broger...@gmail.com wrote:
Ron Dean recently posted....
"I watched this video entitled Debunking the "Fine Tuning Argument" by
Sean Carroll referenced twice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR79HDEf9k8
Carroll's argument from the beginning.
His video entitled "Debunking the 'Fine Tuning' Argument", he states
"You have phenomena; you have parameters of particle physics and cosmology." Then he says "I am by no means, convinced that there is
a fine tuning problem". And then he continues, "it is certainly true
that if you changed the parameters of nature, our local conditions that
we observe around us would change by a lot. "Sadly, we just don't know whether if life could exist if conditions of the universe were different see the universe that we see". But the fine tuning argument is not about life, but rather life as we _know_ it.
Two problems: 1) "Life as _we_know_it_. There is absolutely no
justification for assuming that there is any life, other than that which
we do know about. And certainly no _reason_ for such an
assumption - other than as an escape!
2) There is at leas 10 different constants that had to be perfectly
balanced and "fine tuned" for the universe itself to come about. Consequently, life, is solely conditioned upon our universe existing.
So thoughtful of you to show right away how you're more interested in[]
posting willfully stupid lies than you are in posting coherent
comments. That makes my reply so much easier.
Do you enjoy posting willfully stupid questions? Apparently so.
Let me know if you ever want to discuss fine-tuning seriously, IOW
sans your willfully stupid obfuscating noises and petty personal
attacks.
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 12:21:16 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>
wrote:
Can I suggest that your debating style needs some tweaking to be more >effective at convincing your opponent of the merits of your case.
Can I suggest that you recognize my opponent demonstrates zero
interest in the merits of my case.
On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 2:17:29 AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:[]
But don't worry: John Kerr-Mudd is not interested in whether people like you are thoroughly dishonest when that is the only way they can "win" arguments. He is only interested in people being civil to each other. He doesn't even seem
to be interested in OOL or evolution -- or paleontology, in sci.bio.paleontology,
where he pursues the same "can't we all just be nice to each other" spiel
to the exclusion of almost everything else. He's hit me several times
with that spiel in both places.
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 16:48:56 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>
wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2024 07:41:24 -0500
jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 12:21:16 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>[you snipped quotes of the phrase "willful stupidity"]
wrote:
So what? You snipped even more of my comments. Your complaint above
is blatant hypocrisy.
Sure. But I don't think it helps advance a case; my suggestion, whichCan I suggest that your debating style needs some tweaking to be more
effective at convincing your opponent of the merits of your case.
Can I suggest that you recognize my opponent demonstrates zero
interest in the merits of my case.
you are free to ignore, is that it's not helpful to respond that way,
it'll only turn into a flame-war that no-one wins.
Can I suggest that you at least acknowledge who initiated this
flame-war that has twisted your knickers, if only to show you're not
as willfully blind as you pretend to be.
On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 6:22:29 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Wednesday 3 January 2024 at 22:12:28 UTC+2, Ron Dean wrote:
broger...@gmail.com wrote:
Ron Dean recently posted....
"I watched this video entitled Debunking the "Fine Tuning Argument" by Sean Carroll referenced twice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR79HDEf9k8
Carroll's argument from the beginning.
Presumably, parameters that hold throughout our ca. 14 gigayear universe. Why, then, the bizarre choice of words that come next:His video entitled "Debunking the 'Fine Tuning' Argument", he states "You have phenomena; you have parameters of particle physics and cosmology."
"local conditions" = the entire observable universe, with only a multiverse (or a supernatural realm) to keep them from being all the conditions that we have any reasonThen he says "I am by no means, convinced that there is
a fine tuning problem". And then he continues, "it is certainly true that if you changed the parameters of nature, our local conditions that
we observe around us would change by a lot.
to think of existing or ever having existed or ever will exist in the whole of reality.
Now Bill Rogers chimes in with:"Sadly, we just don't know
whether if life could exist if conditions of the universe were different
see the universe that we see".
Also life as we are able to imagine it. Keep reading.But the fine tuning argument is not about
life, but rather life as we _know_ it.
Two problems: 1) "Life as _we_know_it_. There is absolutely no justification for assuming that there is any life, other than that which we do know about. And certainly no _reason_ for such an
assumption - other than as an escape!
There is whole multidisciplinary field of science called "synthetic biology"
that works on possibility of different life in exactly our universe.
Yes, exactly as it is -- with the constants what they are.
