Are We Truly In The End Times?

[Ħ]

Well, it's possible, I'll give you that. But it's pretty darned close to impossible.

[Omega]

Indeed, I'm merely explaining that extremely likely does not equal impossible.

Even if it were only the one cosmic dice roll, and a failure would have meant no existence whatsoever, then it would still have been possible to end up the way we have. And indeed, if it had failed, there would never have been sentient life to have this discussion in the first place.

Well, it's possible, I'll give you that. But it's pretty darned close to impossible.

It is about as impossible as drawing from an infinite set of numbers the number 10984 every time with every draw. Another analogy; it would be like rolling a die that has infinite sides an infinite amount of rolls, and every time, each roll results in fours. This is so improbable, in fact, that there would be an infinite number of chances it would never happen. If the actual number of possibilities is itself infinite, having an infinite number of instances does nothing to help increase the chances of "hitting the right numbers" to produce an ordered, life-sustaining universe.

[Ħ]

Those analogies are impossible. If you roll the dice an infinite amount of times, you will see every possible solution at least once. With the single universe hypothesis, it's not, strictly speaking, impossible.

[Omega]

I was addressing the many worlds hypothesis, H. Pardon the confusion. But even given a single universe, there would still be an infinite amount of values that the universal constants and laws could assume, so either way, you are rolling an infinitely-sided die and hoping it lands on the magic number at least once. Which is nigh impossible and cries out for an explanation for why it has.

[Rathma]

If the actual number of possibilities is itself infinite, having an infinite number of instances does nothing to help increase the chances of "hitting the right numbers" to produce an ordered, life-sustaining universe.

Well I guess we didn't hit the right number since our world isn't ordered (it's chaotic) nor life-sustaining (extinction of all life is unavoidable). If we're talking about infinities then there would be an infinity of possible universes that are even more ordered and more life-sustaining.

[Adami]

Rathma brought up a good point that eventually all life will be gone from earth. It brings up the possibilities that A) life has existed in the past elsewhere (maybe even close by) yet circumstances changed thus causing that same place to no longer support life (just as earth will eventually not support life) and B) that eventually in other places, circumstances may very well become life supporting.

[Omega]

Well I guess we didn't hit the right number since our world isn't ordered (it's chaotic).

Our universe isn't ordered? Science rests on the very supposition that it is ordered. To assert that the universe is not ordered is to render science useless.

Changes in either the gravitational constant or the weak force constant of only one part in 10¹⁰⁰ would have prevented a life-permitting universe. Observations indicate that at 10^-43 second after the Big Bang, the universe was expanding at a fantastically special rate of speed with a total density close to the critical values on the borderline between recollapse and everlasting expansion. Hawking estimates that a decrease in the expansion rate of even one part in a hundred thousand million million (1000000000000000000000000) one second after the Big Bang would have resulted in the universe's recollapse long ago; a similar increase would have precluded galaxies' condensing out of the expanding matter. Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler, p. 322). Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10⁴⁰, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible (Davies, 1984, p. 242). If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 ). If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons (Leslie, 1988, p. 299).

And before we even bother with acknowledging the narrow range of life-permitting value that the universal constants and laws "just so happen to" exhibit, let us take a step back and observe that universal constants such as gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, expansion rate, etc even exist in the first place, for we have no reason to think that a force such as gravity exists necessarily and certainly not in the life-permitting value that it does.

nor life-sustaining (extinction of all life is unavoidable).

Our universe is obviously life-permitting. It is irrelevant that all organisms are destined to die both individually and collectively. If the universe wasn't life-permitting, we would not be having this conversation. Nowhere have I defended the bizarre claim that our universe must necessarily sustain life for x amount of time. Such an endeavor would be pointless and confusing it with the central point of the conversation would be a waste of everyone's time.

[bosk1]

Our universe isn't ordered? Science rests on the very supposition that it is ordered.

Science rests on the very supposition that it is "ordered?"

[eric42434224]

Our universe isn't ordered? Science rests on the very supposition that it is ordered.

Science rests on the very supposition that it is "ordered?"

Doesn't science show that it is the nature of the universe that things move toward disorder?

[bosk1]

Our universe isn't ordered? Science rests on the very supposition that it is ordered.

Science rests on the very supposition that it is "ordered?"

Doesn't science show that it is the nature of the universe that things move toward disorder?

Move toward "disorder?"

[eric42434224]

Chaos?

[bosk1]

Chaos?

"Chaos?"

[Adami]

Chaos?

"Chaos?"

"?"

