NO Designer dogmatics.

@avalanchethecat said

Evidence of non-terrestrial intelligence wouldn't change that.

Sonship believes there are extraterrestrials on other worlds.

He has famously claimed in this forum that these extraterrestrials can observe the eternal suffering of non-Christians as a sort of warning to them.

@avalanchethecat

Those greater minds than ours that pursue these things may eventually come to a complete understanding of the birth (or otherwise) of the universe which will presumably involve an explanation for the nature of the constants which fox you so.

Why are you so sure it will "presumably involve an explanation" that rules out intelligent agency ?

In spite of your confident presumption it could be that minds PERIOD - greater or lesser are on pretty equal footing in accepting universally intuitive explanation.

That may be undesirable for group considering themselves an elite.
I understand that physics and these constants can involve highly technical
details which now everyone is trained in.

But the final answer may turn out to be something everyone can basically comprehend. A purposeful Mind designed the universe life like ours. Not that would solve all our problems. But the solution to the origins problem would then be accessible to everyone's mind., the greater and the lesser. Might that "fox you so?"

Oh, I agree that the laws of nature and the laws of a community are not exactly the same kind of thing.

Just because we use the same word - 'law' - to describe legislative principles and natural principles does not make them the same thing. The laws of nature which you are trying to equate to legislative principles are consequent to the make-up of our reality. We call gravity a law, but really it's just a description of the way matter and energy behave in relation to each other. No legislator required.

But with the impression of design being so evident in this super finely tuned law an authority over its existence is not easy for many to dismiss. The impression of design is overwhelming to Paul Davies. I think design calls for the conceptualization of an some kind of super intelligent enforcer and authority over this law of gravity.

Davies, PhD trained in physics and philosophy has written on this such books as God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science; The Rationality of Theism; God Matters; Readings in the Philosophy of Religion; Philosophy and Religion; A Reader and Guide; and Reasons for the Hope Within. The Well Tempered Universe