But look at what happens when one of the constants
is varied just a bit:
" The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially
important huge number N in nature, equal to 1,000,000, OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO. This number
measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold
atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between
them. If N had a few less zeros, only a short-lived miniature
universe could exist: no creatures could grow larger than
insects, and there would be no time for biological evolution."
--Martin Rees, British Astronomer Royal In _Just_Six_Numbers_, p.2 https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.asp
Also the religious scriptures are full of angels, demons, titans, fire-breathing dragons, talking serpents, sticks turned into snakes and what not. So I do not see from where you get that "problem" and by
whose position it even exists.
From the position of the atheist, agnostic, or skeptic who seriously doubts that there are such creatures as "the scriptures" talk about.
IOW, people like yourself, no?
2) There is at leas 10 different constants that had to be perfectly balanced and "fine tuned" for the universe itself to come about. Consequently, life, is solely conditioned upon our universe existing.
"Universe" in Conway's Game of Life is 2-dimensional grid with 4 trivial rules of progress. Universal Turing Machine is possible to manufactureThese are things of pure mathematics, rather simple ones at that,
in it.
with no existence of the sort that physics talks about, and certainly
no biological life, let alone consciousness.
So by what logic that problem exists is also hard to imagine.You aren't thinking like a physical or biological scientist here.
Yes, our universe is needed for our kind of life to exists. But what is surprizingThe low tolerances for a universe where biological life is able to exist. The number N constrains the universe radically in one direction; other
about it?
of the six constants named by Rees constrain it in both directions.
See the webpage I linked for them, and for additional commentary about them.
If you believe that this huge universe was specially made for to support one kind of life on one tiny rock orbiting mediocre star (that will turn to
red giant over next billion of years) then it is fine.
I have no such belief, and I think you are attacking a straw man here.
But you must be
capable to see that such position is rather hard to buy as truth or
even anyhow close to truth.
YOU are capable to "see" such a foolish thing, because you have not thought seriously
about the facts in the webpage I linked, much less in the whole book,
which goes into these problems with great depth. Yet your lack of knowledge is probably
easy to remedy: the book is short enough to read in one day, yet is quite readable by someone with my scientific background -- and, I suspect, yours.
On Sat, 6 Jan 2024 10:33:04 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>[]
wrote:
I won't be dragged down into an alternative flame war. I've made >suggestions, looks like it's had no effect. Ah well.
What a clever way to prove my point for me. You posted to this thread entirely on your own to blame me for a flame-war not of my making. To
quote another troll target, "Good day, sir. I said, "good day!".
I've been busy on other threads earlier this week, and was distracted on this one
by jillery and one other, but I'd like to return to some topics with you.
On Saturday, January 6, 2024 at 6:17:31 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Friday 5 January 2024 at 03:02:29 UTC+2, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 6:22:29 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
I snipped some earlier talk about fine tuning, to where you had shifted to the following topic:
I then tried to link the two topics together:There is whole multidisciplinary field of science called "synthetic biology"
that works on possibility of different life in exactly our universe.
Yes, exactly as it is -- with the constants what they are.
But look at what happens when one of the constants
is varied just a bit:
" The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially
important huge number N in nature, equal to 1,000,000, OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO. This number
measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold
atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between
them. If N had a few less zeros, only a short-lived miniature
universe could exist: no creatures could grow larger than
insects, and there would be no time for biological evolution."
--Martin Rees, British Astronomer Royal In _Just_Six_Numbers_, p.2 https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.asp
OK, but that still does not say why there can't be multiple different biological systems in that large universe. It does not even attempt
to claim it.
True, so now I talk about life in our universe. Ours is based on nucleotides and protein enzymes, using various essential things in the environment, especially water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen -- with the main external source of energy the beams from the sun.
There has been speculation for something like a century about whether
any of these things could be replaced and still have life.
One possibility
is the substitution of ammonia for water as the main solvent. Another
is the replacement of oxygen by hydrogen, resulting in respiration that results in methane instead of carbon dioxide. Archae called metanogens
are doing that now, in our bodies and especially in the bodies of ruminants.
Did you want to discuss these things further?
The issue of their origins might not be very different from the OOL
we have already discussed -- I mean, the biggest problem seems to be
the same for all of them: the production of something that works like protein enzymes, and something that works like DNA.
We've talked back in December about this issue of OOL with great mutual understanding
(but not complete agreement ) on the thread, JAMES TOUR VICTORIOUS?!
Our back-and-forth ended there with the following post by me:
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/vkewFZdg_9g/m/lmfWcND-AAAJ
Dec 22, 2023, 7:42:17 PM
Would you like to comment now on what I wrote there?
