I’d be interested to hear from some of the Christians that believe in ID that post here, why they feel proving intelligent design gets them anywhere?
Not to threadblock, but Im not sure if there are any regular posters who believe in I.D.
AFAIK, the few Christians here believe in the biblical Yaweh.
Really? I thought I’ve seen several threads where one of the xtian posters argued for ID. Maybe not. Anyone care to guess? I seriously don’t know, and I’m just curious.
Really? I thought I've seen several threads where one of the xtian posters argued for ID. Maybe not. Anyone care to guess? I seriously don't know, and I'm just curious.IMO, ID is a backdoor approach to a living God. An assumption based on an assumption of irreducible complexity and probability arguments.
The problem with ID is that it is both bad science and bad theology.
It is using the concept ‘god’ to be a god-of-the-gaps in science, to explain the present gaps of scientific knowledge.
It is bad science because when you have a phenomenon that is difficult to explain, " irreducible complexity", then to say ‘God did it’ short-circuits any further scientific investigation.
[Note many scientists of religious faith, Newton (Unitarian) Galileo (Catholic), Kepler (Protestant), Laplace (Deist), to name a few, believed instead of “thinking God’s thought’s after Him” (Kepler) - they wanted to know how ‘God did it’]
It is bad theology because once somebody else explains how that ‘irreducible complexity’ can be reduced and explained then your god-of-the-gaps disappears a little, yet again, and that particular form of theological belief is always in retreat from scientific advance, rather than being enhanced by it.
A modern version of ID is the multiverse as explained very competently by Lee Smolin and others, see the New Scientist article: “You think there’s a multiverse? Get real” (You think there's a multiverse? Get real | New Scientist).
If there is something you don’t understand, for example, the anthropic coincidences that make this universe propitious for life or the breaking of symmetries in the fundamental physics of the earliest moments of the 'Big Bang’to make those ‘coincidences’, then you can decree that that symmetry breaking is ‘spontaneous’ i.e. a stochastic (random) process.
Now such a process requires an ensemble of an infinite number of other universes in which these values fall out with a different set of random values in each universe.
So you have made an a priori assumption and interpret it as a ‘prediction’ of other universes (which cannot be tested/falsified) and close your mind to further investigation as to the real cause of the selection of that particular form of symmetry breaking in this universe, which after all is only universe we can observe.
As with ID there has to be a better way!
Ockham, If there is something you don’t understand, for example, the anthropic coincidences that make this universe propitious for life or the breaking of symmetries in the fundamental physics of the earliest moments of the ‘Big Bang’to make those ‘coincidences’, then you can decree that that symmetry breaking is ‘spontaneous’ i.e. a stochastic (random) process.It occurred to me that symmetry breaking is an expression of available potential (Bohm). Question: if "symmetry breakig" is an apparent random process, might this be a "butterfly effect" from the quantum uncertainty? In previous discussions, it was argued that quantum uncertainty is too small to have any effect on the macro world, but could there be a long term exponential butterfly effect of quantum fluctuations which is responsible for symmetry breaking? IMO, a defensible position of known random events..
The mathematical equations describing the process whereby physical constants acquire the values they have in the later universe are symmetric. in the sense that there is no reason why they should adopt one particular value over another. As nothing else is known about how they could have acquired their values it is assumed the process was 'spontaneous', that is stochastic acquiring their values purely by chance. This assumption itself requires there to be an (infinite?) ensemble of other universes in which the constants acquire other values. Hence the 'multiverse'. These values are very specifically propitious for life, alter them a little and the whole universe becomes hostile to the evolution of life anywhere within it, however that is no problem because we are in this particular universe because we can be in no other. The problem with the idea of the multiverse is that we do not, and maybe cannot ever, observe these other universes. Furthermore, just as with ID, we give up on trying to find other (the real?) reasons why these constants should have the values they do. One such reason, as you suggest, is that maybe that it may be the consequence of a butterfly effect from the Plank era. This is only a guess but it is as good as any other at this stage, the point is we do not know - yet. If we simply keep saying, "The multiverse did it", or equally, "God did it," then we will never know! But yes quantum uncertainty in the very early universe from the Plank era onwards can have a significant effect on the macro world. For example the fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background] are the imprint of quantum fluctuations from an earlier epoch. Those CMB fluctuations then went on to form the large scale structure (clusters of galaxies, galaxies, stars, planets and us). So basically everything you see is the consequence of quantum uncertainty!Ockham, If there is something you don’t understand, for example, the anthropic coincidences that make this universe propitious for life or the breaking of symmetries in the fundamental physics of the earliest moments of the ‘Big Bang’to make those ‘coincidences’, then you can decree that that symmetry breaking is ‘spontaneous’ i.e. a stochastic (random) process.It occurred to me that symmetry breaking is an expression of available potential (Bohm). Question: if "symmetry breakig" is an apparent random process, might this be a "butterfly effect" from the quantum uncertainty? In previous discussions, it was argued that quantum uncertainty is too small to have any effect on the macro world, but could there be a long term exponential butterfly effect of quantum fluctuations which is responsible for symmetry breaking? IMO, a defensible position of known random events..
