Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

The argument from contingency assumes nothing but the definition of contingency.
You are still invited to answer the question “what is it about the universe which is necessary”.

No. It’s your argument from contingency, and it relies on your assertion that the universe must be contingent of something else. That’s your fallacy of composition mistake. I have no burden of proof to explain anything here because I’m not making a claim – I’m just asking you to justify your claim without collapsing into fallacies, so far without success.

I’m not saying that everything is arises from something else though...I am saying that everything Contingent arises from something else. That’s what contingency is.

But still without justifying your assertion that the universe must be contingent on something other than itself. Try to remember this.

I think you need to say how an infinite regress is possible. How and why you get to treat an infinite series of entities like a single entity when it suits. Ditto circular relationship.

No he doesn’t. All he need to do is to ask you why you assert these possibilities to be impossible. And when you fail to answer that, your position falls apart. Again. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And you're arbitrarily deciding that something has to be non-contingent because what, exactly?

Because all contingency has to be accounted for. Because the declaration “This contingency is actually also non contingent” is an absurdity akin to black equals white.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No. It’s your argument from contingency, and it relies on your assertion that the universe must be contingent of something else. That’s your fallacy of composition mistake. I have no burden of proof to explain anything here because I’m not making a claim – I’m just asking you to justify your claim without collapsing into fallacies, so far without success.


But still without justifying your assertion that the universe must be contingent on something other than itself. Try to remember this.


No he doesn’t. All he need to do is to ask you why you assert these possibilities to be impossible. And when you fail to answer that, your position falls apart. Again.

You stated the argument assumes determinism. It doesn’t it’s the argument FROM contingency.

You fucked up.

It happens.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Because all contingency has to be accounted for. Because the declaration “This contingency is actually also non contingent” is an absurdity akin to black equals white.

That's not the "declaration", and again you're relying on the fallacy of composition here. Again, what makes you think that a universe that's observable to you as determinative must also therefore be contingent on something else?

Why so coy?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

You stated the argument assumes determinism. It doesn’t it’s the argument FROM contingency.

You fucked up.

It happens.

The only "fuck up" here is yours. Yet again: WHY DO YOU THINK THAT A UNIVERSE THAT'S OBSERVABLE TO YOU AS CONSISTING OF CONTINGENT PARTS MUST ALSO THEREFORE ITSELF BE CONTINGENT ON SOMETHING ELSE?

Should I take it that you will forever run away from this simple question as you have so many others?

[Alan Burns]

..... – in particular about the fine tuning argument and its reliance on circular reasoning. Should I take it that you’ve just ignored that in order to return to the same wrongheadedness at a later date?   

The fine tuning argument does not rely on circular reasoning.
The reasoning is simple - the more improbable is the series of events needed to bring life into existence, the more probable is the evidence of intention rather than pure chance.

It is you who is using circular reasoning by trying to deny any amount of improbability in order to claim it all happened by chance with no need of intention.

[Nearly Sane]

The fine tuning argument does not rely on circular reasoning.
The reasoning is simple - the more improbable is the series of events needed to bring life into existence, the more probable is the evidence of intention rather than pure chance.

It is you who is using circular reasoning by trying to deny any amount of improbability in order to claim it all happened by chance with no need of intention.

Improbability is not an indication of intention. And you are assuming what has happened is the aim which is circular.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The fine tuning argument does not rely on circular reasoning.

Yes it does. You need the same god to intend your outcome as your premise in order to argue for an interventionist god to make it so as your conclusion. That’s pretty much the definition of circular reasoning.

The reasoning is simple - the more improbable is the series of events needed to bring life into existence, the more probable is the evidence of intention rather than pure chance.

No it isn’t. Why do you think that? What makes you think your existence was any more intentional than the existence of anything else of equal unlikeliness would have been?

It is you who is using circular reasoning by trying to deny any amount of improbability in order to claim it all happened by chance with no need of intention.

Wrong again – see above. Could you at least try to keep up?

[Alan Burns]

And what you fail to do is actually to demonstrate the thing you claim to be “demonstrable” with no supporting reasoning or evidence at all. Just calling something demonstrable does not thereby make it so.

It is demonstrable by actually doing it.

We are consciously aware of past events - they exist in our present state of conscious awareness.
We have the freedom to contemplate these past events and choose how we want to respond to what exists in our present state of conscious awareness.
It all happens within our present state of awareness - including the conscious choice of how, when and where to respond to the past.
As I have said - we are influence by the past but not entirely driven by the past - this is the reality we all enjoy, it is not an assertion.

[Nearly Sane]

It is demonstrable by actually doing it.

