That does it. I will waste no more time on you until you stop acting
like a troll.
Good day, sir. I said, "good day!"
On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 6:17:30 PM UTC-5, mohammad...@gmail.com wrote:reality, chooses how the objective part of reality, turns out.
Just entertaining uncertainty is not sufficient for honesty. You should also consider the judgment that you are stupid.Whose judgment, and why?
I think I'm beginning to understand where you are coming from, Nando. There seems to be an imperfect translation
into English that kept me from understanding before. "Subjective" and "objective" are understood very differently
in everyday English than are the philosophical concepts "subject" and "object" that are devilishly difficult to convey to materialists.
I am a conscious person with a personal identity that persists through decades: a SUBJECT.
The table on which my laptop is resting is a mere physical OBJECT.
The evidence of how subjectivity works, is directly available to you, in the logic that you yourself use intuitively in common discourse, with subjective words, like for instance the word "beautiful".These words describe aspects of my conscious experience. The primordial earth had nothing
that anything of the time could call "beautiful." Had the universe been without conscious life
all through its existence, the words "beautiful" and "ugly" would have had no meaning.
The logic of subjectivity is that the spirit chooses, and the spirit is identified with a chosen opinion. The very simple logic of subjectivity clearly shows, that the subjective part of reality, is the part of it that chooses. The subjective part of
You seem to be opting for a philosophy of Idealism -- a word meaning something very different
in everyday speech than it does in the philosophy of mind and in epistemology.
I lean towards dualism. This entails the belief that I cannot choose how my ancestors of the Mesozoic era turned out.
Had the placental mammals at the end of that era been wiped out, I would not exist to choose any part of reality.
Which if true, is something you could have known, and should have known, therefore the judgment of stupidity.Sorry, you do not have the right to call someone stupid on such grounds unless you address the difference
between your philosophy and his.
The name God is defined in terms of Him being a creator.You might have defined God out of existence. I acknowledge that it is not out of question for
there to have been a *creator* of our universe, but it is safer to hypothesize that
there was a *designer* of our universe who took some matter and energy that originated
in His universe and used it to fashion a new universe with very different physical properties.
Even so, I have doubts about a Being even that powerful existing. Subjectively, I rate
His existence at about a 10% probability.
Which places God in the subjective part of reality, the spiritual domain.I would prefer to say, "the domain of Subjects, but Subjects so much more wise and powerful than ourselves, that worship of Him is an appropriate response,
with immense gratitude for having made our existence possible."
Therefore God can only confirmed to be real with a chosen opinion.Do you think YOU can only be confirmed to be real with someone's chosen opinion?
It was not mere opinion that led Descartes to say, "I am, I exist every time I think."
It was his immediate experience of reality. And like unto it was a statement uttered by a golem in a story: "Time is."
Same as emotions and personal character of people can only be confirmed to be real,with a chosen opinion, because they are also defined in terms of being on the side of choosing things.
Are you saying, in different words, that the character of people is determined by the choices they make?
If so, I agree.
1. Creator / chooses / spiritual / subjective / opinionSubjects like myself don't just have opinions. We understand facts,
2. Creation / chosen / material / objective / fact
such as the Pythagorean theorem or the existence of infinitely many prime numbers.
By "we" I mean not just myself but everyone intelligent enough to understand these facts if they are properly explained to them.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
PS you didn't reply to, or even allude to, anything preserved below.
But I left in everything below in case you might want to refer
to it in any reply you make to me.
Op woensdag 3 januari 2024 om 21:52:28 UTC+1 schreef peter2...@gmail.com:
This is a reply to the tail end of a post on JAMES TOUR VICTORIOUS?! Despite the use of our two names, this OP is issue-oriented.
It is because everyone's brand of religion (or the lack of one)
is highly individual, even if the words used for it are the same,
that I use our names to orient the readers.
For "hard atheism" I use the definition I learned in alt.atheism: the unequivocal denial of the existence of a God or gods. For "agnosticism," the best
definition of my brand is that it asserts that it is impossible to prove,
beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence or nonexistence of a Designer of our universe.
Details of these stances follow in the reply itself:
On Saturday, December 23, 2023 at 1:32:19 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
On 12/22/23 7:33 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
PS Don't think I am devoid of Christmas spirit. I had a nice exchange with
your sidekick Erik Simpson, and with him I am following Hemidactylus's
advice to call a truce for the season. But Christmas means nothing to a
person like you, who think God and a life after death are fairy tales
that normal adults need to grow out of.