Interesting physics discussion, but I was hoping to get more at why IDers think their argument gets them anywhere. Obviously they believe in the god of the Christian bible. But you don’t have to be smarter than a rock to realize proving the existence of an intelligent designer gets you closer to that designer being the Christian god. I would almost say it gets you farther away, sort of the opposite direction.
Interesting physics discussion, but I was hoping to get more at why IDers think their argument gets them anywhere.There are two closely related problems in debating this issue with "IDers". 1) The bible tells them so. End of discussion. 2) Because the bible tells them so, to analyze the issue is tantamount to being asked to be struck by lightning. If you blindly believe the bible, you have faith and go to heaven. If you question the bible, you do not have faith and so are condemned to spent eternity damned to the walls of hell. Not much room for intellectual debate or scientific analysis.
Ockham, The mathematical equations describing the process whereby physical constants acquire the values they have in the later universe are symmetric in the sense that there is no reason why they should adopt one particular value over another.I agree with the highlighted statement, but if there is no reason why the mathematical equations could result in different values for the same function, then why assume that there are other universes with different values from ours? That seems contradictory to me. Einstein said (metaphorically) that God does not play dice, IOW universal constants are inherent in the very nature of spacetime as potentials. If so, in the absence of matter there was only abstract potential symmetry to begin with and the specific values of physical matter inevitably emerged from chaos the first time around in a symmetrical (mathematical) manner.
As nothing else is known about how they could have acquired their values it is assumed the process was ‘spontaneous’, that is stochastic acquiring their values purely by chance.Is that necessarily so? In the absence of matter (before the BB) there was only potential energy without a measurable symmetry and symmetry inevitably emerged from the formation of matter. I have a problem with the term "chance" which would require a multiverse where our universe was formed by the luck of the draw. But if matter can only form in specific ways why do we need to call this chance? Seems to me that applying the term "inevitable" is a more convincing argument and would support Einstein's statement.
This assumption itself requires there to be an (infinite?) ensemble of other universes in which the constants acquire other values. Hence the ‘multiverse’. These values are very specifically propitious for life, alter them a little and the whole universe becomes hostile to the evolution of life anywhere within it, however that is no problem because we are in this particular universe because we can be in no other.Why would a mathematical process require an ensemble of trial and error universes? If we assume a multiverse then logically we are presented with the problem of odds and if Natural Law does not play dice, I sense a contradiction in terms. And why is it necessary to discard the possibility of a single symmetrical universe (of which we have proof), but assume a multiverse with different symmetries without any proof whatever? Moreover how many universes would it take to get it just right? 10, 10 million, 10 trillion, infinite number? What about mass and energy? Unless we can logically deduce that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are the tell-tale signs of alternate universes, the assumption of multiple universes seems to complicate the problem instead of providing answers, because if DM and DE are the telltale signs of alternate unverses, then the physical presence of multiple universes would be necessary for this universe, which is contrary to the assumption of separateness of these universes and in fact leads to the conclusio that alternate universes are required to support this universe which makes them part of this universe and that possibility just complicates matters, IMO. Can't we just stick to this universe? From the little I know about physics, it seems to me that discarding the unerring mathematical functions of how things work is counter productive. Symmetry breaking is not a random event, but is a result of changing conditions allowing for specific functions to emerge from potential to reality., We know that cooling allowed for the formation of elements. How could this fundamental process yield different results than what we have observed and duplicated. Where does randomness (chance) come into play?
W4U I am sticking with just this universe, which is why I am comparing the multiverse concept with the ID concept, if you read my post correctly.
There is a vast effort of ‘research’ in cosmology and fundamental physics that has taken an approach that requires the multiverse for the reasons I describe in my post #6, and which is an approach that I, and others such as Lee Smolin, think is highly unscientific.
As I said there, “The problem with the idea of the multiverse is that we do not, and maybe cannot ever, observe these other universes. Furthermore, just as with ID, we give up on trying to find other (the real?) reasons why these constants should have the values they do.”
W4U I am sticking with just this universe, which is why I am comparing the multiverse concept with the ID concept, if you read my post correctly. There is a vast effort of 'research' in cosmology and fundamental physics that has taken an approach that requires the multiverse for the reasons I describe in my post #6, and which is an approach that I, and others such as Lee Smolin, think is highly unscientific. As I said there, "The problem with the idea of the multiverse is that we do not, and maybe cannot ever, observe these other universes. Furthermore, just as with ID, we give up on trying to find other (the real?) reasons why these constants should have the values they do."This is why I started my post with agreement to your post. As layman, I can only pose probative statements and I am happy to see that my intuitive logic is shared by other, more qualified minds. In view of our knowledge of how chemistry works, why is it so difficult to accept that certain specific conditions can only yield specific physical results, that we have "given up" trying to find conclusive answers to the maths, rather than inventing an infinite number of universes from which urs is but a lucky accident? Seems to me that we can test for different universes in a laboratory. Can we create an artificial condition where H2O does not behave like H2O? If we can do that, then a multiverse with different physics might be possible. If H2O behaves like H2O under all possible conditions, then that proves that H2O was an inevitable result regardless of the conditions during the BB and that this universe is the only universe that could result from all possible earlier conditions.