We are consciously aware of past events - they exist in our present state of conscious awareness.
We have the freedom to contemplate these past events and choose how we want to respond to what exists in our present state of conscious awareness.
It all happens within our present state of awareness - including the conscious choice of how, when and where to respond to the past.
As I have said - we are influence by the past but not entirely driven by the past - this is the reality we all enjoy, it is not an assertion.

Asserting something isn't an assertion doesn't stop it being an assertion. You've simply repeated the assertion
 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It is demonstrable by actually doing it.

We are consciously aware of past events - they exist in our present state of conscious awareness.
We have the freedom to contemplate these past events and choose how we want to respond to what exists in our present state of conscious awareness.
It all happens within our present state of awareness - including the conscious choice of how, when and where to respond to the past.
As I have said - we are influence by the past but not entirely driven by the past - this is the reality we all enjoy, it is not an assertion.

Do you have  justifying argument to make rather than the enldess repetition of the same incoherent and logically impossible assertions?

[Outrider]

Because all contingency has to be accounted for. Because the declaration “This contingency is actually also non contingent” is an absurdity akin to black equals white.

If everything we see is contingent, why does contingency need to be accounted for? It's a reality that's already accepted - we don't need to justify the claim of contingency, it's a demonstrable reality.

It might be nice to have an explanation for any given example, but the notion of contingency needs no justification. On the other hand, if you want to posit something that changes that apparently fundamental quality of things and decide that something is non-contingent, that needs an explanation.

And, finally, if there's an infinite regress, in what way can 'accounting for that' be a viable notion? There is no start to it, there is no 'cause', there is no instigation at which a justification would be meaningful, there are merely proximate causes.

O.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Imagine that I were to assert the existence of rainbows to be evidence for leprechauns putting them there. Imagine too that you replied with, “actually the evidence suggests that a rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky”.

Now imagine that I replied to you by endlessly repeating:

1. “I have yet to see a credible explanation for rainbows”; and

2. “The evidence for leprechauns is demonstrated by the fact of rainbows that we all experience and enjoy”.

Would you conclude that I was:

1. Making a sound point; or

2. Wrong?

Why?

[jeremyp]

I think you need to say how an infinite regress is possible.

No I don't. You have to say how it is impossible.

How and why you get to treat an infinite series of entities like a single entity when it suits. Ditto circular relationship.

Irrelevant. Focus on the things you need to do to rescue your argument.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Yes it does. You need the same god to intend your outcome as your premise in order to argue for an interventionist god to make it so as your conclusion. That’s pretty much the definition of circular reasoning.

No it isn’t. Why do you think that? What makes you think your existence was any more intentional than the existence of anything else of equal unlikeliness would have been?

Wrong again – see above. Could you at least try to keep up?

What you consistently fail to recognise is that only one of the countless, unimaginably huge number of possibilities under consideration will produce life.  The fact that this offers evidence that "life" was an intended outcome cannot be dismissed.

Your apparent disregard for the size of the improbability shows a very blinkered view in which you seem determined never to admit any probability of intended guidance rather than pure chance.
There is an often quoted example that a team of monkeys with typewriters will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare given enough time and numbers.  But we know this could never happen because in reality you would need many magnitudes more monkeys than the number of atomic particles in the known universe working from the beginning of time to even get close to producing one page of Shakespeare's work.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

The only "fuck up" here is yours. Yet again: WHY DO YOU THINK THAT A UNIVERSE THAT'S OBSERVABLE TO YOU AS CONSISTING OF CONTINGENT PARTS MUST ALSO THEREFORE ITSELF BE CONTINGENT ON SOMETHING ELSE?

Should I take it that you will forever run away from this simple question as you have so many others?

We can certainly take a look at the fallacy of composition.

When a accused b of it. He is saying that b is saying a composite necessarily has the property of the parts.
In our discussion Bertrand Russell uses this to get to a composite necessity, to get to his conclusion that the universe just-is and there’s an end to it.

He is of course wrong.A composite can be contingent. So, you’ve fucked up again Hillside because you have accrued ANOTHER invitation...Please produce a composite that is not contingent.

But it doesn’t end there because a composite could be huge even if it’s components are tiny but if all the components were red there is no way the composite could be blue.

And it doesn’t even end there Hillside because composites are not fundamental.

And it doesn’t even end there because we can avoid accusations of the fallacy by asking Given that what we observe as contingent, what is it that is necessary or non contingent about the universe. A fair question in response to your objections that doesn’t invoke any fallacy.

[Outrider]

What you consistently fail to recognise is that only one of the countless, unimaginably huge number of possibilities under consideration will produce life.

We don't know that, it could be that there are innumerable different combinations that would produce an appropriate balance of stability and instability for chemical reactions to proliferate into something that would constitute life. We have exactly one example, and in that one example we have exactly one instance where it's happened, although there may be others. Given we don't know to what extent the starting 'values' are variable, or what combinations of them might be viable, nor do we even have that robust a definition of life, at this point, you can't justify this assertion.

