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.

So, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
of the electron is, he can do what he wants.

This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
intelligent beings.

Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
the real "fine tuned universe argument".
>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"

Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.

You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.

And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too. You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God designed.

But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.

And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.

In short here's your argument with Carroll

Carroll: If anything fine tuning is an argument against God, because if there were a God he could just keep everything He wanted alive by sheer omnipotence, without worrying about the mass of the electron or the fine structure constant.

Ron: But that would mean that God was completely irrational, violating whatever natural laws He had created in order to get a specific outcome that was not compatible with those laws.

Me: OK, but if your counter-argument against Carroll is correct, it undermines your own position on design, because your own position requires that God intervene repeatedly, violating the natural laws He created, in order to get the outcomes He wanted, outcomes incompatible with the laws he designed..

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 1:05:38 PM UTC+1, 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.
>
> So, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
> particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
> parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
> values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
> of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
> no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
> tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
> real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
> straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
> It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
> from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
> when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
> doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
> of the electron is, he can do what he wants.
>
> This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
> not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
> understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
> capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
> presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
> day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
> could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
> could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
> consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
> not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
> universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
> purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
> establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
> orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
> and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
> intelligent beings.
>
> Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
> actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
> the real "fine tuned universe argument".
> >
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"
>
> Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.
>
> You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.
>
> And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too. You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God designed.
>
> But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.
>
> And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.

Does that really follow though? Take a good digital game designer who builds a Minecraft- type universe. She builds it in such a way that lots of things happen in an unsupervised mode, governed by some hard constraints that ensure that over time things that bump into other things create (or destroy) more complex things, using pseudo-random generators to introduce a degree of unpredictability. From a players perspective this is perceived as a changing environment. T

his is a Minecraft type game, so some players can use the resources that this background world provides to make their own stuff, according to their interests, aesthetic preferences etc. They are constrained in doing so by some of he hard coded constraints, so that e.g. two objects that they build can't be at the same place at the same time etc.

As an UX pro, to get a better impression of the user experience, as she also creates a player account for herself. She uses that account while the game is still in Alpha or Beta version, before it gets released to other players, and as the developer has also a particularly good understanding of the game world. She now starts building things, the way a paying player eventually will. Sure, everything she builds she could also have simply "dropped" as a complete object right at the start, or set up the algorithm so that it produces eventually that thing by itself, but a) where would bet the fun in that and b) it would defy the purpose of getting an idea of the user experience.

I would say that story is internally consistent, and our developer does not violate any of the laws she herself has set for this game universe, she jsut uses them the way any other player can - and still she creates within it things that, given the set-up of her parameters etc would (but could) not have happened by themselves, or not at quickly as they did.

>
> In short here's your argument with Carroll
>
> Carroll: If anything fine tuning is an argument against God, because if there were a God he could just keep everything He wanted alive by sheer omnipotence, without worrying about the mass of the electron or the fine structure constant.
>
> Ron: But that would mean that God was completely irrational, violating whatever natural laws He had created in order to get a specific outcome that was not compatible with those laws.
>
> Me: OK, but if your counter-argument against Carroll is correct, it undermines your own position on design, because your own position requires that God intervene repeatedly, violating the natural laws He created, in order to get the outcomes He wanted, outcomes incompatible with the laws he designed.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 11:50:37 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 1:05:38 PM UTC+1, 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.
> >
> > So, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
> > particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
> > parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
> > values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
> > of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
> > no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
> > tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
> > real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
> > straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
> > It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
> > from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
> > when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
> > doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
> > of the electron is, he can do what he wants.
> >
> > This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
> > not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
> > understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
> > capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
> > presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
> > day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
> > could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
> > could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
> > consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
> > not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
> > universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
> > purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
> > establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
> > orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
> > and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
> > intelligent beings.
> >
> > Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
> > actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
> > the real "fine tuned universe argument".
> > >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"
> >
> > Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.
> >
> > You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.
> >
> > And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too. You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God designed.
> >
> > But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.
> >
> > And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.
> Does that really follow though? Take a good digital game designer who builds a Minecraft- type universe. She builds it in such a way that lots of things happen in an unsupervised mode, governed by some hard constraints that ensure that over time things that bump into other things create (or destroy) more complex things, using pseudo-random generators to introduce a degree of unpredictability. From a players perspective this is perceived as a changing environment. T
>
> his is a Minecraft type game, so some players can use the resources that this background world provides to make their own stuff, according to their interests, aesthetic preferences etc. They are constrained in doing so by some of he hard coded constraints, so that e.g. two objects that they build can't be at the same place at the same time etc.
>
> As an UX pro, to get a better impression of the user experience, as she also creates a player account for herself. She uses that account while the game is still in Alpha or Beta version, before it gets released to other players, and as the developer has also a particularly good understanding of the game world. She now starts building things, the way a paying player eventually will. Sure, everything she builds she could also have simply "dropped" as a complete object right at the start, or set up the algorithm so that it produces eventually that thing by itself, but a) where would bet the fun in that and b) it would defy the purpose of getting an idea of the user experience.
>
> I would say that story is internally consistent, and our developer does not violate any of the laws she herself has set for this game universe, she jsut uses them the way any other player can - and still she creates within it things that, given the set-up of her parameters etc would (but could) not have happened by themselves, or not at quickly as they did.

The thing is that the interventions in the ID case, at least the ones that Ron sees, require violations of the physical laws that God designed, and Ron's argument against Carroll presupposes that one of the things God wants is a rational, ordered universe that follows physical laws. It may be unfortunate that on uses the same word for physical laws, which strictly determine the things that happen, and societal laws, which just set up boundaries within which all sorts of different things might happen. A God who acted as Carroll's proposed God did - ie one who made physical constants incompatible with life's survival, but nonetheless set up "laws" by which He could intervene to keep life living anyway would be acting, in a way, like your game designer. But Ron rejected such an idea.

