Universal Design: Logic or value judgment?

[Furrowed Brow]

In the thread One of many or specially designed Otseng and myself found ourselves opposed. Otseng believed that study of physical phenomena and the physical constants provided evidence that the universe is finely tuned for carbon based life, and that this fine tuning is evidence of design. Otseng felt that this position was strengthened because multiple universes are not observable, and that we should only take the universe as it is observed to guide us.

As a counter point, rather than debate the “observed evidence” I insist this debate needs strangling at conception. I say this because I think the interpretation of fine tuning has nothing to do with the “evidence“, or even the rejection of multiple universes, and everything to do with semantics and the logic of argument.

So for the sake of argument. Assume [1] that there are no multiverses. That [2] there is just this and only this universe. Also assume that [3] the physical constants are very very finely balanced for carbon based life. So finely balanced that this universe provides the only possible permutation of values to the physical constants that can lead to carbon based life. Also assume [4] that only carbon based life counts as what can be meant by life. Given all the these assumptions I still maintain that it is invalid to argue that the universe is designed, and that it requires an aesthetic bias to see the universe in that light.

Here are some basic reasons as to why I’d say that:

A/ The above assumptions guarantee that if there is life then we will see the universe with the exact values to the physical constants that we in fact do see. This is the week anthropic principle. Which I believe is a truism.

B/ If there is only one way to generate/create carbon based life then it is impossible to infer the fingerprints of a designer on that particular permutation of values. Whether the universe sprung from nothing, is eternal or designed by a creator it is impossible to tell.

C/ If one finds its suspicious that the values of the physical constants just happen to be the right ones for carbon based life, then so what? They are also the right ones for galaxies, black holes, puddles and rocks. By what objective criteria absent of value judgement do we single out life as a special case?

So given the above assumptions 1 through to 4. Is it valid to infer that the universe is designed?

[QED]

Our brains seem to be structured to look for patters or even make them up from our experiences. We not only see design, we look for it and create it.
Design seems to be a projection, necessity and creation of our own.
It is a high form of abstraction or interpretation.
It is a social/personal construct we share with other life forms that create and use patters.

I am thinking of creatures that resemble their environment.
We can see that this camouflage could come about by trial and error and those that blended in didn't get ate. But is it designed that way or did it just happen to work?

I agree with your take on things here Cathar. There Seems to me to be a landscape of "possibility" that gets explored "anthropically". A what can be will be sort of thing. How it is that we get to be one of these things, is something that's got people like otseng wondering. I can share that wonderment, but I realise that I can take my own personal existence as an analogy for the workings of this principle -- out of all the people (not to say animals!) that I might have been (in all the countries, and different levels of privilege that I might have been born in to) I am nonetheless what I am.

So should any individual who, like Prince Charles for example, has been born into a highly privileged position, see their existence as anything specially selected for them? Can we infer anything from our apparently remarkable happenstance? If we are tempted to add a theological slant to this and say that God has chosen his next King of England it also means God has chosen the millions suffering in Africa.

This, I think, is the difference between the Strong and Weak interpretations that otseng would like to see clarified in the different flavours of the Anthropic Principle. Generally it goes that the stronger the flavour, the more speculative it becomes culminating in the Final Anthropic Principle -- the most speculative of all, that there is a purpose to existence. But before we reach that, we have to justify the SAP and I can't see that on account of the analogy I outlined above. If only I could prove it though.

[The Duke of Vandals]

I am thinking of creatures that resemble their environment.
We can see that this camouflage could come about by trial and error and those that blended in didn't get ate. But is it designed that way or did it just happen to work?

It just happened to work.

1) There's no evidence for design. Not a shred.

2) Natural selection provides the only framework that adequately explains why life is the way life is.

3) Design is NEVER a long term answer. The designer will ALWAYS eventually require a designer.

4) The idea of design is completely unscientific and asinine. The sun, which we require for life, poisons us. Oxygen dries out our skin and corrodes our insides. Foods which taste sweet make us fat and rot our teeth. Don't get me started on sex & birthing.




Otseng: As you've failed to address the point I raised I see that you must be 'okay' with your post being a tremendous cop out. While your scrambling to prove it isn't, consider another critical & fatal flaw to this entire situation:

Scientists are stating MAP may have happened.

Christians are stating design did happen.

