chance

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Ah. The fine-tuned universe argument. I think Adams' puddle answers that one satisfactorily enough. The fact that we are here because the laws of physics allow it does not imply that the laws of physics were in any way designed with us in mind, or even that they were designed at all, only that, being what they are, the laws of physics allow our kind of life in our kind of universe to exist.

As for "our kind of life in this universe," that's a fallacy. If the constants of OUR universe were off life would not exist because galaxies would not form. No serious scientist believes you can form life without a galaxy.

No serious scientist BELIEVES anything! They base their worldview on evidence and logic, not belief. As for other forms of life arising under different laws of physics, even though our current understanding would make that extremely unlikely, neither you or I can say whether or not it is possible. Although you seem to be the only one pretending to actually know here.

Second, what if there are other possible universes. First, we have no evidence of other universes, so to believe that there are other universes is to believe in something for which there is no evidence. But let's just imagine for the sake of argument that other universes are possible. After all, other languages are possible. You would need to fine tune those universes to an enormous degree. We have no reason to believe that life can arise in a different universe through cobbling together a few bits of material in any old fashion.

Again you throw belief at me. I DO NOT FUCKING BELIEVE! IN ANYTHING! PERIOD! I certainly don't believe in multiple universes. I merely proposed it as an alternative to deliberate fine-tuning of the laws of physics by a god. AND IT IS NO MORE PREPOSTEROUS, LUDICROUS OR UNBELIEVABLE THAN THAT PROPOSAL. And why would all universes need to be fine-tuned? They could all have completely random laws but, if there are enough of them, a few, perhaps a huge number, would have laws that allow the formation of galaxies and life.

The laws of physics were built with us in mind because life is so radically different from non-life. That cannot be the result of chance. Why? Because chance is evenly distributed, the gulf between life and non-life is enormous and you can't just attribute that gulf to chance because those are not the traits of chance.

Life is not radically different from non-life. Compare a recent corpse to the person it was a few minutes earlier. What has changed apart from the cessation of a few physical processes? And chance is anything but evenly distributed - it only approximates to an even distribution as the number of events approaches infinity. Chance is locally capable of throwing up something enormously unlikely - that is what chance MEANS! by your logic, no-one would win the lottery because you can't equate the gulf between a winner and a non-winner to chance because chance doesn't work that way.

You have no way of knowing if a dice is loaded based on one throw - but that is what you are proposing from the state of the universe! Go read a book on probability theory.

[spinoza99]

But you said this wasn't a first cause argument:

Someone else made a point, and I refuted that with the first cause. My argument remains:

There is no evidence that the Big Bang was the result of chance.
There is evidence that the Big Bang was fine-tuned. Fine-tuning is the result of mind, not chance.

[Coito ergo sum]

Abiogenesis, moreover, is not a theory of chance, per se. Abiogenesis posits that under the right circumstances

That's chance. The right circumstances have to appear by chance. You certainly don't believe those right circumstances were created by God.

No they don't. Under the right circumstances can appear by adherence to the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which is not by chance (at least not in the sense I'm aware of the word "chance" being used).

I don't believe the right circumstances were created by god anymore than I believe the right circumstances for a hail storm were created by gods. We know the physics and chemistry necessary to form a hail storm. No gods necessary, and they're not random or "by chance." They are "by physics" and "by chemistry." These are non-random forces. They are nothing like throwing dice - dice is chance - hail storms are not.

[Mr P]

But you said this wasn't a first cause argument:

Someone else made a point, and I refuted that with the first cause. My argument remains:

There is no evidence that the Big Bang was the result of chance.
There is evidence that the Big Bang was fine-tuned. Fine-tuning is the result of mind, not chance.

You can only arrive at evidence for fine tuning if you reverse cause and effect, I think Adams' pudlle analogy has already been mentioned.

[Coito ergo sum]

we're not here by chance, we're here by the work of natural laws and the fact that with time, even unlikely but wondrous effects can result from just that

You're just moving chance to a different location. Where did those natural laws come from? If you say they came from God then you're not an atheists. Therefore, you believe that chance produced the natural laws.

Also, I'm not talking about abiogenesis. What I mean is what evidence is there that the Big Bang was the result of chance.

Who says the Big Bang was the result of chance? We don't know what it was the result of.

If you don't know what the Big Bang was the result of, then you're an agnostic. As an atheist. You have to believe it was an accident.

No. An agnostic is someone who believes that we can't know if there is a god, or in more modern usage one who has doubts about the existence of gods. An atheist is someone who is satisfied that based on what he does know, there are no gods, or lacks a belief in gods. One can be an agnostic Christian, or an agnostic atheist. The former is a Christian who does not subscribe to certain knowledge about the divine, and the latter being an atheist who does not think that we ever can know for sure.