This particular form of life, perhaps, but in order to justify that you'd have to establish that your assertion-riddled, reality denying manifestation of the temporary reversal of entropy was the intent of reality, which seems a stretch.

The fact that this offers evidence that "life" was an intended outcome cannot be dismissed.

If all you have is that assertion, and not some justification for it, yes it can be dismissed as just an assertion.

Your apparent disregard for the size of the improbability shows a very blinkered view in which you seem determined never to admit any probability of intended guidance rather than pure chance.

Your mistaking personal incredulity for a valid estimation of probability shows not just a blinkered view, but a blinkered view in the dark with your covers over your head so that you don't have to face up to the reality outside.

There is an often quoted example that a team of monkeys with typewriters will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare given enough time and numbers.  But we know this could never happen because in reality you would need many magnitudes more monkeys than the number of atomic particles in the known universe working from the beginning of time to even get close to producing one page of Shakespeare's work.

Actually, one page would easily have been done, by now. All of them would be a stretch. However, we can calculate those probabilities, those are known quantities - what's the probability of a planet forming in a star system at an appropriate distance for liquid water to be present at least periodically during its orbital period? Roughly will do. Just an estimate of the probability.

O.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Imagine that I were to assert the existence of rainbows to be evidence for leprechauns putting them there. Imagine too that you replied with, “actually the evidence suggests that a rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky”.

Now imagine that I replied to you by endlessly repeating:

1. “I have yet to see a credible explanation for rainbows”; and

2. “The evidence for leprechauns is demonstrated by the fact of rainbows that we all experience and enjoy”.

Would you conclude that I was:

1. Making a sound point; or

2. Wrong?

Why?

You correctly state that there is substantial scientific evidence for the formation and appearance of rainbows.
There is no such evidence for the definition and origins of our conscious thoughts.
Yet you presume to know that conscious thoughts must be entirely determined by past events which are beyond our conscious control.
Such a presumption denies the reality we all perceive that we do have conscious control of our thought processes - control which is needed in order to reach and verify consciously perceived conclusions.
You try to dismiss our perception of control by claiming that it must be "just the way it seems" because such control is perceived by you to be a logical impossibility.
But in order for you to reach such a conclusion you fail to acknowledge the conscious control you have just used.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

What you consistently fail to recognise is that only one of the countless, unimaginably huge number of possibilities under consideration will produce life.  The fact that this offers evidence that "life" was an intended outcome cannot be dismissed.

Your inability to grasp even the simplest point in logic is remarkable.

First, “life” could appear in any of countless forms too, so the chances of at least one (or perhaps many) forms of it are much higher than you allow for.

Second, you’re still lost in the notion that that there’s something particularly unusual about your appearance rather than the appearance of anything else without grasping that that only works (kind of) if you were the plan all along. Abandon the circular reasoning though and any different sentient (but logically challenged) life form could make the same bad argument about the specialness of its existence too.

Why is this so hard for you to grasp?       

Your apparent disregard for the size of the improbability shows a very blinkered view in which you seem determined never to admit any probability of intended guidance rather than pure chance.

Wrong again. No matter the size of the improbability, the fact of your existence has no more significance than the existence of anything else UNLESS YOU WANT TO ARGUE TOO THAT YOUR EXISTENCE WAS ALWAYS THE PLAN. Exclude that circularity though and you’re left with an  indifferent universe that neither knows nor cares what type of life (if any) emerges.   

There is an often quoted example that a team of monkeys with typewriters will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare given enough time and numbers.  But we know this could never happen because in reality you would need many magnitudes more monkeys than the number of atomic particles in the known universe working from the beginning of time to even get close to producing one page of Shakespeare's work.

Yes, and that would be relevant if you had some way to demonstrate that the works of Shakespeare were intended all along, rather than the works of Dante or Cervantes or a particular couple of thousand pages of gibberish.

Can you really not see where you keep going wrong here? Write it down a few hundred times until it sinks in:   

THE SCALE OF IMPROBABLITY OF YOUR EXISTENCE HAS NO RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER UNLESS YOU CAN FIRST SHOW THAT YOUR EXISTENCE WAS INTENTIONAL.

Let me know if the lightbulb ever flickers into life.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You correctly state that there is substantial scientific evidence for the formation and appearance of rainbows.
There is no such evidence for the definition and origins of our conscious thoughts.

Yes there is. You don’t like it or don’t find it credible, but it’s still there nonetheless. Just because there are still lots of unanswered questions about consciousness does not for one moment justify your entirely un-evidenced assertion that a materialistic explanation for it is therefore impossible.

A useful rule of thumb here is that a jig-saw with some pieces is more likely to give you an accurate picture than a jig-saw with no pieces at all. You should try to remember this.   