Or would you like to finish what we began below before returning
to that topic?
I'd prefer it the other way around: there are lots of misunderstandings between us below, and it may take a while to clear them all up.
On the other hand, back in December, we had managed to
clear up most misunderstandings already.
Anyway, I leave the decision up to you.
Peter Nyikos
PS I've left in everything we wrote below.
Also the religious scriptures are full of angels, demons, titans, fire-breathing dragons, talking serpents, sticks turned into snakes and
what not. So I do not see from where you get that "problem" and by whose position it even exists.
From the position of the atheist, agnostic, or skeptic who seriously doubts
that there are such creatures as "the scriptures" talk about.
IOW, people like yourself, no?
I can't tell about others. I know few things. One is that we have done
lot of discoveries about biology during last 200 years. There are no reason to think that it suddenly stops. Other is that people like to tell fantasy stories. So whatever is told without evidence is worth to be skeptical about.
2) There is at leas 10 different constants that had to be perfectly balanced and "fine tuned" for the universe itself to come about. Consequently, life, is solely conditioned upon our universe existing.
"Universe" in Conway's Game of Life is 2-dimensional grid with 4 trivialThese are things of pure mathematics, rather simple ones at that,
rules of progress. Universal Turing Machine is possible to manufacture in it.
with no existence of the sort that physics talks about, and certainly
no biological life, let alone consciousness.
It is same what I said. Biology as we know it can not exist in Conway's Game of Life. Yet complex machinery can.
So by what logic that problem exists is also hard to imagine.You aren't thinking like a physical or biological scientist here.
Physical and biological sciences are studying our reality. I understand that we talk outside of scope of those sciences.
Yes, our universe is needed for our kind of life to exists. But what is surprizingThe low tolerances for a universe where biological life is able to exist.
about it?
The number N constrains the universe radically in one direction; other of the six constants named by Rees constrain it in both directions.
See the webpage I linked for them, and for additional commentary about them.
What are the Rees constants in Conway's Game of Life? Why we assume
that whatever other possible universe has concept where those constants make sense whatsoever? We know nothing about it but try to conclude something from that ignorance.
If you believe that this huge universe was specially made for to support
one kind of life on one tiny rock orbiting mediocre star (that will turn to
red giant over next billion of years) then it is fine.
I have no such belief, and I think you are attacking a straw man here.
I am attacking nothing. I am concluding that odd position from problems 1) and 2) that do not look like problems.
But you must be
capable to see that such position is rather hard to buy as truth or even anyhow close to truth.
YOU are capable to "see" such a foolish thing, because you have not thought seriously
about the facts in the webpage I linked, much less in the whole book, which goes into these problems with great depth. Yet your lack of knowledge is probably
easy to remedy: the book is short enough to read in one day, yet is quite
readable by someone with my scientific background -- and, I suspect, yours.
You say that no one has such a position that it is straw man, yet that
I'm foolish in thinking that it is hard to buy? When someone wrote a
book about what constants can be adjusted when creating universes
then of course I am close to certain that the book is fantasy.
No one has knowledge about creating universes. No one has knowledge
what is 95% of mass and energy of current universe. Writing fantasy
books about it is not science.
On Friday, January 12, 2024 at 11:07:37 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Friday 12 January 2024 at 04:42:36 UTC+2, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
I've been busy on other threads earlier this week, and was distracted on this one
by jillery and one other, but I'd like to return to some topics with you.
On Saturday, January 6, 2024 at 6:17:31 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
On Friday 5 January 2024 at 03:02:29 UTC+2, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 6:22:29 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:
I snipped some earlier talk about fine tuning, to where you had shifted to
the following topic:
OK.
There is whole multidisciplinary field of science called "synthetic biology"
that works on possibility of different life in exactly our universe.
I then tried to link the two topics together:
Yes, exactly as it is -- with the constants what they are.
But look at what happens when one of the constants
is varied just a bit:
" The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially
important huge number N in nature, equal to 1,000,000, OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO. This number
measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold
atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between
them. If N had a few less zeros, only a short-lived miniature universe could exist: no creatures could grow larger than
insects, and there would be no time for biological evolution."
--Martin Rees, British Astronomer Royal In _Just_Six_Numbers_, p.2 https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.asp
OK, but that still does not say why there can't be multiple different biological systems in that large universe. It does not even attempt
to claim it.
True, so now I talk about life in our universe. Ours is based on nucleotides
and protein enzymes, using various essential things in the environment, especially water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen -- with the main external source of energy the beams from the sun.
