What the Cosmological Argument (CA) isn't

I'm not using either of those definitions. I'm using "apparently X" to mean "it seems to be the case that X". There are apparent things which are true and which are false. Apparently chairs exist, apparently the moon is very small.

correct -- that is called "equivocation". you're using the word vaguely to mean two different things, and then arguing that a person who means one means the other.

Fine-tuning doesn't work on the planet but rather on the universe as a whole. The fact that evolution can take place at all, that any sort of life can get started, is the problem here (hence discussions of "stability".)

well, no. we don't really understand what exactly life even is in any definitive sense. we know what life looks like on this planet, but we don't know what life could look like under other circumstances. and there's just no reason to think that life is particularly important in the big picture of the universe.

Nobody thinks the universe is "shaped perfectly" for us

yes, and this is an obvious problem for the fine-tuning argument, wouldn't you say? the universe is "fine tuned"... without any particular regard as to whether or not we exist. it's almost like we don't even matter.

simply that the universes which wouldn't allow for life are far more numerous than the universes that would.

this is not something you know, and not something you can just assert. we do know fully understand the probabilities of universes, and which constants are necessary. we have one universe to observe, a woefully incomplete observation of it, and an incomplete model of how it works. this is a bit like looking at your flipped quarter, having come up heads, and saying "consider all the other things this quarter might have done; it could have landed on its edge, or flown up into the sky and never come down, or disappeared entirely, or turned into an elephant. the other options are far more numerous than 'heads', so this quarter must be magic." well, no, not if you know the physical constraints of the system. most of those other options aren't very likely at all, or even impossible.

why should we count impossible universes -- coins flying up into the sky or turning into elephants? why should we thinking impossible universes contribute to possible universes being unlikely? we should we consider unstable universes -- landing on the edge -- as being significant verses stable ones, considering that we must be analyzing this from a stable universe?

this is all nonsense.

We don't need to know the probabilities exactly, merely how the probabilities relate to one another. P(A|G) > P(A|~G) is all we really need.

you do understand that if you say something like P(G) = P(~G), you've come up with a number, right?

P(~G) = 1-P(G)

by definition. if

P(G) = P(~G)

then

P(G) = 1-P(G)
2 * P(G) = 1
P(G) = 0.5

because, you know, maths.

The Principle of Indifference gives us a method for determining the probability that a given universe would appear in its present configuration given a set of possible configurations of universes.

this number can be finitely large and still make our universe a statistically necessity. if the number is infinite, well, we're done.

I didn't need to use numbers to calculate.

bwaaahahahahahahaaha. that's a good one.

Sean Carroll is confused - we don't determine whether or not the universe is fine-tuned on its own but in comparison to the set of other possible universes.

which we don't know anything about.

We define God to be "the kind of God who wants a stable universe."

this seems kind of ad hoc, and hurts the case even more. god could create any kind of universe he likes, and there are multiple mythologies that suppose gods in charge of unstable universes -- ones that eventually end. for instance, christianity, hinduism...

I'd trust philosophers with the term. They do a pretty good job with it.

so far, you're doing a rather bad job of it. and no, i wouldn't just trust any old philosopher with it, particularly not if they seem to be quoting scientists to back up their premises, and then using a different definition of the word.

In certain universes it's impossible for complicated chemical reactions to take place, or for stars or planets to form, or stars burn out in hundreds of years.

and your evidence for this is... ?

sure, you can muck about the physical constants, and suppose alternative universes, but do we have any reason to suspect that any such universe could actually exist? as it turns out, the things that cause spacetime (universes!) have to be "fine tuned" themselves to a certain tolerance demanded by relativity. if you want a universe at all, those things are necessary, and not contingent.

/r/DebateReligion Thread Parent