[Tero]

Somebody get me a whisky! This.."there is no evidence that something didn't happen"...it hurts my brain. Too many negatives.

[Coito ergo sum]

By chance, I mean not the result of an intention or design.

That sounds suspiciously like a false dichotomy, what if there's a third option? In between random chance and intentionality there is natural consequence.

False dichotomies have the structure, either x or y

True dichotomies have the structure, either x or not x.

Either the universe was the result of chance or it was not the result of chance.

Not chance = intention.

If you can think of a third way, let me know.

I take issue with your statement "not chance = intention." That's not correct. Not chance might be intention, or chance might be intentional (because a being that can create universes can certainly create them by chance - perhaps the being rolled 1,000,000 20 sided Dungeons & Dragons dice and the combination that came up represented the kind of universe that was created). Or, creator intelligence could have created the universe to appear one way, but really it was manufactured in a completely different way. Or, maybe it was gag, or a joke, played on a fellow deity. Who knows?

However, a universe forming naturally may well operate according to non-chance-based rules. That's the way ours looks like. Although, there appears to be a fair bit of chance factored in - quantum mechanics refers to instances of particles popping in and out of existence and random disbursement of photons through slits and whatnot.

I just explained to you the third way.

[Coito ergo sum]

all them had chance meetings, chanced to fall in love or lust, chanced to fuck, and the lucky sperm needed for me to ultimately come into existence 2 generations down the line
I'm here by chance.

You're not here completely by chance. You're here due to the intelligence of intentional beings. You're parents did meet by chance, but it was intelligence that enabled them to conceive you.

They had intelligence, but they didn't need intelligence. Unintelligent animals do it all the time. And, my parents didn't actually "design" anything. My dad's and mom's inner workings operated entirely without any reference to intelligence. They operated automatically. Penis erect - insert into vagina - thrust - repeat as needed - ejaculate - load enters vagina - fastest sperm wins.

One out of millions of sperm was me. If a different sperm won, I never exist. Add to that the reality that for thousands of generations, if any one sperm or one egg was different - no me. So much randomness involved there it's mind-boggling. The odds of me existing are so small it's impossible to calculate. And, I came about through entirely natural processes - sperms develop - eggs develop - they meet and physics and chemistry take over. No magic, or gods are needed.

[spinoza99]

First, let me deal with the Hume quote. I can quote Hume too. Everyone forgets that Philo changes his mind at the end of the dialogues and calls his former arguments mere sophisms and embraces the fact that the universe is designed:

The anatomy of a man, says he [De formatione foetus], discovers above 600 different muscles; and whoever duly considers these, will find, that, in each of them, Nature must have adjusted at least ten different circumstances, in order to attain the end which she proposed; proper figure, just magnitude, right disposition of the several ends, upper and lower position of the whole, the due insertion of the several nerves, veins, and arteries: So that, in the muscles alone, above 6000 several views and intentions must have been formed and executed. The bones he calculates to be 284: The distinct purposes aimed at in the structure of each, above forty. What a prodigious display of artifice, even in these simple and homogeneous parts! ... No man can deny the analogies between the effects: To restrain ourselves from inquiring concerning the causes is scarcely possible. From this inquiry, the legitimate conclusion is, that the causes have also an analogy: And if we are not contented with calling the first and supreme cause a GOD or DEITY, but desire to vary the expression; what can we call him but MIND or THOUGHT, to which he is justly supposed to bear a considerable resemblance? ... I next turn to the Atheist, who, I assert, is only nominally so, and can never possibly be in earnest; and I ask him, whether, from the coherence and apparent sympathy in all the parts of this world, there be not a certain degree of analogy among all the operations of Nature, in every situation and in every age. ... If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.

planets don't revolve around the sun "by chance," but they do so in an undirected, unintentional, undesigned fashion - they move in accordance with the laws of motion and universal gravitation.

Of course, I believe that material objects move due to a combination of natural law and chance.

So, the question "What evidence do the atheists have that we are here by [not by the result of intention or design]?" Phrased that way, it's essentially a request to prove that intent or design does not exist, which is really a reversal of the burden of proof. We can never disprove that.

True, we can never prove beyond a shadow of a doubt any event that happened in the remote past because events in the remote past cannot be repeated and observed. We can't prove what killed the dinosaurs. But we can use inference to the best explanation. There is no evidence that the Big Bang was the result of chance, or that chance can cause order consistently. We do however, have evidence that the Big Bang was the result of design, namely, fine-tuning.

People, animals, plants, insects, water, dirt, rocks lava, crystals, planets, stars, comets, moons, galaxies....all of it... can be explained without reference to an intentional being or designer.