Relatively common knowledge is that our biochemistry is narrow subset
from chemistry that is usable under said constraints.
I know of few really plausible ones. Carbon is the only element capable
of forming long chains with two free bonds with which to grab other atoms. Silicon, the only element that has been suggested as a replacement,
cannot form stable chains even ten atoms long; long chains alternate silicon atoms
it with oxygen, as in silicones. Have you seen any claims that such chains can substitute
for carbon chains for a variety of lipids as great as the ones needed for life as we know it?
There has been speculation for something like a century about whether any of these things could be replaced and still have life.
Yes. Current synthetic biology does some of that. They search for alternative peptides, polypeptides, alternative nucleotides useful in current types of polymers, alternative types of possible biologically useful polymers (and oligomers) and such.
Those all have the backdrop of our biological makeup of
being based on nucleotides and polypeptides, don't they?
One possibility
is the substitution of ammonia for water as the main solvent. Another
is the replacement of oxygen by hydrogen, resulting in respiration that results in methane instead of carbon dioxide. Archae called metanogens are doing that now, in our bodies and especially in the bodies of ruminants.
It is expensive to experiment with some nano- or biotech for example in liquid ammonia (boiling at -33 °C). So unless we actually have some interest to such conditions it is hard to find investors to such projects.
The gas giant planets have lots of ammonia and the low temperatures
needed for it. But there seems to be little enthusiasm among serious planetary scientists for the idea that they could harbor life.
But the point I was leading up to is that, besides water and hydrogen fluoride,
ammonia is the best universal solvent. And fluorine far less common in the universe
than either oxygen or nitrogen.
Otherwise ... usage of some widely common elements (like hydrogen,
oxygen, carbon and nitrogen) as material is obvious as those can form interesting compounds in variety of conditions. Not usage of some
other (also very common) elements (like helium and neon) is also
obvious as those can not form interesting chemical compounds.
From there the tremendous possible variance only starts.
Did you want to discuss these things further?
I just wanted to understand what is the problem there.
The main problems are in opposite directions from there.
(1) the tremendous difficulties of life getting going,
even under the most favorable naturally occurring external conditions and (2) the extremely narrow range of physical constants
that are compatible with favoring any kind of life at all.
We talked about (1) back in December. This thread
is mainly about (2). I gave you one example for (2) up there.
I gave Erik Simpson actual data on it, and also on another
example which severely limits deviations from what we have on *both* directions:
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/tRrS_7ExHWw/m/82-h-x41BgAJ
Re: Hard Atheism of John Harshman Contrasted with Agnosticism of Peter Nyikos
Jan 9, 2024, 10:22:34 PM
Lets say we are designed or bootstrapped for living on earth-like
planet and then changed over time by whatever designer or gardener.
I am much more in tune with us having evolved here. The last act of
design whose possibility I take at all seriously was over 500 million years ago,
and most likely done by "space aliens" not much more intelligent than ourselves,
if it was done at all.
Now plain logic tells that in some other place and other conditions some other
design is more optimal and so more probably used in that other place.
These other places are within our universe and are subject to main problem (1),
so "probably used" might talk about nonexistent organisms.
Or lets alternatively say that we did arise and evolve wildly here. The logic
is still same. Somewhere else some other autocatalytic compounds are likely more viable candidates for similar developments.
You mean catalytic compounds ["autocatalytic" is a very specialized concept].
It took an awful lot of research just to discover ribozymes as an alternative
to protein enzymes. A few substitutes for RNA have been found, such as PNA, but there is no reason to think that that they any more likely to get over problem (1)
than is RNA.
Therefore I do not understand the whole controversy. You said that it is not
good old geocentrism position that this whole universe was specially made only for to support our concrete life right here.
It is geocentric because I do acknowledge the possibility of other forms of life
in our universe, and also life forms with essentially the same biochemistry as ours.
But all seem to have the problem (1), not just our concrete life right here.
Please take a look at what I told Erik in the linked post. It might shed light
on some of the things you talked about later. I've deleted them this time, but I'll be glad to discuss them with you on Monday.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I mean auto-catalytic and cross-catalytic compound sets ... discoveries there will
go on, and new things are reported more rapidly than I can read. I agree that
there are plenty of problems with current abiogenesis hypotheses but nothing there is exactly a barrier. Barrier is what whale with gills or horse with wings has
to climb over for to evolve.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 498 |
| Nodes: | 16 (0 / 16) |
| Uptime: | 65:50:51 |
| Calls: | 9,813 |
| Calls today: | 1 |
| Files: | 13,754 |
| Messages: | 6,189,266 |