That's an extreme of hard atheism that I think YOU need to grow out of. One can be a hard atheist and still not think that there is something wrong
with not being one.
You don't believe in either God or a life after death, right?
"believe in" is not a term I like to use, because it can be used to denote "trust"
where God or gods is concerned, as well as "conviction of its existence."
And "trust" is not useful for talking about the main point of disagreement
between you and me. That point is illustrated by what comes next:
Last I heard, you were 90% certain that they didn't exist.
Just plain false where a life after death is concerned. Its existence
is not logically connected with that of God or gods; only its nature is, if it does exist.
Besides, I eschew talk of "certainty" (with or without degrees) outside of pure mathematics.
The 90% refers to a subjective confidence level; I have no idea what the objective
measure of correctness is or whether there even can be one.
The number is as low as it is because I bring the Designer of our universe , if any,
in via a very different universe in a multiverse of which our ca. 14 gigayear
old universe
is a vanishingly small fraction, as would be the universe of the Designer.
I'm sure you can recall this kind of talk from me several times in the past.
Were it not for the possibility of that very different universe, the 90% would
become more like 99.99999999%. But even that is small compared to my conviction that there IS a multiverse, as opposed to your 19th century style
conviction that our one little universe is all there is or was or can be. Carl Sagan
was very much behind the times when he made that conviction into the opening sentence
of his book, _Cosmos_.
What in fact does
Christmas mean to you?
Primarily, a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Secondarily, a very festive
occasion that the Scrooges and Grinches of our society would have us abandon.
My OP of the thread, "Modern Grinches," goes into this; see:
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/rYVfxWoYgMY/m/8TgHMjaAAwAJ Dec 19, 2023, 4:52:14 PM
Burkhard did a long post later in that thread on the Puritans, who were even more extreme
in their opposition to what is the secondary meaning of Christmas for me.
Is there something wrong with being an atheist?
Absolutely not. I have gone too many miles in the moccasins of atheists, as the saying goes, to have anything but respect for atheism. It's the excess
baggage that atheists like the you add on to it where my objections begin.
Peter Nyikos
On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 7:42:35 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 6:17:30 PM UTC-5, mohammad...@gmail.com wrote:
Just entertaining uncertainty is not sufficient for honesty. You should also consider the judgment that you are stupid.Whose judgment, and why?
I think I'm beginning to understand where you are coming from, Nando. There seems to be an imperfect translation
into English that kept me from understanding before. "Subjective" and "objective" are understood very differently
in everyday English than are the philosophical concepts "subject" and "object" that are devilishly difficult to convey to materialists.
I am a conscious person with a personal identity that persists through decades: a SUBJECT.While the notion of having some profound insight into what Nando is saying entertains, and in ways I think
The table on which my laptop is resting is a mere physical OBJECT.
we have a matched set, I'm just here to drop something off that will enrage both so as to better foster
their mutual admiration.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2398369-why-free-will-doesnt-exist-according-to-robert-sapolsky/
On 1/11/24 6:21 AM, Abner wrote:s approval? Will he reject Nando's beliefs now that they have been reaffirmed as not being what Peter was hoping? Will he continue to reinterpret Nando's beliefs as something more reasonable? Will he drop the thread entirely? I have to admit that I
I'm actually looking forward to seeing Peter's response to Nando's rejection of Peter's reinterpretation of Nando's screed. I think it will say a lot about where Peter really stands. Will he reject academia and join Nando's attack on it to gain Nando'
(Nando, alas, became predictably boring ages ago.)
I suspect Peter will come to conclusion that most of us arrived at long
ago: Nando is a nutter who speaks no known language. Peter has often
claimed he "suffers fools gladly", but there's a limit to that suffering.
On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 9:22:36 AM UTC-5, Abner wrote
I'm actually looking forward to seeing Peter's response to Nando's rejection of Peter's reinterpretation of Nando's screed.I don't see much point to continuing to talk to someone who is not interested in actual meeting of minds. He doesn't even make it clear whom
he is talking to., and he keeps nothing of what others are saying to him.
He reminds me of another Dutch speaker, Mark Verhaegan, who is only interested in advertising his own pet theories. For a while he seemed
to have some interesting things to say in sci.bio.paleontology and, a
bit later, here in talk.origins. But after a while it got to be a one-way street
where he no longer responded in a meaningful way to others' criticisms,
but kept peddling the same old articles of his, mostly in obscure journals.