You're just assuming this.

the universe may have been committed by a team of deities, or a committee - or perhaps we are the creation of an infant deity, who created us as part of a game, and has now long since lost interest in us. None of that is precluded - there is just no reason to accept it as true.

[/quote]

Even if the universe were created by a committee, that would not be an argument in favor of atheism.

[Svartalf]

Chances are.... because I wear a silly grin....




Sorry.

So if that silly grin entices me, which induces me to proposition you, and your agreement leads to us having a baby, it won't be chance, it will be a mechanistic chain of cause and consequence

[Coito ergo sum]

how often to we see things in nature arise because of natural processes - answer is all the time. From mountain ranges to sand dunes to living organisms.
How often do we see things in nature arise through supernatural processes - the answer is never.

You're just assuming that things are the result of natural processes, you're not providing any proof.

I think it's the proof of unnatural processes that has no proof. Natural processes govern a myriad things I can see and prove - solar systems, planetary motion, tides, waves, rain, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. - all those systems are explained by natural processes. Now, your turn to list your unnatural processes that have been proven?

How about language. How is that the result of natural processes? What natural laws cause me to write these exact words on this screen? No laws do it, because laws have a for every one input there is one output structure.

Not all laws - quantum physics does not have that structure.

Then we would just ask where did the natural processes come from? By chance or not by chance.

Possibly either. But, "not by chance" does not equal "god" or even "intelligence." Undirected nonrandom.

By the way, this thread is asking for evidence that we are here by chance. So far I haven't gotten any.

I gave you plenty.

[Feck]

Saying I do not actually believe in a god ,although due to the supernatural out of time, invisible, supernature of god , I do not have definitive proof there is no God,does not make me an agnostic .No matter how many times a shit for brains theist says so . I've heard this a lot recently along with statements like 'all atheists believe....' etc

It's one of the reasons I don't self identify as an Atheist . I'm an ANTI-THEIST feel free to argue exact definitions and semantics on that one Spinoza , try and move the goalposts.

[Svartalf]

actually not, or the universe would be limited to earth, or be teeming with life rather than an immense void with relatively few islets with the adequate conditions.

You need to have the stars separated far from each other, otherwise the supernovas will release too many gamma rays which will destroy life.

But I admit, I do find it a bit odd that there are so many failed stars out there.

Hey, if the natural laws were designed with us in mind, maybe the physics of gravity and nuclear fusion would be such that there would be more suns, and that they could lie closer together to have more life sustaining planets rather than the actual, life poor set we have?

[spinoza99]

I take issue with your statement "not chance = intention." That's not correct. Not chance might be intention, or chance might be intentional (because a being that can create universes can certainly create them by chance - perhaps the being rolled 1,000,000 20 sided Dungeons & Dragons dice and the combination that came up represented the kind of universe that was created).

Rolling a dice and deciding to be ruled by what the dice turns up is an intentional act. Moreover, assigning results to each sides of the dice requires intention.

Or, creator intelligence could have created the universe to appear one way, but really it was manufactured in a completely different way.

This would be due to incomplete knowledge of the properties of material. If you're assigning properties to objects in the first place, I don't see how that's possible. Here's an analogy. Say you want to build a language. You assign meaning to the sounds. Whatever you decide is what is.

Or, maybe it was gag, or a joke, played on a fellow deity. Who knows?

We can use the argument from analogy here. Creating a universe requires a remarkable degree of fine-tuning. Gags or jokes never create anything of remarkable fine-tuning. And as I have already stated, you cannot build a philosophy on something for which there is no evidence.

However, a universe forming naturally may well operate according to non-chance-based rules.

If a universe arose through natural laws, then you have to answer where the natural laws came from: chance or design?

[Coito ergo sum]

[

No, it's not turtles all the way. Actually, I believe the first turtle arose by chance, that was mind or intention/intelligence. The second turtle (the Big Bang) was the result of the first turtle's intention. The atheist on the other hand, by definition cannot believe that that the Big Bang was the result of intention.

I think some atheists can conceivably believe the Big Bang was a result of intention, as long as that intention is not "god." Atheist does not mean "a-intention," necessarily. Although, almost all atheists also don't believe in other woo, some don't.

I am an atheist and I don't believe the Big Bang was the result of intention. I am not sure what the Big Bang was a result of, and neither do the best physicists on the planet. What I expect we will find out, however, is that the Big Bang, whatever it was, operated according to natural processes and according to knowable natural laws - I expect that because every single other process that was once ascribed to intelligent forces and gods has been explained or is explainable through natural phenomena.

Is it POSSIBLE that a deity or intelligent agent created the universe this way? Sure. It's POSSIBLE. But, I don't find it likely in the least. I find it unlikely enough that I call myself an atheist.