Scientists can therefor sit back and muse while they gather evidence. They're perfectly willing to go where the evidence leads them. Theists, on the other hand, have painted themselves into an intellectual corner where they're now forced to sit.

(do you see what I did there?)

[Pista Gyerek]

I insist this debate needs strangling at conception. I say this because I think the interpretation of fine tuning has nothing to do with the “evidence“, or even the rejection of multiple universes, and everything to do with semantics and the logic of argument.

I agree. The design proponents are doing what they always do: painting the target around the arrow in the wall. Do they know what their designer intended in the first place, or are they conveniently assuming that the designer wanted things exactly the way they appear right now? Considering the overwhelming vastness of space, I wonder why design proponents assume the designer wanted any matter in his universe at all.

The existence of carbon-based life is extremely limited even in our solar system alone. Wouldn't it point more persuasively to the designer's intent if all the planets in our galaxy supported such life? And for the universe to have to wait some twenty billion years for the emergence of life on this planet seems inefficient. Wouldn't the designer have been able to create the conditions for this emergence much sooner?

The answer to both of those questions is yes, and that's just the problem. No matter how much life exists, what form it takes, or how long it took to emerge, the anthropic principle is confirmed. Literally the only conceivable disconfirming evidence for the claim would be that life doesn't exist at all.

And that's stacking the deck. To put it mildly.

[Greatest I Am]

Micro-design or Macro-design.
Micro-manage or Macro-manage.

All God need supply is an environment and life will start and flourish.
He has the time.

Regards
DL

[olivergringold]

Your powers of over-simplification and excuse-making are quite impressive. Too bad you don't provide proof for anything, and simply tout off one-liners like a Soothsayer come to save us all from ourselves.

You're not a prophet. And all the snappy one-liners in the world won't make you correct. Show me the proof, sonny Jim.

[Greatest I Am]

Your powers of over-simplification and excuse-making are quite impressive. Too bad you don't provide proof for anything, and simply tout off one-liners like a Soothsayer come to save us all from ourselves.

You're not a prophet. And all the snappy one-liners in the world won't make you correct. Show me the proof, sonny Jim.

Why complicate things. Einstein has E=mc2 and Jesus had parables.
The question is are they correct? They hold no danger unless they are believed.

God can and should be accessible even to children. I imagine that most of the true religious stories are very simple.

As to proof, unless it comes to you by your own fate, I can do nothing for you. I do not think that, other than some miracle. you would be able to name the proof that would convince you. Right?

Regards
DL

[olivergringold]

E = MC² has been verified by numerous experiments.
Jesus never existed.

Religious stories are often simple to the point of blatant inaccuracy. Any toddler could have contrived the tale of Adam and Eve.

If you cannot provide proof for your claims as a historian or a scientist could then they have no place in rational thought. The entire history of spiritualism is rife with fraud and deception. I see no evidence differing religion from the throngs.

Since there is no valid reason why God would provide miracles 2000 years ago and not provide them today, proof would be God sending into my backyard fiery meteors shaping themselves in the form of the following:

"Dude. I'm real. F'serious.

Love,
God"

[Greatest I Am]

[quote="olivergringold"]E = MC² has been verified by numerous experiments.
Jesus never existed.

Religious stories are often simple to the point of blatant inaccuracy. Any toddler could have contrived the tale of Adam and Eve.

If you cannot provide proof for your claims as a historian or a scientist could then they have no place in rational thought. The entire history of spiritualism is rife with fraud and deception. I see no evidence differing religion from the throngs.

Since there is no valid reason why God would provide miracles 2000 years ago and not provide them today, proof would be God sending into my backyard fiery meteors shaping themselves in the form of the following:

"Dude. I'm real. F'serious.

Yes, I see that you have something up there further than anything I can do from here to help pull out. I'd like to help and I don't mean in discussion or debate but what can I do. We do not have the hours and days.

Regards
DL

[olivergringold]

What I have is a scientific mind, and I'll be a horse's behind before anybody pulls it out.

You should try one on for size. You'd be surprised what happens.

[otseng]

Ok I think the idea behind MAP is something like well isn’t it strange that life can only appear here on Earth and no where else and in no other alternative universe. Well it certainly is then a unique result. But uniqueness doe not imply design.

By itself, uniqueness might not conclude design. But uniqueness is certainly an indicator of design. And if it's true that life is only found on Earth in the entire universe, at the minimum it would demolish the mediocrity principle.