My argument is not that one could not imagine a universe in which God lets the physical laws slide from time to time, only that Ron's argument against Carroll is inconsistent with other positions of Ron.
> >
> > In short here's your argument with Carroll
> >
> > Carroll: If anything fine tuning is an argument against God, because if there were a God he could just keep everything He wanted alive by sheer omnipotence, without worrying about the mass of the electron or the fine structure constant.
> >
> > Ron: But that would mean that God was completely irrational, violating whatever natural laws He had created in order to get a specific outcome that was not compatible with those laws.
> >
> > Me: OK, but if your counter-argument against Carroll is correct, it undermines your own position on design, because your own position requires that God intervene repeatedly, violating the natural laws He created, in order to get the outcomes He wanted, outcomes incompatible with the laws he designed.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 5:20:37 PM UTC+1, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 11:50:37 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 1:05:38 PM UTC+1, 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.
> > >
> > > So, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
> > > particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
> > > parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
> > > values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
> > > of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
> > > no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
> > > tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
> > > real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
> > > straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
> > > It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
> > > from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
> > > when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
> > > doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
> > > of the electron is, he can do what he wants.
> > >
> > > This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
> > > not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
> > > understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
> > > capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
> > > presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
> > > day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
> > > could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
> > > could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
> > > consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
> > > not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
> > > universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
> > > purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
> > > establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
> > > orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
> > > and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
> > > intelligent beings.
> > >
> > > Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
> > > actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
> > > the real "fine tuned universe argument".
> > > >
> > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"
> > >
> > > Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.
> > >
> > > You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.
> > >
> > > And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too. You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God designed.
> > >
> > > But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.
> > >
> > > And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.
> > Does that really follow though? Take a good digital game designer who builds a Minecraft- type universe. She builds it in such a way that lots of things happen in an unsupervised mode, governed by some hard constraints that ensure that over time things that bump into other things create (or destroy) more complex things, using pseudo-random generators to introduce a degree of unpredictability. From a players perspective this is perceived as a changing environment. T
> >
> > his is a Minecraft type game, so some players can use the resources that this background world provides to make their own stuff, according to their interests, aesthetic preferences etc. They are constrained in doing so by some of he hard coded constraints, so that e.g. two objects that they build can't be at the same place at the same time etc.
> >
> > As an UX pro, to get a better impression of the user experience, as she also creates a player account for herself. She uses that account while the game is still in Alpha or Beta version, before it gets released to other players, and as the developer has also a particularly good understanding of the game world. She now starts building things, the way a paying player eventually will. Sure, everything she builds she could also have simply "dropped" as a complete object right at the start, or set up the algorithm so that it produces eventually that thing by itself, but a) where would bet the fun in that and b) it would defy the purpose of getting an idea of the user experience.
> >
> > I would say that story is internally consistent, and our developer does not violate any of the laws she herself has set for this game universe, she jsut uses them the way any other player can - and still she creates within it things that, given the set-up of her parameters etc would (but could) not have happened by themselves, or not at quickly as they did.
> The thing is that the interventions in the ID case, at least the ones that Ron sees, require violations of the physical laws that God designed, and Ron's argument against Carroll presupposes that one of the things God wants is a rational, ordered universe that follows physical laws. It may be unfortunate that on uses the same word for physical laws, which strictly determine the things that happen, and societal laws, which just set up boundaries within which all sorts of different things might happen. A God who acted as Carroll's proposed God did - ie one who made physical constants incompatible with life's survival, but nonetheless set up "laws" by which He could intervene to keep life living anyway would be acting, in a way, like your game designer. But Ron rejected such an idea.
>
> My argument is not that one could not imagine a universe in which God lets the physical laws slide from time to time, only that Ron's argument against Carroll is inconsistent with other positions of Ron.

