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Thank you for your replies!

On post 2851 you said: Unless you show me the state-space and the selection criteria, you have no notion wheather ANY starting conditions for the universe were likely or unlikely to any degree. It is a question--Chaiken and Kolmogorof notwithstanding--in my opinion, standing outside of space and time, which are what science, at minimum, need by way of evidence to think scientific thoughts about, including the construction of statistical calculations.

It appears that you dismiss my statement that ”algorithm from inception is intelligent design” by essentially asserting that a state prior to inception, null, is outside scientific inquiry, i.e. outside of space/time.

I vigorously disagree and assert that it is the subject of much scientific inquiry:

There are numerous scientific efforts to explain the ultra early universe, as summarized in this article by Sir Martin Rees. In his book, Just Six Numbers Sir Rees “argues that six numbers underlie the fundamental physical properties of the universe, and that each is the precise value needed to permit life to flourish. “ The fundamental constants are manifest on large scales: Stability and Size of Galaxies from Planck’s Constant (PDF).

Moreover, the sound waves in the early universe that we have been discussing were not even addressed in Sir Rees’ summary.

“The early universe is full of sound waves compressing and rarefying matter and light, much like sound waves compress and rarefy air inside a flute or trumpet,” explained Paolo deBernardis of the University of Rome La Sapienza, one of the members of the Balloon Observations of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics (BOOMERanG) team. “For the first time the new data show clearly the harmonics of these waves.”

Granted, we are early in this research – but scientists are discovering order underlying what we would otherwise perceive to be vast randomness. It appears now that what we are seeing is the complexity which results from an underlying algorithm, much like the Mandelbrot set. This is the focus of Wolfram's A New Kind of Science and according to Kolmogorov and Chaitin, such an algorithm rules out randomness.

I see that the pattern of the sound, the six numbers, are pieces of that algorithm coming together. I believe others see it as well, and suggest that is the driving force behind the multi-universe theories – specifically to defer having to face up to the existence of null - i.e. multi-universe theories still require an inception.

For lurkers, I have also been asserting that algorithms are intelligent design per se. That is, algorithms are the designed intelligence from which results, including information content and new algorithms, emerge. Again, here is an example paraphrased from Roger Penrose’s Emporer’s New Mind, Chapter 2. An algorithm, briefly, is a step-by-step instruction. Penrose uses Euclid’s algorithm for finding the highest common factor between two numbers as an example:

Again: C=A-(Int(A/B)*B)
Print A;" divided by ";B;" gives a remainder of ";C
If C<>0 then
A=B
B=C
Goto Again
End If
Print "Euclid algorithm complete!"

This algorithm includes a conditional, symbols, recursive logic and process. This is the kind of information content being discovered in the genetic code.

The algorithm is language. We already know that sound lies at the root of the physical universe, so IMHO, the algorithm itself can be discovered:

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. – Psalms 33:6

From your post 2852 Still doesn't make God-shouts the obvious first guess; as the article sez: magnified quantum fluctuations. It is amusing to note that this line of reasoning holds that our supercluster's millions of galaxies is the result of something equivalent to an electron-positron annihilation during the pre-inflationary era. Talk about your compound interest, eh?

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

From that Berkley article on Harmonics in the Early Universe

When the universe sang

The peaks indicate harmonics in the sound waves that filled the early, dense universe. Until some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could "decouple" from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.

At the moment of decoupling, the pressure waves left telltale traces of their existence in the form of slight temperature variations in the CMB, which in the intervening 10 billion years or so has cooled to a mere three degrees Kelvin...

The width and position of the first peak indicate that fluctuations on all scales were already in place at the earliest moments of the universe. A period of rapid expansion in the early moments of the universe could have set these perturbations in place by blowing up microscopic quantum fluctuations to astronomical scales -- seeding the galaxies and nets of galaxies we see today.

To summarize my view: sound waves are indicative of spoken language and may suggest algorithm (step by step instruction) when patterns and constants emerge.

One more thing. From your post 2853 to Gore3000:

Putting me aside, however, it is only in the fevered brains of creationists that there is a pitched battle between evolutionary theory and christian belief.

The challenge to evolution theory is not solely grounded in religion. There is also a pitched battle between evolution theory and directed panspermia . The arguments and counter-arguments are pretty much the same. Intelligent Design spans both.