I think it will say a lot about where Peter really stands. Will he reject academia and join Nando's attack on it to gain Nando's approval?Perish the thought. I care not for the approval of someone who is
only interested in peddling his ideas.
Will he reject Nando's beliefs now that they have been reaffirmed as not being what Peter was hoping?I wasn't hoping for anything in particular, just a 2-way hashing out of issues.
Will he continue to reinterpret Nando's beliefs as something more reasonable? Will he drop the thread entirely? I have to admit that I really can't predict the outcome on this one. It will be interesting to see what Peter does!But are you interested in issues like OOL or evolution or ID or creationism?
(Nando, alas, became predictably boring ages ago.)Are you just another kibitzer, like "Kerr-Mudd, John"?
Peter Nyikos
Abner wrote
Peter wrote:I'm actually looking forward to seeing Peter's response to Nando's rejection
of Peter's reinterpretation of Nando's screed.
I don't see much point to continuing to talk to someone who is not interested in actual meeting of minds. He doesn't even make it clear whom he is talking to., and he keeps nothing of what others are saying to him.Pretty much. Nando has some weird idea that everyone who disagrees with
his weird belief system must subscribe to a different but equally weird belief
system that is, oddly enough, an integrated part of his belief system. It's almost
manchaeism in its ability to divide the world into two parts and ignore whatever
you say that doesn't fit into the views that Nando has assigned to you.
I think it will say a lot about where Peter really stands. Will he reject
academia and join Nando's attack on it to gain Nando's approval?
Perish the thought. I care not for the approval of someone who isGlad to hear it, though it would have been really interesting to watch!
only interested in peddling his ideas.
I've seen similar events before, alas.
Will he reject Nando's beliefs now that they have been reaffirmed
as not being what Peter was hoping?
I wasn't hoping for anything in particular, just a 2-way hashing out of issues.I don't think Nando has any interest in that anymore. It's become a lot easier for him to create an echo chamber where he can assign beliefs
to you instead.
But are you interested in issues like OOL or evolution or ID or creationism?Oh, I am, but it generally has to be new and the other person has to
have interesting things to discuss. One of the side-effects of having
read through these issues for decades is that I very rarely run into anything new and interesting anymore. I skim here just in case something interesting shows up. Nando was, for a while, one of the rare sources
of new ideas here, but then he went on mental repeat and became
boring. The same thing happened with RonO, alas. At this point most
of the stuff here that is new isn't on-topic and almost all the stuff here that is on-topic isn't new.
I am considering that when google.groups stops working, I will just quietly leave rather than find a replacement way into talk.origins. It may not be worth the effort anymore.
On Wed, 17 Jan 2024 11:16:56 -0800, erik simpsonof 36], only a short-lived and miniature universe could exist. [Stars would be crowded so much together that stable planetary orbits would be great rarities.] No creatures would be larger than insects, and there would be no time for evolution to lead to
<eastsi...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/16/24 3:14 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 1:17:35?AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote: >>
On 1/9/24 7:20 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 12:32:29?AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote: >>
Your conviction of am enormous multiverse arouses my curiosity. How didYesterday was the last day of the Christmas season for us Catholics, >>>> but you seem to be receptive to the idea of continuing our truce
you come to such a conclusion? I intend no hostility; just interest. >>>>
[see the PS before my first snip for focus] beyond it, and I am happy >>>> to go along.
In a nutshell: what convinced me was what is commonly called
"the fine tuning of the basic physical constants." However, that often produces
the Pavlov-style reflex "tuning implies a tuner," so I prefer a more objective
expression, "the extremely low tolerance of the basic physical constants
to conditions compatible with the existence of intelligent life in the universe."
The basic idea is that these low tolerances make our universe violate >>>> the principle of mediocrity to a staggering extent. How could it be the >>>> only universe when all it takes is a tiny tweak here or a tiny tweak >>>> there to destroy the possibility of intelligent life?
There's a hidden assumption that you need to nail down:
"assumption" and "need" are too strong even for "beyond a reasonable doubt."
What is relevant is the standard of "preponderance of evidence".
that the constants you mention are drawn from a distribution of possibilities
that you know sufficiently to say that the range you accept as resulting >>> in the possibility of life is a small proportion of the distribution, >>> i.e. that a universe within that range has a low probability. How was >>> this determined?
You are shifting all the burden of proof onto me, and there is no good
reason to go down that rabbit hole.