I think I got your argument, and for sure Ron's position is generally an incoherent mess, but I'm still not sure that it is this specific inconsistency. Why do Ron's intervention "necessarily" violate physical laws? God/game developer sets up a universe that in principle can sustain life once it is there. They may even set it up in such a way that life would eventually form without any further action. But rather than wait until this happens, they also design it in such a way that form the inside, and in adherence with the laws, new things can be built by one type of agent (those capable of planning), including things that are alive. With other words a universe that also sustains the existence of a somewhat more knowledgeable Craig Venter.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 12:50:37 PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 5:20:37 PM UTC+1, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 11:50:37 AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 1:05:38 PM UTC+1, 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.
> > > >
> > > > So, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
> > > > particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
> > > > parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
> > > > values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
> > > > of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
> > > > no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
> > > > tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
> > > > real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
> > > > straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
> > > > It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
> > > > from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
> > > > when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
> > > > doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
> > > > of the electron is, he can do what he wants.
> > > >
> > > > This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
> > > > not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
> > > > understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
> > > > capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
> > > > presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
> > > > day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
> > > > could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
> > > > could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
> > > > consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
> > > > not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
> > > > universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
> > > > purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
> > > > establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
> > > > orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
> > > > and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
> > > > intelligent beings.
> > > >
> > > > Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
> > > > actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
> > > > the real "fine tuned universe argument".
> > > > >
> > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"
> > > >
> > > > Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.
> > > >
> > > > You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.
> > > >
> > > > And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too. You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God designed.
> > > >
> > > > But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.
> > > >
> > > > And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.
> > > Does that really follow though? Take a good digital game designer who builds a Minecraft- type universe. She builds it in such a way that lots of things happen in an unsupervised mode, governed by some hard constraints that ensure that over time things that bump into other things create (or destroy) more complex things, using pseudo-random generators to introduce a degree of unpredictability. From a players perspective this is perceived as a changing environment. T
> > >
> > > his is a Minecraft type game, so some players can use the resources that this background world provides to make their own stuff, according to their interests, aesthetic preferences etc. They are constrained in doing so by some of he hard coded constraints, so that e.g. two objects that they build can't be at the same place at the same time etc.
> > >
> > > As an UX pro, to get a better impression of the user experience, as she also creates a player account for herself. She uses that account while the game is still in Alpha or Beta version, before it gets released to other players, and as the developer has also a particularly good understanding of the game world. She now starts building things, the way a paying player eventually will. Sure, everything she builds she could also have simply "dropped" as a complete object right at the start, or set up the algorithm so that it produces eventually that thing by itself, but a) where would bet the fun in that and b) it would defy the purpose of getting an idea of the user experience.
> > >
> > > I would say that story is internally consistent, and our developer does not violate any of the laws she herself has set for this game universe, she jsut uses them the way any other player can - and still she creates within it things that, given the set-up of her parameters etc would (but could) not have happened by themselves, or not at quickly as they did.
> > The thing is that the interventions in the ID case, at least the ones that Ron sees, require violations of the physical laws that God designed, and Ron's argument against Carroll presupposes that one of the things God wants is a rational, ordered universe that follows physical laws. It may be unfortunate that on uses the same word for physical laws, which strictly determine the things that happen, and societal laws, which just set up boundaries within which all sorts of different things might happen. A God who acted as Carroll's proposed God did - ie one who made physical constants incompatible with life's survival, but nonetheless set up "laws" by which He could intervene to keep life living anyway would be acting, in a way, like your game designer. But Ron rejected such an idea.
> >
> > My argument is not that one could not imagine a universe in which God lets the physical laws slide from time to time, only that Ron's argument against Carroll is inconsistent with other positions of Ron.
> I think I got your argument, and for sure Ron's position is generally an incoherent mess, but I'm still not sure that it is this specific inconsistency. Why do Ron's intervention "necessarily" violate physical laws? God/game developer sets up a universe that in principle can sustain life once it is there. They may even set it up in such a way that life would eventually form without any further action. But rather than wait until this happens, they also design it in such a way that form the inside, and in adherence with the laws, new things can be built by one type of agent (those capable of planning), including things that are alive. With other words a universe that also sustains the existence of a somewhat more knowledgeable Craig Venter.
>
> That arguably creates inconsistencies for Ron elsewhere, but as far as I can see they are all of an epistemological nature (his reasons to argue that this is what really happened) , in principle, the model itself seems to me to be consistent, or could at least be tweaked into something consistent without giving up any of the substantial points.

On Wed, 12 Jul 2023 10:04:14 -0700 (PDT), "broger...@gmail.com"
<brogers31751@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 12:50:37?PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>> On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 5:20:37?PM UTC+1, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 11:50:37?AM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
>> > > On Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 1:05:38?PM UTC+1, 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.
>> > > >
>> > > > So, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
>> > > > particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
>> > > > parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
>> > > > values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
>> > > > of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
>> > > > no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
>> > > > tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
>> > > > real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
>> > > > straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
>> > > > It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
>> > > > from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
>> > > > when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
>> > > > doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
>> > > > of the electron is, he can do what he wants.
>> > > >
>> > > > This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
>> > > > not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
>> > > > understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
>> > > > capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
>> > > > presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
>> > > > day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
>> > > > could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
>> > > > could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
>> > > > consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
>> > > > not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
>> > > > universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
>> > > > purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
>> > > > establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
>> > > > orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
>> > > > and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
>> > > > intelligent beings.
>> > > >
>> > > > Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
>> > > > actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
>> > > > the real "fine tuned universe argument".
>> > > > >
>> > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"
>> > > >
>> > > > Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.
>> > > >
>> > > > You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.
>> > > >
>> > > > And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too. You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God designed.
>> > > >
>> > > > But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.
>> > > >
>> > > > And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.
>> > > Does that really follow though? Take a good digital game designer who builds a Minecraft- type universe. She builds it in such a way that lots of things happen in an unsupervised mode, governed by some hard constraints that ensure that over time things that bump into other things create (or destroy) more complex things, using pseudo-random generators to introduce a degree of unpredictability. From a players perspective this is perceived as a changing environment. T
>> > >
>> > > his is a Minecraft type game, so some players can use the resources that this background world provides to make their own stuff, according to their interests, aesthetic preferences etc. They are constrained in doing so by some of he hard coded constraints, so that e.g. two objects that they build can't be at the same place at the same time etc.
>> > >
>> > > As an UX pro, to get a better impression of the user experience, as she also creates a player account for herself. She uses that account while the game is still in Alpha or Beta version, before it gets released to other players, and as the developer has also a particularly good understanding of the game world. She now starts building things, the way a paying player eventually will. Sure, everything she builds she could also have simply "dropped" as a complete object right at the start, or set up the algorithm so that it produces eventually that thing by itself, but a) where would bet the fun in that and b) it would defy the purpose of getting an idea of the user experience.
>> > >
>> > > I would say that story is internally consistent, and our developer does not violate any of the laws she herself has set for this game universe, she jsut uses them the way any other player can - and still she creates within it things that, given the set-up of her parameters etc would (but could) not have happened by themselves, or not at quickly as they did.
>> > The thing is that the interventions in the ID case, at least the ones that Ron sees, require violations of the physical laws that God designed, and Ron's argument against Carroll presupposes that one of the things God wants is a rational, ordered universe that follows physical laws. It may be unfortunate that on uses the same word for physical laws, which strictly determine the things that happen, and societal laws, which just set up boundaries within which all sorts of different things might happen. A God who acted as Carroll's proposed God did - ie one who made physical constants incompatible with life's survival, but nonetheless set up "laws" by which He could intervene to keep life living anyway would be acting, in a way, like your game designer. But Ron rejected such an idea.
>> >
>> > My argument is not that one could not imagine a universe in which God lets the physical laws slide from time to time, only that Ron's argument against Carroll is inconsistent with other positions of Ron.
>> I think I got your argument, and for sure Ron's position is generally an incoherent mess, but I'm still not sure that it is this specific inconsistency. Why do Ron's intervention "necessarily" violate physical laws? God/game developer sets up a universe that in principle can sustain life once it is there. They may even set it up in such a way that life would eventually form without any further action. But rather than wait until this happens, they also design it in such a way that form the inside, and in adherence with the laws, new things can be built by one type of agent (those capable of planning), including things that are alive. With other words a universe that also sustains the existence of a somewhat more knowledgeable Craig Venter.
>>
>> That arguably creates inconsistencies for Ron elsewhere, but as far as I can see they are all of an epistemological nature (his reasons to argue that this is what really happened) , in principle, the model itself seems to me to be consistent, or could at least be tweaked into something consistent without giving up any of the substantial points.
>
>Well, certainly, living things can build other things, and they do so without violating physical laws. Still, I do not think that ordinary sort of designer is what Ron has in mind. If such a designer is fine, then Carroll's God is fine, too, if one just hypothesizes that regardless of the general laws of nature, He can act within nature to do stuff like bind stars together, even if the gravitational constant is not properly fine tuned. But Ron objected to Carroll's God of the untuned universe, on the grounds that He had failed to set up a universe that would not require constant intervention to keep things alive.
>
>The best argument you could make, I think, is that it's a matter of degree. Carroll's God intervenes at essentially every instant, whereas Ron's Designer just intervenes when a new taxonomic group higher than species or genus needs to be created. I'd say it would be pretty hard to justify rejecting Carroll's God out of hand as irrational and disordered and accepting Ron's Designer as just a creative game designer. And it's still, I suppose a matter of degree if you get to a more traditional Christian view under which God intervenes very rarely to make a point - parting the Red Sea, raising Jesus from the dead, that sort of thing. I'd guess the difference is that an omnipotent God, to me, is falling down on the job if She makes a universe fine-tuned to support life, but unable to produce life on its own, or one able to generate new species but not new orders without intervention, while a divine ressurrection seems like such a one off that I wouldn't reasonably expect it to follow
>from any possible set of general physical laws.