[eric42434224]

Chaos?

"Chaos?"

"?"

'' ''

[theseoafs]

This thread = A+

[Rathma]

Well I guess we didn't hit the right number since our world isn't ordered (it's chaotic).

Our universe isn't ordered? Science rests on the very supposition that it is ordered. To assert that the universe is not ordered is to render science useless.

Nope, the universe is not ordered. We impose perceived "order" onto the chaos that is out there. Science is the analysis of chaos in order for us to predict chaos to the best of our ability, and this proves quite useful so no science is not useless. The concept of order has no place in science.

And lol @ the idea that science supposes something. Science is a method, not a belief system.

[Omega]

Our universe isn't ordered? Science rests on the very supposition that it is ordered.

Science rests on the very supposition that it is "ordered?"

Yes, that the universe is ordered, I mean. Since the universe exists in the middle place of becoming (it is always changing), science can be done, but never with certainty. Science searches for patterns in the cosmos. These patterns would be stable. Any given event in the universe is the product of change, but this change is lawlike and mathematical, and therefore predictable. Ever since Galileo, Kepler, Newton, etc, science has been aimed at the prediction and control of events which happen in a predictable, orderly fashion. Were our universe not ordered, there would be no pattern for science to grasp, no predictable change or chain of events. Science would therefore be rendered completely useless (never mind the fact that no life could form if the universe lacked all order).

[Omega]

And lol @ the idea that science supposes something. Science is a method, not a belief system.

Please don't make me explain all of the philosophical foundations which science presupposes and rests upon again. Please.

[bosk1]

And lol @ the idea that science supposes something. Science is a method, not a belief system.

Please don't make me explain all of the philosophical foundations which science presupposes and rests upon again. Please.

Omega, I'm not going to tell you again.  Drop the condescending attitude.  Final warning.

[yeshaberto]

I had already given him a final.    Goodbye

[Omega]

Peace out

[Rathma]

And lol @ the idea that science supposes something. Science is a method, not a belief system.

Please don't make me explain all of the philosophical foundations which science presupposes and rests upon again. Please.

Now you're saying that science has a philosophical foundation? That's the most bizarre thing I've heard you say. Science is simply trial and error to see what works best. What you're talking about is an ideology.

[Scheavo]

And lol @ the idea that science supposes something. Science is a method, not a belief system.

Please don't make me explain all of the philosophical foundations which science presupposes and rests upon again. Please.

Now you're saying that science has a philosophical foundation? That's the most bizarre thing I've heard you say. Science is simply trial and error to see what works best. What you're talking about is an ideology.

Science most certainly has a philosophical foundation. It's an epistemological theory regarding how you attain truth, etc. It makes several assumptions, including that trial and error is what works best. It was a method devised by a philosopher in response to thousands of years of philosophers simply making stuff up, but having no way to verify it.

But the reason science differs from any other theory is that it produces effects, it has power, etc. If science didn't get something right, then I wouldn't be using a computer right now.

Move toward "disorder?"

Second law of thermodynamics. Which is, as of this point in time, is basically the theory your theory has to agree with. If you disobey the second law of thermodynamics, you're laughed at and your theory is rejected. Interestingly enough, it's so far our best definition of time. Time is the increase in entropy, or the increase in disorder.

Given the evidence of fine-tuning alone, an intellectually responsible person should not decide between either an atheistic multiuniverse hypothesis and theism.

That's what I just said? I've brought up the multiverse theory not becuase I think it's true, but because it provides an alternite explanation for how the "fine-tuning" can come about, by pure chance.

@bosk:

It is fallacious to imbue meaning upon coincidence. Or it's at least illogical. I remember reading about it numerous times in my psychology 101 book. Humans do it all the time, and almost all of the time there's absolutely no meaning behind it. It's just, well, coincidence.

[XJDenton]

Whilst I disagree with most of what Omega says, science certainly does have a philosophical foundation, especially concerning the nature falsifiability and such like.

[jammindude]

Telling my step-son (the agnostic) about this conversation...and he's kindof a science buff.   He's getting a big chuckle out of this.

What he said just now made me laugh..."Science *does* have a philosophical foundation based on the supposition that *EVERYTHING* can be catagorized, quantified and named BY SCIENCE....  THAT is a philiosophy!"

Just made me chuckle coming from an agnostic science nerd. 

[Rathma]

Science most certainly has a philosophical foundation. It's an epistemological theory regarding how you attain truth, etc.