A common not-so-hidden assumption of "skeptics" [1] is,
"there may be some hidden law whereby the range of parameters
that are compatible with intelligent life, and their
distribution, makes life almost inevitable in a typical universe."
[1 ] as in "Skeptical Enquirer" and the forum we got locked out of when we weren't
sufficiently deferential to Prothero. IIRC the name of that forum was "skepticblog."
It's no use saying that only a slight variation would be tolerated
unless you know what range is possible (and what the shape of the
distribution is).
There is plenty of use to it, because it is only by making the strong
assumption I described that a "skeptic" can convincingly avoid the dilemma of
either an intelligent designer of our universe or a vast and perhaps infinite multiverse.
You started a thread on Martin Rees; how much did you read about
"fine tuning" there? I warmly recommend his book _Just_Six_Numbers_ >>>> as an introduction to the reasoning for there being a multiverse.
The book can be read in fewer hours than there are in a day, but to >>>> save you a lot of time, here is something you can read in less than an hour
and still give you the gist of Rees's argument:
https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.asp
Here are my two favorite examples, because of their simplicity and
the low tolerances. One is symbolized by a fancy ornate N, the other >>>> by a big Greek epsilon. I've added some details in brackets to what you >>>> see in the webpage.
N = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [10^36]
The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially important huge number in nature. N measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between them. If it had a few less zeros [30 instead
periodic table. Carbon and oxygen are common, and gold and uranium are rare, because of what happens in the stars. If epsilon were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist. [If it were .006, no atoms but hydrogen could form; if it were .008, water and carbon
I'll have more to say about this one in my next and final reply to this post of yours.
The bracketed concrete data is in the book by Rees. You won't find it in the webpage I linked:
that only has the unbracketed parts. The same is true of what I wrote about "Epsilon" below.
*More* zeros might not be a problem, but my other favorite is severely restricted on both ends.
It is related to the ratio of the nuclear force holding atomic nuclei together to the
electromagnetic repulsion tending to blow them apart, but its actual definition
is a bit more subtle: it is the [fraction of mass converted into energy] when a helium nucleus
results from the fusion of what started out as four protons.
The bracketed part up there is new, correcting what I wrote earlier.
More brackets follow in the quote from the website:
epsilon = 0.007
Another number, epsilon, defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. The value of epsilon controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the
My impression is his point is to obfuscate his point until even heThat the universe is fine-tuned for us seems to me to be backwards. We
Even silicon, which I've talked about in my last reply to Öö Tiib on a different thread [2]
might be a great rarity.
[2] https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/q-BiBJubH9w/m/MpG5gmjZAAAJ >> Re: Re-Riposte to Fine Tuning - to keep the old one from exceeding 1000 posts
Jan 12, 2024, 8:57:37
Now, *this* constant has a well-defined range: 0 to 1. With negative numbers,
converting hydrogen to helium would absorb energy, not add it, and
make fusion even harder than it is at epsilon = .006. And at epsilon = 1, all the mass
would be converted to energy, and no helium (or higher elements) would form at all.
But you have an uphill battle to convince people that a *fraction* of the interval (0.006, 0.008)
represents a "typical universe."
CONCLUDED IN NEXT REPLY TO THIS POST, probably tomorrow.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
are fine-tuned for the universe, which should come as no surprise, since >we've had at least 4 Gy to get tuned, despite lots of changes to our >physical surroundings. If things were different, we'd be different, but
if they were too different we wouldn't be here to notice. How different
is "too"? Or am I missing your point here?
doesn't know what is his point.
As you say above, those who argue fine-tuning fail to recognize that
life adapts to the conditions it finds itself, or dies, by definition.
--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge
On 1/29/24 6:24 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:instead of 36], only a short-lived and miniature universe could exist. [Stars would be crowded so much together that stable planetary orbits would be great rarities.] No creatures would be larger than insects, and there would be no time for evolution to
On Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 11:02:52 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
On 1/25/24 7:37 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
The preceding three day stretch was the most hectic in the last two years,
but things have finally calmed down, and tomorrow I will probably have time
to do several posts on t.o. It is only the lateness of time that confines me
to one today.
On Friday, January 19, 2024 at 10:37:44 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote: >>>> On 1/19/24 7:06 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 11:37:43 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
On 1/18/24 7:25 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, January 17, 2024 at 2:17:42 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
On 1/16/24 3:14 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 1:17:35 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
On 1/9/24 7:20 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 12:32:29 AM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
Your conviction of am enormous multiverse arouses my curiosity. How did
you come to such a conclusion? I intend no hostility; just interest.