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, in a very real sense, what he says here, about the parameter, of
> particle physics and the universe _is_fine_tuning_. This is the part and
> parcel of the standard fine tuning argument. This is the parameter and
> values of the physical "values, coincidences and conditions of the laws
> of physics and constants of the universe. But then he asserts there is
> no fine tuning problem. This raises the question what is his "fine
> tuning argument" that he is debunking? Either he does not understand the
> real "fine tuning argument" or else he's deliberately erecting a
> straw-man version which he can easily debunk.
> It's obvious he has a "fine tuning argument" that is radically different
> from the standard fine tuning argument. This becomes even more obvious
> when he begins disguising his idea of god by saying that this god
> doesn't need to fine tune anything .... god doesn't care what the mass
> of the electron is, he can do what he wants.
>
> This god Carroll depicts is not logical or rational whose designs would
> not be orderly, consistent, systematic, directed or coherent or
> understandable to intelligent beings. Instead Carroll's god is
> capricious, illogical, unpredictable and fickle. Such a god as he
> presents could have 2+2 = 4 today, but tomorrow 2+2 could = 9 then 6 the
> day after. Understanding the laws of physics would be nightmare, you
> could never be sure as to what tomorrow would bring. Intelligent beings
> could never understand nor design anything based upon logic order or
> consistency, because such would be non-existent. The god he offers is
> not_ the designer of the universe or life. If as the fine tuned
> universe was designed through physical laws and constants were for the
> purpose of bringing man into existence, then the designer would have to
> establish the laws of physics, thermodynamics biology cosmos etc in a
> orderly,logical, consistent and unchanging in order for the universe
> and life to exist and be comprehensible after research and study by
> intelligent beings.
>
> Not that I believe any "critics" of the fine tuned universe will
> actually go there. But this is an excellent video, explaining
> the real "fine tuned universe argument".
>
Was this not from your mind, and I thought of this was by far the best
explanation of the fine tuned argument I ever come across. Thank you!
>>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOmdVVgtLLs"
>
> Other's have addressed other issues with Ron's argument. Here's one that I think is also important.
>
> You (Ron) complain that Carroll's image of God is of an irrational God, because Carroll claimed that God need not tweak anything, He could make life survive regardless of any physical constants simply by the force of His omnipotence.
>
> And yet....that is exactly the sort of God you imagine, too.
>
Well that's not quite right. Whether or not he could have been
irrational and illogical the designer (God) chose not to do so, but
rather to make the universe rational, logical and constant, if not then
things would be random, inconsistent and rarely the same from time to
time. In fact 2+2 could equal 4 then 14 the 9. Under such circumstances,
he of any intelligent being would be at a loss to understand anything.
The fact so much of the universal characteristics, laws,
dimensionsdistances etc is described mathematically is final proof of
it's rationality.

You imagine, on the one hand, a God who was sufficiently intelligent and
powerful, and interested in making the universe rational, that He
designed natural laws and exquisitely precisely fine tuned physical
constants, so as to allow life to survive in the universe without His
having to violate natural physical laws to make it happen. In other
words, He designed everything so it would support life on its own, just
following the orderly, rational consequence of the physical laws God
designed.
>
> But on the other hand, you yourself suggest that God did not get it quite right. In order to make life get started in the first place, He has to intervene by main force because he failed to design natural laws and tune physical constants such that life could emerge without His irrationally interfering in the natural consequences of the physical laws He designed. Then again, according to you, He had to intervene many times in the history of life on earth, because although he designed a system of mutation and natural selection that could produce new species, he could not design a system that would produce new orders, families and phyla.
>There is a world of difference between inorganic, lifeless matter and
living things - life. Life is not
just matter; life is also information, in that life is utterly and
totally dependent upon and governed by _information_. The origin of
information?? If the present is the key to the past, then today _minds_
is the sole origin of information. Mind is the one and only proven and
viable source of information. But if it's your paradigm that there
_is_no_ God, then there is only one single alternative, it's essential
that information came from hazardous, random, unguided, mindless natural
chemical process. There is no solid or hard empirical evidence that
information could have happened in this manner. But, information does
exist, which is contained in DNA and this implies
mind. An mind would contemplate that the countless copying and
reproduction, over time, would incur mistakes such copying errors,
omissions, distortions etc, which would lead to destruction, and
disaster. So a mind would conceive planning design and implement
corrective methods for such
errors and mutations. And this is exactly what did happen, it's called
DNA Proofreading and repair
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/dna-as-the-genetic-material/dna-replication/a/dna-proofreading-and-repair

