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To: DevNet
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17 posted on 04/28/2009 9:28:33 AM PDT by Kozak (e)
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To: Kozak
Re your cell D2: "The Universe is fine-tuned to life".

This appears to be the case. If Intelligent Design means "the idea that there is a Mind behind Reality that has created it either quickly, slowly or immanently" - then Intelligent Design is strongly supported by the 'strong' Anthopic Principle.

I'll try and do some justice to this concept in what follows.

The Strong Anthropic Principle

This concerns the observed "tuning" of the cosmological constants (strength of gravity, strength of emg force etc) that underpin the Universe.

The idea is that the tuning points to a Creator who did the tuning- because the tuning is exactly right for the existence of human life, far too improbably exact to have happened by chance.

First, we should distinguish the “strong” Anthropic Principle from the “weak” one.

The weak one is roughly along the lines of “isn’t it lucky we live just far enough away from the Sun to live”.

And similar arguments, like “lucky that humans got a chance to evolve when the Dinosaurs cacked it” etc. It’s weak because this argument can be countered by the “humans are simply self-selecting observers who live on one lucky ball of rock” argument.

The strong version of the Anthropic Principle is the observation that this Universe appears to have been designed to allow life to exist. In any form. At all. Out of all the infinitely variable boundary conditions of the Universe (the Gravitational constant, the relative strength of the Strong and Weak forces, and many others) the Universe just *happens* to have, or to embody, the exact set of parameters which make matter, space and life itself possible.

Note the emphasis on “possible”. We are not talking about there being a universe which happened to give rise to humans, baboons and bacteria. That would be the weak Anthropic principle.

We are talking about there being a universe where life is possible in any form whatever. If one of the Universe’s constants were to change by a few decimal places then the Universe would consist only of hydrogen, or only of baryons - or it would have lasted only a few millenia before crunching back on itself.

The prima-facie odds of getting even carbon-synthesis to work are extraordinarily remote, and everything else has to be “just right” as well

The odds are literally infinitesimal that our Universe just happened to get it right. The religious, supernatural theory that the Universe was designed - and designed for us - is strongly supported by the extraordinary unlikelihood of the Universe being able to support any kind of life.

The usual (materialistic or atheistic) counter-argument against the Strong Anthropic Principle is the theory that there are quadrillions of parallel Universes, one of which is ours. Ours is only special in that we are in it to observe its existence.

This parallel universe theory (apart from being a tired Star-Trek trope) turns out to be a non-disprovable. Any “other” Universe would have to be completely orthogonal to this one, with no interaction of any kind. That is simply what "another Universe" means.

If a scientist could detect another Universe, he would have - by definition - simply have detected more of ‘The’ Universe.

The so-called ‘universes’ of Brane theory, hyperdimensional regions of dark matter interacting weakly with our own - these are part of “the” Universe. If you observe such exotic regions of the Universe then you have discovered that the Universe is a complex multiply-connected object. You have not discovered 'another Universe'.

Strict materialists would therefore have to adopt the position that there exist unthinkable infinities of rigidly unknowable and undetectable Universes covering the gamut of all possible physical constants in order for us to have become self-selected observers of this “one” Universe - the one that happens to have the right conditions for life.

This position “might” be true - but by its very nature it cannot be proven (”Hey! I've detected a Universe which - by definition - is totally orthogonal from this one” is a statement that cannot be true).

Materialists have to move to a position not readily distinguishable from religious belief in order to contest the logical consequence of the Strong Anthropic Principle - which is that this Universe has been extremely precisely tailored to the existence of life.

Hope this is helpful/useful.

40 posted on 04/28/2009 9:58:19 AM PDT by agere_contra
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