I sense hostility in several places below. What changed your intentions?
Yesterday was the last day of the Christmas season for us Catholics,
but you seem to be receptive to the idea of continuing our truce >>>>>>>>>>> [see the PS before my first snip for focus] beyond it, and I am happy
to go along.
Looks like you didn't want the truce to extend beyond Christmas season after all.
In a nutshell: what convinced me was what is commonly called >>>>>>>>>>> "the fine tuning of the basic physical constants." However, that often produces
the Pavlov-style reflex "tuning implies a tuner," so I prefer a more objective
expression, "the extremely low tolerance of the basic physical constants
to conditions compatible with the existence of intelligent life in the universe."
The basic idea is that these low tolerances make our universe violate
the principle of mediocrity to a staggering extent. How could it be the
only universe when all it takes is a tiny tweak here or a tiny tweak
there to destroy the possibility of intelligent life?
<snip of things to be addressed in reply to Harshman, probably tomorrow>
Here are my two favorite examples, because of their simplicity and
the low tolerances. One is symbolized by a fancy ornate N, the other
by a big Greek epsilon. I've added some details in brackets to what you
see in the webpage.
Nobody showed any interest in the following data.
Am I the only talk.origins participant who is interested in cosmology for the sake of
cosmology?
N = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [10^36] >>>>>>>>>>> The cosmos is so vast because there is one crucially important huge number in nature. N measures the strength of the electrical forces that hold atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between them. If it had a few less zeros [30
the periodic table. Carbon and oxygen are common, and gold and uranium are rare, because of what happens in the stars. If epsilon were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist. [If it were .006, no atoms but hydrogen could form; if it were .008, water and
I'll have more to say about this one in my next and final reply to this post of yours.
The bracketed concrete data is in the book by Rees. You won't find it in the webpage I linked:
that only has the unbracketed parts. The same is true of what I wrote about "Epsilon" below.
The bracketed part up there is new, correcting what I wrote earlier.*More* zeros might not be a problem, but my other favorite is severely restricted on both ends.
It is related to the ratio of the nuclear force holding atomic nuclei together to the
electromagnetic repulsion tending to blow them apart, but its actual definition
is a bit more subtle: it is the [fraction of mass converted into energy] when a helium nucleus
results from the fusion of what started out as four protons. >>>>>>>>>
More brackets follow in the quote from the website:
epsilon = 0.007
Another number, epsilon, defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. The value of epsilon controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of
Even silicon, which I've talked about in my last reply to Öö Tiib on a different thread [2]
might be a great rarity.
[2] https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/q-BiBJubH9w/m/MpG5gmjZAAAJ
Re: Re-Riposte to Fine Tuning - to keep the old one from exceeding 1000 posts
Jan 12, 2024, 8:57:37
<snip for focus>
<additional snip to get to an unsupported assertion of yours, Erik>
I have no problem with the idea of multiverses. At present these are >>>>>> entirely speculative,
Later, you reveal that you meant that they were "science fiction,"
but that is inconsistent with there being serious physical theories backing them:
Not so: there is deep physics behind some of them, including the
ones made possible by Guth's highly respected theory of inflation.
You said nothing about this in your reply, Erik. Are you as unlettered >>> in cosmology as Athel is in OOL despite having written a book
on the biochemistry of life?
<crickets>
It's no disgrace if you are like that --
I'm unlettered in some of the most active branches of topology, despite being a leading
researcher in set-theoretic topology.
Jillery could tell you about them, but that would involve walking back some insults
she made about me in reply to you, and I don't think either you or she want her
to do anything that drastic.
and if the speculation doesn't lead to some ideas
about how they might affect our universe it seems to me to be a waste of
time.
They affect our *understanding* of our universe by giving a
concrete meaning to the probability that a given universe of the multiverse
is hospitable to any kind of life.
There is a potential infinity of them in Linde's "perpetual inflation" hypothesis,
with no reason to think that *any* of the six "blueprint" constants is the same
in any but a vanishingly small percentage of them. Ironically, you would add MORE
to the list of six that anti-ID zealots have to take into account:
As I believe I've already mentioned the large number of "fundamental" >>>>>> variables and possible dimensionless quantities one could construct, and
we have no idea why they they have the values they do.
I can't recall a single one of this "large number". Are you sure you got that specific?
That isn't your style on this thread, nor on any thread not involving paleontology.