It's not my purpose to convince anyone to my way or my views, but rather
to explain why I believe what I do. I do no identify God as a known
being just a mind. In fact I think of myself as a deist,
>
> And every one of those interventions must require a violation of the rational, ordered natural laws that God originally designed, whether it simply involved altering quantum mechanical probabilities associated with mutation, physical pushing a bunch of chemicals into the right position for form a self-replicating RNA molecule, or violating various laws of thermodynamics by instantaneously producing a new organism entirely ex nihilo.
>

>
> In short here's your argument with Carroll
>
> Carroll: If anything fine tuning is an argument against God, because if there were a God he could just keep everything He wanted alive by sheer omnipotence, without worrying about the mass of the electron or the fine structure constant.
>
> Ron: But that would mean that God was completely irrational, violating whatever natural laws He had created in order to get a specific outcome that was not compatible with those laws.
>
To be logical and rational, there had to be consistency. Time always
moves forward, never reverses. You could not jump off a cliff and remain
on the cliff at the same time. Two + two must always equal four, not
some other value at times. The earth can never be revolving in opposite
directions at the same time.
>
> Me: OK, but if your counter-argument against Carroll is correct, it undermines your own position on design, because your own position requires that God intervene repeatedly, violating the natural laws He created, in order to get the outcomes He wanted, outcomes incompatible with the laws he designed.
>
>
In reality, whether he could or could not, in order to be logical and
consistent he encountered a conundrum. It came down to life or no
life. The living cell required information. And information
comes only from mind, not from, hazardous, aimless mindless natural
processes. Life needed a considerable amount information, since living
things required information that was too complex for anything but mind.
To be logical, rational and consistent, information comes from mind and
only from mind.

On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip for focus>

>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.

There is absolutely no justification for assuming "Life as
_we_know_it_" wouldn't have evolved even if those 10 different
constants had different values. And certainly no _reason_ for such an
assumption - other than as an escape!

Once again, your expressed line of reasoning is trivially turned
against itself.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

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.
> > 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!
>
There is whole multidisciplinary field of science called "synthetic biology"
that works on possibility of different life in exactly our universe.
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.

> 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 manufacture
in it. So by what logic that problem exists is also hard to imagine. Yes,
our universe is needed for our kind of life to exists. But what is surprizing
about it?

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. But you must be
capable to see that such position is rather hard to buy as truth or
even anyhow close to truth.

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.

> > > His video entitled "Debunking the 'Fine Tuning' Argument", he states
> > > "You have phenomena; you have parameters of particle physics and
> > > cosmology."

Presumably, parameters that hold throughout our ca. 14 gigayear universe.
Why, then, the bizarre choice of words that come next:

> > > 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.

"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 reason
to think of existing or ever having existed or ever will exist in the whole of reality.

> > > "Sadly, we just don't know
> > > whether if life could exist if conditions of the universe were different
> > > see the universe that we see".

Now Bill Rogers chimes in with:

> > >But the fine tuning argument is not about
> > > life, but rather life as we _know_ it.

Also life as we are able to imagine it. Keep reading.

> > >
> > 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 manufacture
> in it.

These are things of pure mathematics, rather simple ones at that,
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 surprizing
> about it?

The low tolerances for a universe where biological life is able to exist.
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..

>
> 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.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28 AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip [to hide context, including the foolish comment by Bill Rogers to which Ron is responding]]>

+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style on

Fixed it for you.

You're welcome.

+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style off

Fortunately, Öö Tiib kept in the stuff you snipped, so people can refer to his post
for the foolish comment Rogers made to embellish another foolish comment by Sean Carroll.
In my reply to Öö Tiib I said a few things to explain why "foolish" is an appropriate description.

> >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.

Ron Dean is overstating the case in both 1) and 2), but your first comment below
makes Dean and Rogers and Carroll look like sages in comparison:

> There is absolutely no justification for assuming "Life as
> _we_know_it_" wouldn't have evolved even if those 10 different
> constants had different values.

Do you enjoy parading your ignorance in such a cocksure way?

Or are you banking on the titanic ambiguity of the word "different"
to use as an escape hatch?

Or are you just doing a parody of Ron Dean's comment while secretly
thinking that what you are writing is "mindless noise" [to use one of your favorite formulas]?

> And certainly no _reason_ for such an
> assumption - other than as an escape!
> Once again, your expressed line of reasoning is trivially turned
> against itself.

Anything can be "turned against itself" if one is satisfied with replacing a
serious but exaggerated comment with a mindless falsehood.
Even MAD magazine and the Babylon Bee have higher standards of satire than that.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS about the ambiguity of the word "different": you could say, with a straight face,
"as different as .0065 and .0075 are from .007." This is in reference to another one
of Rees's 6 constants:

"Another number, epsilon, whose value is .007, 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 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." ---Martin Rees, British Astronomer Royal, In _Just_Six_Numbers_, p.2
https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.aspt.