Science (or philosophy for that matter) never makes truth statements. Only religion (and only a certain kind of religion) is conceited enough to treat statements it makes at the same level as truth itself. I've never heard science described as an epistemological theory. What exactly does this theory state?

It makes several assumptions, including that trial and error is what works best.

Scientists may say this, but science itself? The scientific method has nothing to say about values, and "best" is clearly a value. 

[jammindude]

Science most certainly has a philosophical foundation. It's an epistemological theory regarding how you attain truth, etc.

Science (or philosophy for that matter) never makes truth statements.

[theseoafs]

Peace out

Truly the end of an era.

[Rathma]

The concepts that are generated from scientific activities are all models. Even something as generally accepted as "E=mc2" isn't infallible and if anybody every said it was, it wasn't science that guided them to that, it's ideology.

[jammindude]

The concepts that are generated from scientific activities are all models. Even something as generally accepted as "E=mc2" isn't infallible and if anybody every said it was, it wasn't science that guided them to that, it's ideology.

Well...I'll give you this.   It's quite refreshing to hear that evolution is NOT a infallible *fact*... I agree with you wholeheartedly.   

EDIT:  I want to add that I think you're an exception to the rule...the scientific community as a whole does make *MANY* statements of truth.   And I for one, agree with about 80-90% of the FACTS that they support.

[Adami]

Math aside (since I know nothing about it), I'm pretty sure the scientific community considers all of their ideas up for debate if someone could provide proof. Facts are not up for debate. Maybe that's what he means?

[Scheavo]

Science most certainly has a philosophical foundation. It's an epistemological theory regarding how you attain truth, etc.

Science (or philosophy for that matter) never makes truth statements. Only religion (and only a certain kind of religion) is conceited enough to treat statements it makes at the same level as truth itself. I've never heard science described as an epistemological theory. What exactly does this theory state?

There's a reason physics was originally called "natural philosophy."

And okay, let me clarify and use my terms correctly: science makes claims of knowledge (which is pretty much redundant, seeing as how "science" means "knowledge" in Latin), where "knowledge" is defined as, "justified true belief." Science claims something to known, when it can be reproduced by other persons, following the same procedures. I would also make a distinction between Truth, and truth. It is true that F = MA, becuase anytime anyone has ever done the math, the experiments, etc, they get the result that f = MA. This is a model, a model describing behavior, and it's one that can be used.

Perhaps just as importantly, science can tell us what is not true. It's often negative. If an hypothesis is put forward, and the data and results to not match the hypothesis, that hypothesis is wrong.

Now, I agree, science is inherently skeptical, and proper science doesn't assume anything it's discovered to be infallible - indeed, for something to be science, in must be falsifiable, at least in theory. That is, it's possible to run tests to ascertain if a hypothesis is an accurate description of what happens. It's theoretically possible to run the tests, and have force equal something other than mass times acceleration, even though no one has ever, ever done so (and there's thousands of physics students doing this test every year).

But it is quite obvious that science makes a claim towards knowledge, and for something to be called knowledge, it must relate to the truth. You cant know something, when it's false, can you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

There are basic assumptions derived from philosophy that form the base of the scientific method - namely, that reality is objective and consistent, that humans have the capacity to perceive reality accurately, and that rational explanations exist for elements of the real world.

Just made me chuckle coming from an agnostic science nerd. 

You are aware that I'm making the same claims, as a similiar person, in this thread?

[XJDenton]

Direct observations (ie. facts) are truth. Whether the models that explain those facts are truth or not depends on whether you subsribe to a scientific realist or instrumentalist philosophy. I lean towards the latter interpretation, but as science improves the models the distinction between what humans can classify as truth and merely a highly model will converge.

Also, hate to be that guy Scheavo, but F = ma only works in the low v limit.

[Scheavo]

Well, c'mon, you know what I mean. Cause really, all of Newtonian physics is technically wrong, otherwise we wouldn't have quantum mechanics, but it's still a workable theory. I would say, then, that Newtonian physics is definitely not True, but it is true. Engineers still rely upon this model of physics to do a lot of things.

[jammindude]

My spit take is only because this is so far away from what the scientific community as a whole teaches.   I keep a good eye on science....I see the models for the evolution theory...I just interpret them differently because I see the hand of an artist behind it, and I see a progression of ideas rather than one kind of thing morphing into another kind of thing.    The science community as a whole would just assume label me as insane, and claim that evolution *IS* *A* *FACT*....so to hear a couple of people who believe in science admit that nothing is *THAT* forgone of a conclusion is refreshing to say the least.   It's not what I'm used to hearing from those in the scientific community.