Yet you presume to know that conscious thoughts must be entirely determined by past events which are beyond our conscious control.

No, I only “presume” to accept for now the evidence I do have rather than to abandon it in favour of a logically impossible alternative for which there’s no evidence of any kind.

Why don’t you?

Such a presumption denies the reality we all perceive that we do have conscious control of our thought processes - control which is needed in order to reach and verify consciously perceived conclusions.

“The reality we all perceive” is just a convenient but wrong fiction for the reasons that have been explained to you countless times without rebuttal.

You try to dismiss our perception of control by claiming that it must be "just the way it seems" because such control is perceived by you to be a logical impossibility.

Wrong again. It’s not that it’s just “perceived by me” – it’s perceived by anyone capable of rational thought, and it stands until and unless someone produces more robust reasoning – something you’ve never managed to do.

But in order for you to reach such a conclusion you fail to acknowledge the conscious control you have just used.

Yes it feels that way doesn’t it. Had you but a basic grasp of reason though, you’d know that reality must be otherwise.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

We can certainly take a look at the fallacy of composition.

Finally!

When a accused b of it. He is saying that b is saying a composite necessarily has the property of the parts.
In our discussion Bertrand Russell uses this to get to a composite necessity, to get to his conclusion that the universe just-is and there’s an end to it.

No he didn’t. What he actually said was that that’s all we can reasonably say about it at this stage of human knowledge, but it’s irrelevant any case.
 

He is of course wrong.A composite can be contingent. So, you’ve fucked up again Hillside because you have accrued ANOTHER invitation...Please produce a composite that is not contingent.

No he wasn’t, and you should stop accusing other people of fucking up when the one doing that is you.

But it doesn’t end there because a composite could be huge even if it’s components are tiny but if all the components were red there is no way the composite could be blue.

They could be perceived as blue in some circumstances, but so what?

And it doesn’t even end there Hillside because composites are not fundamental.

How do you know that? Oh, and a composite like the Father, the Son & the Holy Spook you mean?

And it doesn’t even end there because we can avoid accusations of the fallacy by asking Given that what we observe as contingent, what is it that is necessary or non contingent about the universe. A fair question in response to your objections that doesn’t invoke any fallacy.

You’ve collapsed into gibberish once again. Once more:

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT A UNIVERSE THAT'S OBSERVABLE TO YOU AS CONSISTING OF CONTINGENT PARTS MUST ALSO THEREFORE ITSELF BE CONTINGENT ON SOMETHING ELSE?

Should I still take it that you will forever run away from this simple question as you have so many others?

[Alan Burns]

Actually, one page would easily have been done, by now. All of them would be a stretch. However, we can calculate those probabilities, those are known quantities - what's the probability of a planet forming in a star system at an appropriate distance for liquid water to be present at least periodically during its orbital period? Roughly will do. Just an estimate of the probability.

O.

The accuacy of the cosmological constant needed to balance the forces in our universe to enable the formation of stars and planets has been calculated as 10 to the power of 120.
I do not have figures for the probability of the correct ingredients and environment needed for life, but even assuming we have these, professor Sir Fred Hoyle made the following calculation:
“The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it ... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.”

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The accuacy of the cosmological constant needed to balance the forces in our universe to enable the formation of stars and planets has been calculated as 10 to the power of 120.
I do not have figures for the probability of the correct ingredients and environment needed for life, but even assuming we have these, professor Sir Fred Hoyle made the following calculation:
“The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it ... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.”

The probability of rolling a dice a getting a 6 is 1/6. The probability of rolling a dice six times and getting a 6 is 1.

Try to remember that probability only makes sense in the context of size of the sample set – ie, the number of opportunities there were for the event to happen. 

Also try to remember that you’re still lost in circular reasoning here.   

[Nearly Sane]

AB,

The probability of rolling a dice a getting a 6 is 1/6. The probability of rolling a dice six times and getting a 6 is 1.

Try to remember that probability only makes sense in the context of size of the sample set – ie, the number of opportunities there were for the event to happen. 

Also try to remember that you’re still lost in circular reasoning here.

The probability of rolling a die six times and getting a 6 isn't one since each time you roll it there are 6 possible outcomes. It works out, iirc, 6 to the power 6 -5 to the power 6 over 6 to the power 6, and is according to my phone calculator 0.6651.

[jeremyp]

The accuacy of the cosmological constant needed to balance the forces in our universe to enable the formation of stars and planets has been calculated as 10 to the power of 120.

Small beer. There are about 3 billion DNA base pairs in the chromosomes of a human being. That means, to get the exact DNA that produced you, requires a probability of about 1 in 4^{3,000,000,000} or approximately 10^{1,800,000,000} and yet here you are.