On 1/4/24 5:47 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28 AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
>> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> <snip [to hide context, including the foolish comment by Bill Rogers to which Ron is responding]]>
>
> +++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style on
>
> Fixed it for you.
>
> You're welcome.
>
> +++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style off
>
> Fortunately, Öö Tiib kept in the stuff you snipped, so people can refer to his post
> for the foolish comment Rogers made to embellish another foolish comment by Sean Carroll.
> In my reply to Öö Tiib I said a few things to explain why "foolish" is an appropriate description.
>
>>> 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.
>
>
> Ron Dean is overstating the case in both 1) and 2), but your first comment below
> makes Dean and Rogers and Carroll look like sages in comparison:
>
>> There is absolutely no justification for assuming "Life as
>> _we_know_it_" wouldn't have evolved even if those 10 different
>> constants had different values.
>
> Do you enjoy parading your ignorance in such a cocksure way?
>
> Or are you banking on the titanic ambiguity of the word "different"
> to use as an escape hatch?
>
> Or are you just doing a parody of Ron Dean's comment while secretly
> thinking that what you are writing is "mindless noise" [to use one of your favorite formulas]?
>
>
>> And certainly no _reason_ for such an
>> assumption - other than as an escape!
>> Once again, your expressed line of reasoning is trivially turned
>> against itself.
>
> Anything can be "turned against itself" if one is satisfied with replacing a
> serious but exaggerated comment with a mindless falsehood.
> Even MAD magazine and the Babylon Bee have higher standards of satire than that.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
> PS about the ambiguity of the word "different": you could say, with a straight face,
> "as different as .0065 and .0075 are from .007." This is in reference to another one
> of Rees's 6 constants:
>
> "Another number, epsilon, whose value is .007, 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 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." ---Martin Rees, British Astronomer Royal, In _Just_Six_Numbers_, p.2
> https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.aspt.
>
I'll repeat my question previous: what do you base your confidence in
multiverses on?

On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 17:47:26 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2nyikos@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
>> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> <snip [to hide context, including the foolish comment by Bill Rogers to which Ron is responding]]>
>
>+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style on
>
>Fixed it for you.
>
>You're welcome.
>
>+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style off

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.

FTR I appropriately included the parts you say I hid in my reply to B.
Roger. OTOH my reply to R.Dean was a direct response to his
non-sequiturs about fine-tuning, the context of which is contained
fully in the parts I appropriately included in my reply to him. That's
the difference between snipping for focus, which I did, and adding
obfuscating noise, like you do.

>Fortunately, Öö Tiib kept in the stuff you snipped, so people can refer to his post
>for the foolish comment Rogers made to embellish another foolish comment by Sean Carroll.
>In my reply to Öö Tiib I said a few things to explain why "foolish" is an appropriate description.

It's no surprise that you consider yourself more clever than Sean
Carroll; dishonesty and arrogant ignorance go hand-in-hand.

>> >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.
>
>
>Ron Dean is overstating the case in both 1) and 2), but your first comment below
>makes Dean and Rogers and Carroll look like sages in comparison:

All of my comments to R.Dean highlight his comments' mindlessness, a
point you appear incapable of recognizing.

>> There is absolutely no justification for assuming "Life as
>> _we_know_it_" wouldn't have evolved even if those 10 different
>> constants had different values.
>
>Do you enjoy parading your ignorance in such a cocksure way?
>
>Or are you banking on the titanic ambiguity of the word "different"
>to use as an escape hatch?
>
>Or are you just doing a parody of Ron Dean's comment while secretly
>thinking that what you are writing is "mindless noise" [to use one of your favorite formulas]?

Do you enjoy posting willfully stupid questions? Apparently so.

>> And certainly no _reason_ for such an
>> assumption - other than as an escape!
>> Once again, your expressed line of reasoning is trivially turned
>> against itself.
>
>Anything can be "turned against itself" if one is satisfied with replacing a
>serious but exaggerated comment with a mindless falsehood.
>Even MAD magazine and the Babylon Bee have higher standards of satire than that.

Even your faint praise gives R.Dean's comments too much credit.
There's nothing serious about them. They're nothing more than his
typical and repetitive baseless opinions.

>Peter Nyikos
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>University of South Carolina
>https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
>PS about the ambiguity of the word "different": you could say, with a straight face,
>"as different as .0065 and .0075 are from .007." This is in reference to another one
>of Rees's 6 constants:
>
>"Another number, epsilon, whose value is .007, 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 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." ---Martin Rees, British Astronomer Royal, In _Just_Six_Numbers_, p.2
>https://www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/rees.aspt.

<https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/god-and-cosmology-the-existence-of-god-in-light-of-contemporary-cosmol>

<http://tinyurl.com/2s487pey>
**********************************
It is certainly true that if you change the parameters of nature our
local conditions that we observe around us would change by a lot. I
grant that quickly. I do not grant therefore life could not exist. I
will start granting that once someone tells me the conditions under
which life can exist. What is the definition of life, for example? If
it’s just information processing, thinking or something like that,
there’s a huge panoply of possibilities. They sound very “science
fiction-y” but then again you’re the one who is changing the
parameters of the universe. The results are going to sound like they
come from a science fiction novel. Sadly, we just don’t know whether
life could exist if the conditions of our universe were very different
because we only see the universe that we see.
***********************************

Let me know if you ever want to discuss fine-tuning seriously, IOW
sans your willfully stupid obfuscating noises and petty personal
attacks.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

On Fri, 05 Jan 2024 02:14:16 -0500
jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com> wrote:

[]
>
> 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.

Can I suggest that your debating style needs some tweaking to be more
effective at convincing your opponent of the merits of your case.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

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.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

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>
> wrote:
>
[you snipped quotes of the phrase "willful stupidity"]

> >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.
>
Sure. But I don't think it helps advance a case; my suggestion, which
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.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 2:17:29 AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 17:47:26 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
> >> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
> >> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip [to hide context, including the foolish comment by Bill Rogers to which Ron is responding]]>
> >
> >+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style on
> >
> >Fixed it for you.
> >
> >You're welcome.
> >
> >+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style off

Typically, you seize an isolated joke about YOUR style (especially the "You're Welcome" part)
to post a libelous claim about me in return:

> So thoughtful of you to show right away how you're more interested in
> posting willfully stupid lies

Nonexistent, even if you leave off the "willfully stupid," which turns your comment into a double libel.