You almost always prefer generalities to specifics.
You *still* don't mention a single one. Looks like your memory of what you "believe" you've
mentioned is as bad as that of John Harshman.
I was a professional physicist for about a decade before I went over to >>>> the Dark Side. I can't believe you aren't aware of the physical
quantities involved in characterizing the universe. You rail about them >>>> at length in your esteem of Ree's six numbers book.
You missed where I criticized him for using the word "recipe"
rather than "blueprint," which still leaves a lot of ingredients out.
Stephen M. Barr adds a few more ingredients in _Modern_Physics_and_Ancient_Faith_.
But your hostile preceding paragraph suggests that you don't want to hear about them.
Specific physics
isn't on topic here.
What could be more basic than the ratio between the electromagnetic
force and the gravitational? or the ratio between the nuclear and the >>> electromagnetic?
<crickets>
Rees didn't talk about the latter directly, but "epsilon"
depends on it, though not in linear fashion.
Stephen M. Barr does talk about the latter ratio [*op* *cit* pp. 125-126]. It goes by the name of "the fine structure constant".
There are soMartin Rees's sober analyses are a far cry from the second topic. >>>>> As for the first, don't you know that a typical hydrogen atom is made of
many things we don't understand yet, they certainly seem more
interesting subjects than dreaming of universes where there is only one
kin of particle or time runs backward (whatever that might mean). >>>>>
two kinds of particles in a very complicated interaction? [Atypical atoms add
one or two neutrons.]
Looks like you *still* haven't absorbed what I said about N and epsilon,
summarizing what Rees wrote about them.
In particular, a universe with hydrogen as the only element follows from
some deep physical properties of matter that involve epsilon.
A difference of less than .001 takes you from our rich universe
to that kind of impoverished universe.
None of these ramblings should be considered disparaging of Sir Rees, >>>>>> who has contributed so much to our current understanding of the only >>>>>> universe we know.
If you ignore his analyses of how some fundamental dimensionless
constants contribute to making our universe so rich by sticking
to some very narrow intervals, what does that say about the
generality "so much"?
Dimensional analysis clarifies thinking about physical models, but
ultimately they are no more fundamental than any other variable we
choose for modeling. It also is appropriate to remember that
mathematical descriptions aren't physics.
Who ever claimed otherwise?
<crickets>
That's a particularly gratuitous insult.They're just the best
descriptions we have in our efforts to understand what's really
happening. Again, multiverses add nothing to our understanding.
You are now arguing on the level of Ron Dean. That last sentence
of yours is self-referential in adding nothing to our understanding.
I wasn't insulting YOU, I was insulting the last sentence you had written.
I would have expected you to say something like this in reply
to the following, but you breezed past it as though it weren't there:
[repeated from above]
Looks like your memory of what you "believe" you've
mentioned is as bad as that of John Harshman.
But thanks for letting everyone know what utter contempt you
have for Ron Dean. How does it compare with your contempt
for Glenn -- or me, for that matter?
If you continue in this vein,
I'm through with this subject.
What vein? Are you completely ignoring the physics I've been writing about?
As I see it, the ball is firmly in your
court. Please explain how a speculative multiverse could explain the
origin of life OR provide "richness" in our universe.
Think of how the following scenario sheds light
on the richness of one of the outcomes.
Suppose that, in a given hour, ten thousand people in the world
are flipping coins to see how long a "run" of one side they can
attain. Suppose one of them flips 30 heads in a row.
Before he gets to 30, don't you think anyone watching him would
become suspicious that he is flipping a 2-headed coin?
After all, the odds against him getting 30 in a row are more than a quadrillion to one.
In fact, it would be unusual to have even 20 in a row (ca. million to one odds)
in such a small sample of coin-flippers.
Yet, the odds against a universe bearing intelligent life are far worse than quadrillion to one, unless the ranges and distributions are tremendously loaded in favor of life. Lacking any evidence of such loading, only a huge sample, in the form of a multiverse would take care of Hoyle's
suspicions that our universe is "a put-up job."
That would remove
said universe from science fiction to something worth talking about.
The ball is in your court to defend this polemical sentence against my analogy.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
I have no idea of how you conclude that life is so unlikely. I think
it's probably very likely, since we see it, and there's no reason that
the conditions on earth are particularly exceptional. I'm not
"violating" any "truce", so I'm at a loss there as well. Let's say, I
just don't understand what your points are, and let it go at that.
We're making no progress on this subject.
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