> than you are in posting coherent
> comments. That makes my reply so much easier.
>
> FTR I appropriately included the parts you say I hid in my reply to B.
> Roger.

What a bizarre comment!

I didn't even SEE what you wrote in reply to B. Roger; I was responding to
a post that you did in reply to someone calling himself "Ron Dean", who in turn was responding
to a post by Bill Rogers, not you.

> OTOH my reply to R.Dean was a direct response to his
> non-sequiturs about fine-tuning, the context of which is contained
> fully in the parts I appropriately included in my reply to him.

You didn't quote enough to even show that it WAS a non-sequitur.
I stand by what I wrote earlier: it was an exaggerated response by Ron Dean
to a statement by Bill Rogers about "life as we know it."

> That's
> the difference between snipping for focus, which I did, and adding
> obfuscating noise, like you do.

What actually happened turns THIS comment of yours into a *false* non sequitur.

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.

Continued in next reply, to be done later today.

Peter Nyikos

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 11:32:46 -0800 (PST)
"peter2...@gmail.com" <peter2nyikos@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>

Well, maybe I'll just leave you two to your flamewars then.

I came here for factual pros/cons, reasoned arguments and maybe
pointers to evidence to back them up. My mistake.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 2:17:29 AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 17:47:26 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

Picking up where I left off earlier today:

> >On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
> >> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
> >> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Fortunately, Öö Tiib kept in the stuff you snipped, so people can refer to his post
> >for the foolish comment Rogers made to embellish another foolish comment by Sean Carroll.
> >In my reply to Öö Tiib I said a few things to explain why "foolish" is an appropriate description.

The following reaction by you is one of the clumsiest propaganda
pieces that I've ever seen:

> It's no surprise that you consider yourself more clever than Sean
> Carroll; dishonesty and arrogant ignorance go hand-in-hand.

Being less foolish than Sean Carroll was in the quoted part
is a very low bar to clear: you should try it some time.

> >> >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!

This point is defensible if one means "any life in the universe"
as opposed to "any possible life in our universe."

> >> >2) There is at leas 10 different constants that had to be perfectly
> >> >balanced and "fine tuned" for the universe itself to come about.

This is downright silly, but not as silly as your parody below.
The universe could have existed, but without life, if those conditions had been significantly different.

> >> >Consequently, life, is solely conditioned upon our universe existing.

This is also silly, but again, not as silly as your parody.
> >
> >Ron Dean is overstating the case in both 1) and 2), but your first comment below
> >makes Dean and Rogers and Carroll look like sages in comparison:

> >> There is absolutely no justification for assuming "Life as
> >> _we_know_it_" wouldn't have evolved even if those 10 different
> >> constants had different values.
> >
> >Do you enjoy parading your ignorance in such a cocksure way?
> >
> >Or are you banking on the titanic ambiguity of the word "different"
> >to use as an escape hatch?
> >
> >Or are you just doing a parody of Ron Dean's comment while secretly
> >thinking that what you are writing is "mindless noise" [to use one of your favorite formulas]?

> Do you enjoy posting willfully stupid questions? Apparently so.

There is nothing willfully stupid about trying to cover all plausible bases..
I've been the target of your highly diverse polemic long enough to
know that you are, on rare occasion, a skillful propangandist, and on other rare occasions,
a scientific nonentity who is under the delusion that it has been shown that
the ONLY property of dark matter is its gravitational influence on ordinary matter.

> >> And certainly no _reason_ for such an
> >> assumption - other than as an escape!
> >> Once again, your expressed line of reasoning is trivially turned
> >> against itself.
> >
> >Anything can be "turned against itself" if one is satisfied with replacing a
> >serious but exaggerated comment with a mindless falsehood.
> >Even MAD magazine and the Babylon Bee have higher standards of satire than that.

> Even your faint praise gives R.Dean's comments too much credit.

On that much, I agree. But talk.origins is like a court of law: one does not expect
a defense attorney, or an attorney for a plaintiff, to give a fully balanced treatment of the case before him.

> There's nothing serious about them. They're nothing more than his
> typical and repetitive baseless opinions.

He is far from his best form in this last post, and there is some suspicion on another thread
that he isn't even the R.Dean talked about between Bill Rogers and Burkhard back in July on this thread.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS There was more, but I think jillery was mixed up about which thread she was posting on.
At any rate, it is late, so I'm leaving my reply for Monday.

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 18:51:28 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2nyikos@gmail.com> continued his willfully stupid troll:

Still waiting for you to post anything about fine-tuning sans your
willfully stupid obfuscating noises and petty personal
attacks.

>On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 2:17:29?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 17:47:26 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Picking up where I left off earlier today:
>
>> >On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
>> >> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Fortunately, Öö Tiib kept in the stuff you snipped, so people can refer to his post
>> >for the foolish comment Rogers made to embellish another foolish comment by Sean Carroll.
>> >In my reply to Öö Tiib I said a few things to explain why "foolish" is an appropriate description.
>
>The following reaction by you is one of the clumsiest propaganda
>pieces that I've ever seen:
>
>> It's no surprise that you consider yourself more clever than Sean
>> Carroll; dishonesty and arrogant ignorance go hand-in-hand.
>
>Being less foolish than Sean Carroll was in the quoted part
>is a very low bar to clear: you should try it some time.

You first.

<remaining left uncommented for documentation purposes>

>> >> >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!
>
>This point is defensible if one means "any life in the universe"
>as opposed to "any possible life in our universe."
>
>> >> >2) There is at leas 10 different constants that had to be perfectly
>> >> >balanced and "fine tuned" for the universe itself to come about.
>
>This is downright silly, but not as silly as your parody below.
>The universe could have existed, but without life, if those conditions had been significantly different.
>
>> >> >Consequently, life, is solely conditioned upon our universe existing.
>
>This is also silly, but again, not as silly as your parody.
>> >
>> >Ron Dean is overstating the case in both 1) and 2), but your first comment below
>> >makes Dean and Rogers and Carroll look like sages in comparison:
>
>
>> >> There is absolutely no justification for assuming "Life as
>> >> _we_know_it_" wouldn't have evolved even if those 10 different
>> >> constants had different values.
>> >
>> >Do you enjoy parading your ignorance in such a cocksure way?
>> >
>> >Or are you banking on the titanic ambiguity of the word "different"
>> >to use as an escape hatch?
>> >
>> >Or are you just doing a parody of Ron Dean's comment while secretly
>> >thinking that what you are writing is "mindless noise" [to use one of your favorite formulas]?
>
>
>> Do you enjoy posting willfully stupid questions? Apparently so.
>
>There is nothing willfully stupid about trying to cover all plausible bases.
>I've been the target of your highly diverse polemic long enough to
>know that you are, on rare occasion, a skillful propangandist, and on other rare occasions,
>a scientific nonentity who is under the delusion that it has been shown that
>the ONLY property of dark matter is its gravitational influence on ordinary matter.
>
>
>> >> And certainly no _reason_ for such an
>> >> assumption - other than as an escape!
>> >> Once again, your expressed line of reasoning is trivially turned
>> >> against itself.
>> >
>> >Anything can be "turned against itself" if one is satisfied with replacing a
>> >serious but exaggerated comment with a mindless falsehood.
>> >Even MAD magazine and the Babylon Bee have higher standards of satire than that.
>
>> Even your faint praise gives R.Dean's comments too much credit.
>
>On that much, I agree. But talk.origins is like a court of law: one does not expect
>a defense attorney, or an attorney for a plaintiff, to give a fully balanced treatment of the case before him.
>
>> There's nothing serious about them. They're nothing more than his
>> typical and repetitive baseless opinions.
>
>He is far from his best form in this last post, and there is some suspicion on another thread
>that he isn't even the R.Dean talked about between Bill Rogers and Burkhard back in July on this thread.
>
>
>Peter Nyikos
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>University of South Carolina
>https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
>PS There was more, but I think jillery was mixed up about which thread she was posting on.
>At any rate, it is late, so I'm leaving my reply for Monday.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 11:32:46 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2nyikos@gmail.com> continued his willfully stupid troll:

Still waiting for you to post anything about fine-tuning sans your
willfully stupid obfuscating noises and petty personal
attacks.

<remaining left uncommented for documentation purposes>

>On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 2:17:29?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 17:47:26 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >On Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 1:52:28?AM UTC-5, jillery wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 15:08:16 -0500, Ron Dean
>> >> <rondean...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> <snip [to hide context, including the foolish comment by Bill Rogers to which Ron is responding]]>
>> >
>> >+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style on
>> >
>> >Fixed it for you.
>> >
>> >You're welcome.
>> >
>> >+++++++++++++++++ jillery/Bob Casanova posting style off
>
>Typically, you seize an isolated joke about YOUR style (especially the "You're Welcome" part)
>to post a libelous claim about me in return:
>
>> So thoughtful of you to show right away how you're more interested in
>> posting willfully stupid lies
>
>Nonexistent, even if you leave off the "willfully stupid," which turns your comment into a double libel.
>
>
>> than you are in posting coherent
>> comments. That makes my reply so much easier.
>>
>> FTR I appropriately included the parts you say I hid in my reply to B.
>> Roger.
>
>What a bizarre comment!
>
>I didn't even SEE what you wrote in reply to B. Roger; I was responding to
>a post that you did in reply to someone calling himself "Ron Dean", who in turn was responding
>to a post by Bill Rogers, not you.
>
> > OTOH my reply to R.Dean was a direct response to his
>> non-sequiturs about fine-tuning, the context of which is contained
>> fully in the parts I appropriately included in my reply to him.
>
>You didn't quote enough to even show that it WAS a non-sequitur.
>I stand by what I wrote earlier: it was an exaggerated response by Ron Dean
>to a statement by Bill Rogers about "life as we know it."
>
>> That's
>> the difference between snipping for focus, which I did, and adding
>> obfuscating noise, like you do.
>
>What actually happened turns THIS comment of yours into a *false* non sequitur.
>
>
>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.
>
>
>Continued in next reply, to be done later today.
>
>
>Peter Nyikos

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

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>
>> wrote:
>>
>[you snipped quotes of the phrase "willful stupidity"]

So what? You snipped even more of my comments. Your complaint above
is blatant hypocrisy.

>> >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.
>>
>Sure. But I don't think it helps advance a case; my suggestion, which
>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.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 20:35:17 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>
wrote:

>On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 11:32:46 -0800 (PST)
>"peter2...@gmail.com" <peter2nyikos@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
>Well, maybe I'll just leave you two to your flamewars then.
>
>I came here for factual pros/cons, reasoned arguments and maybe
>pointers to evidence to back them up. My mistake.

Your virtue signaling doesn't hide your efforts to fan the flames.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

On Fri, 05 Jan 2024 22:45:13 -0500
jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >[you snipped quotes of the phrase "willful stupidity"]
>
>
> So what? You snipped even more of my comments. Your complaint above
> is blatant hypocrisy.
>
>
> >> >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.
> >>
> >Sure. But I don't think it helps advance a case; my suggestion, which
> >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.
>
I won't be dragged down into an alternative flame war. I've made
suggestions, looks like it's had no effect. Ah well.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On Sat, 6 Jan 2024 10:33:04 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1>
wrote:

>On Fri, 05 Jan 2024 22:45:13 -0500
>jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >[you snipped quotes of the phrase "willful stupidity"]
>>
>>
>> So what? You snipped even more of my comments. Your complaint above
>> is blatant hypocrisy.
>>
>>
>> >> >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.
>> >>
>> >Sure. But I don't think it helps advance a case; my suggestion, which
>> >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.
>>
>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!".

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge