DescentBB

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 4:55 pm**

Top Gun wrote:
Douglas Adams wrote:There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
That about sums it up.

"Welcome to level 2"

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:02 pm**

Palzon wrote:Actually, Jeff's point is that the scaffolding is an analogy used to prove that it IS reducible. The example Wiki quotes is from Dawkins.

I should clarify. My understanding was that the analogy Jeff referenced is saying the arch is "irreducibly complex" but still "reducible". I'm not sure I see the distinction.

Ugh, semantics.

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:37 pm**

Sergeant Thorne wrote:No it couldn't, actually. I'll give you two big reasons:

1) Irreducible Complexity--
Charles Darwin wrote:If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

I always love how people bring up this quote, from Chapter 6 of the "Origin of Species", but neglect to follow up with the very next line -

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

(emphasis mine)

Michael Behe made a number of claims for systems that were "irreducibly complex". In his book, "Finding Darwin's God", Kenneth Miller deconstructs several of them; here is a page where he takes on the blood clotting system
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/ ... tting.html

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:37 pm**

Foil wrote:
Palzon wrote:Actually, Jeff's point is that the scaffolding is an analogy used to prove that it IS reducible. The example Wiki quotes is from Dawkins.
I should clarify. My understanding was that the analogy Jeff referenced is saying the arch is "irreducibly complex" but still "reducible". I'm not sure I see the distinction.

Ugh, semantics.

I take the analogy as saying that irreducibly complex organs in the present could have been reducible in the past, namely when they were evolving, since one way to get an irreducible complex system is to take a reducible system and then remove all of the reducible parts. If you have any parts left, now your system is irreducible. For example, in the analogy, when we finished building the stone arch, we had a reducible system, since the scaffolding was still there. When we removed the scaffolding, the system became irreducible. In a similar way, evolution can create irreducibly complex systems by building a complex reducible system and then removing the cruft.

But I say this with the understanding that something like "not being evolve-able under any circumstances" isn't built into the definition of "irreducibly complex." Here I'm just using "irreducibly complex" to mean some complex system that has no value if you remove any part.

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 9:12 pm**

TIGERassault wrote:Here's an interesting theory I read: to summarise, apparently, an idea was put forward that gravity acts as the counterbalance to energy, a negative energy if you will. And because of the way quantum mechanics can work, where something can be effected without a cause (and backed by examples), it's possible that that the Very Beginning was caused by nothingness itself splitting, apparently on a large scale (IIRC, it's also theorised that this is supposed to happen with very small packets and such, but chaos theory dictates that as time goes to infinity, the odds of such things happening nearly simultaneously very very close to each other goes to 100%, so it's very plausable.)
One line from it that I did find particularly interesting was where it says "Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing". Because if that's true, then this theory is very likely indeed.

Tiger, that's actually quite close to a theory I came up with recently - that true nothingness, in a weird, twisted sense, was a catalyst for everything and created it all. I suppose the thought inferred was also that nothingness was essentially everything, because of infinite possibilities. If I were to choose a possibility to believe in, it would probably be this one.

Posted: **Tue Nov 18, 2008 10:14 pm**

Foil wrote:While there are a number of cases of unexplained complexity (and these are certainly worth discussing), I have yet to see a proof which precludes any possible explanation.

If you have a rigorous proof using more than the usual anecdotal "scientists don't have an explanation for the development of X, so it must be irreducibly complex", I'd be interested in seeing it.

Over and over again the scientific community keeps accusing ID of not being falsifiable. Has anyone noticed that Evolution is quite blatant about being unfalsifiable?

Can you offer a scientifically rigorous proof that any complex microbiological structure within the cell (something formed by more than gene duplication) could have evolved in small steps? Not DID evolve, just that there is ANY plausible pathway. A rigorous proof, not some wild just so story. Something with detailed steps.

What level of complexity would be required before the scientific community would accept that a particular structure could not have evolved by chance and natural selection alone. Would ANYTHING qualify to falsify the theory that a structure evolved through random chance and natural selection alone?

I abandoned young earth creationisim when I realized that the evidence just couldn't support it. This did NOT threaten my Faith in God. I was perfectly happy believing that God had chosen to use evolution through natural selection to create life on this earth. I changed my mind, NOT because I need ID to prop up my religion, but because the evidence behind ID was incredibly strong.

When you confront a Young Earth Creationist with obvious evidence that the earth and universe have been here for a very long time, they come up with wild and unplausible "Just So" stories to get around that evidence. Perhaps the speed of light has changed, or the rate of radioactive decay is not constant, or animals caught in the flood all got buried in a very specific order. They love to leap upon the few unusual exceptions in the geological column and claim these disprove the obvious general trend. It's not that most of these explanations are absolutely impossible, but they are highly improbable. They rely almost entirely on rare exceptions and wild speculation. And when you have to keep heaping up more and more highly improbably requirements in order to prop up your theory, there is probably a serious problem with your theory.

The scientist arguing against ID sound just like the Young Earth Creationists. If most of the structures within the cell had plausible evolutionary paths, and the ID crowd was hitting upon a few exceptions and building their arguments on that, then yes, I'd accept the argument that something weird had happened in these few structures. Perhaps we had cases of exaptation or simplification.

But that's not the situation. Cellular structures that have plausible evolutionary paths are the very rare exceptions in microbiology. And the primary argument being made in favor of evolution on the microbiological level is "Well, it obviously DID happen, so there must be SOME way it could!"

I would urge anyone who is actually interested in this topic to actually read Behe's latest book, The Edge of Evolution. You've read all of the attack pieces, try one of HIS actual works. It won't bite you, I promise.

His research on evolution in malaria and humans is absolutely fascinating.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:37 am**

technically, it should be 13,000 years. Why? because it's written that to God a 1000 years is like a day. There are 7 days accounted for in the creation story with an additional 6000 on top of that.

It should also be mentioned that the years to the Hebrew were different than to us as they used a lunar calendar.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:44 am**

Which part of each 1000 years is the \"evening?\" And the \"morning?\"

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:04 am**

i give up. which?

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:26 am**

You don't get to give up.

You have to tell me.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:36 am**

Kilarin wrote:But that's not the situation. Cellular structures that have plausible evolutionary paths are the very rare exceptions in microbiology. And the primary argument being made in favor of evolution on the microbiological level is "Well, it obviously DID happen, so there must be SOME way it could!"

I don't understand biology enough to say one way or the other on this issue. It still does seem to be a rather isolated case though with respect to the grand scheme of the evolution of life. I don't know if this is the case, but I suspect that our ability to understand the evolution of bacteria is inherently more limited compared to larger creatures that evolved more recently. But I could be wrong!

There is something scientific, perhaps on the meta level, that I'd like to point out. A lot of the systems that were formerly claimed to be irreducibly complex and not evolve-able we now have models for explaining how their evolution occurred. So, if this trend continues, then we will have an explanation for the above too.

Duper wrote:technically, it should be 13,000 years. Why? because it's written that to God a 1000 years is like a day. There are 7 days accounted for in the creation story with an additional 6000 on top of that.

But we can take the analysis further. Recall that a year is 365 days. Since we know that a day is really just a 1000 years to God, this means that each year is actually 365,000 years. So if we accept your claim that creation took 7000 years, then we really know that creation took 7000 * 365 * 1000 = 2,555,000,000 years to God.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:29 am**

Jeff250 wrote:
Duper wrote:technically, it should be 13,000 years. Why? because it's written that to God a 1000 years is like a day. There are 7 days accounted for in the creation story with an additional 6000 on top of that.
But we can take the analysis further. Recall that a year is 365 days. Since we know that a day is really just a 1000 years to God, this means that each year is actually 365,000 years. So if we accept your claim that creation took 7000 years, then we really know that creation took 7000 * 365 * 1000 = 2,555,000,000 years to God.

LOL, thank you for making the point I was about to, Jeff250.

"A day is like a thousand years" to God, per II Peter as I recall <- reducing that to a math equation is just as problematic as reducing Genesis 1 & 2 to a list of literal notes about creation. It fails to consider the structure and context, and misses the point entirely.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:19 am**

but again, you missed what I said Jeff. In the Hebrew calendar, there are not 356 days in a year. They're calendar is Lunar not solar.

But I view Genesis a bit differently than most so I don't worry about how much time God used to create everything. Before man was created, time is kinda irrelevant. There was a beginning, there will be an end .. and it's coming up fast. Hope you have an airbag installed.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:36 am**

Sergeant Thorne wrote:No it couldn't, actually. I'll give you two big reasons:

1) Irreducible Complexity--
Charles Darwin wrote:If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
2) Genesis says that God created all living things "according to their kind".

Maybe you need to quit looking at the "overall" and get into some specifics if you're going to deal with the subject.

You do have me on a few details: (Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a student of Hebrew, so whatever language stuff I bring up come solely from what my spiffy Vine's tells me)

1. "according to their kind" - It seems that this is saying that God made the creatures by species. I think this implies that there were no "intermediate" or "waste" or "process" creatures - I don't think precludes genetic change in species A resulting in species B. I do think it means that all of the changes necessary to go from species A to species B happened all at once. I don't think that necessarily means that all of the given group of species were created at once- they were all made by God, and the way He wanted them, by species. I'll also point out that our examples of "intermediates" that we come up with can be seen as a different species, that are exactly as God wanted it, that's now extinct.

2. Irreducible complexity - I think this is addressed by no. 1. If you want to frame God's creating process from a sequential point of view, then the Bible seems to imply that each step in the process was somewhat larger than the steps that Darwin imagined random chance producing.

3. Old earth/New earth - the word translated as "day" can be understand as anything from a literal day, to a period of time - the most common translation is day (as in a 24hr. period) but the understanding of the word is often modified by an associated term - Associated words in this case are along the lines of dusk and dawn - so there seems to be an indication that the days of creation were punctuated by the setting of the sun at the end of one day, and the rising of the sun at the beginning of the next. I'm not exactly sure how much of a stretch it would be to interpret "day" as a sort of period of activity, and "night" as a period of inactivity on God's part, but that's probably the most realistic old earth interpretation of the text.

4. Time & God - 2nd Peter 3:8 "but do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." - the point is that God transcends time. (More specifically, that God's "soon" of the second coming is a relative thing) Trying to apply math to that verse is silly.

Posted: **Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:44 pm**

Kilarin,

Evolution would easily be falsified by either irreducible complexity or by a rabbit fossil (truly) from the Pre-Cambrian.

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:02 am**

snoopy wrote:4. Time & God - 2nd Peter 3:8 "but do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."

So, in your god's eyes, Jesus was here just the day before yesterday. Each human only lives for an hour and a half.

...

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:24 pm**

snoopy then wrote:... Trying to apply math to that verse is silly.

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:47 pm**

Right! ... And just as incorrect as trying to apply a literal timeline to the creation accounts.

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:41 pm**

Wrong.

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:00 pm**

Foil wrote:Right! ... And just as incorrect as trying to apply a literal timeline to the creation accounts.

so... God saying "6 days" isn't good enough?

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:07 pm**

Not when the entire book it's a part of was written in allegorical literary form. Or when the term \"days\" was used before the sun even existed.

Posted: **Thu Nov 20, 2008 3:24 pm**

Which day did God separate the light from the dark, because it would seem that’s when the “day” was created, and up till then there were no “days”

Oops, that’s what I get for not reading page 3...

Posted: **Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:16 pm**

Jeff250 wrote:I suspect that our ability to understand the evolution of bacteria is inherently more limited compared to larger creatures that evolved more recently. But I could be wrong!

You are!

This is why I think so:

When we try to examine evolution on the macro scale, we don't know what we are talking about. Either side. Evolution doesn't HAPPEN on the macro scale, it happens on the micro scale. A large change in an organism on the macro scale can sometimes come about from a fairly small and simple change on the micro scale. And changes that seem simple when looked at on the macro scale can be nightmarishly difficult monstrosities when you look at what actually happened on the micro scale.

For example, Darwin's famous example of how an eye could have evolved begins with an organism developing a light sensitive spot. It sounds very simple on the macro scale, but when we look at the micro scale we find that the minimal protein interactions required for that "simple" light sensitive spots are incredibly complex. That is the level where the question of chance or design MUST be answered, it is the only level where the question even makes any sense.

Palzon wrote:Evolution would easily be falsified by either irreducible complexity or by a rabbit fossil (truly) from the Pre-Cambrian.

There are examples of anomalous fossils. The young earth Creationist love to drag them out as proof that the geological column has been misinterpreted. I disagree. We should EXPECT there to be a few exceptions. There are always strange things that happen when you are dealing with life and geology. The issue is that they ARE exceptions. Quite RARE exceptions. One rabbit bone that appears to be in pre-cambrian rock is an unexplained mystery, but not proof that evolution is false. If rabbits co-existed with dinosaurs, we should expect to find mammal and dinosaur fossils intermingled on a regular basis, not one or two strange anomalies.

As for the irreducible complexity, what would you accept as being proof that a structure was irreducibly complex? The molecular machines that operate within the simplest cell are as complicated as any machine humans build. If the naturalists can't explain them, they accuse the IDers of making arguments from ignorance. If the evidence we already have of the complexity within a cell is not adequate to falsify naturalistic evolution, nothing ever will be.

Posted: **Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:56 am**

Kilarin wrote:It sounds very simple on the macro scale, but when we look at the micro scale we find that the minimal protein interactions required for that "simple" light sensitive spots are incredibly complex. That is the level where the question of chance or design MUST be answered, it is the only level where the question even makes any sense.

Again, I am no biologist. But it seems like that one could concede that most developments in evolution are extremely improbable without conceding naturalistic evolution. The usual defense is that given enough time, improbable things can happen. (You have to win the lottery eventually...)

But I think that another mistake is to look at it as though evolving something like eyes is somehow a proper end of evolution and if that hadn't happened then something would be wrong.

If I play a bit of poker and am dealt 10 hands of cards that night, the odds of me being dealt any one set of cards is extremely improbable. Yet I am dealt some set of cards. So if someone wanted to prove that I couldn't have played poker that night, he might argue that all ten sets of cards that I was dealt that evening were extremely improbable, so surely having been dealt all ten sets of cards is even more improbable, so thus it surely didn't happen! But this argument seems to neglect that although being dealt any one set of cards is extremely improbable, being dealt any extremely improbable set of cards is highly probable!

I feel that ID-ists or what have you are looking at the end of the poker night and then arguing that no one could have played poker that night because all of the hands that they were dealt were extremely improbable. Perhaps it lends to the design sort of worldview, but it seems like you guys take something like the eye, see it as the proper end of evolution, and then attempt to argue that it couldn't have happened because it was highly improbable, as though it could have been no other way! But to me, the more interesting analysis is in determining the probability of anything highly improbable evolving, like at poker night when we want to determine the probability of being dealt any improbable hand of cards. If the probability of having any highly improbable organ evolving isn't too low, then we shouldn't be too surprised to have amassed a collection of them over enough time. But I've never seen an analysis that looks at probabilities in this fashion.

Posted: **Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:41 am**

Jeff,

ID tries to deal with exactly what you pointed out by saying that something not only has to be complex, but it also has to be specified. Obviously, things had to be \"somehow\"- If biological systems could just be somehow (complex, or not) then Id would fall apart. ID's claim is that these incredibly complex systems also could only work exactly as they are.

To use your cards example: If you were dealt ten hands, and you determined ahead of time that you could only say that someone cheated if you only were dealt royal flushes in hearts, and then all of your hands were royal flushes in hearts, then statistics say that someone cheated by giving you royal flushes in hearts.

If we had to have eyes, and they are irreducibly complex, then ID wins. If eyes are irreducibly complex, but we don't have have them, then it doesn't help ID at all.

Posted: **Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:30 am**

Sorry to keep bumping threads, haven't been around for a while, enjoying catching up.

woodchip wrote:As with primitive man, Corn Gods and Fertility Gods were ascribe to for a lack of understanding on how things work. We do so yet today.

QFT. What this question amounts to, to me is: when you look at the world, do you see the fingerprint of a Designer? Or when you look at spirituality and religion do you see the fingerprint of Man as the designer?

We all have our reasons for preferring one of those two options. Personally, I see a whole mountain of evidence for one side, and a lot of grasping at straws for the other. Some people argue that both sides, though, require a measure of faith, and this is where you have to be careful:

Science is not a belief, rather it's a system for overcoming's man's tendency to cling to bad gut feelings. So, it's an anti-faith, a myth buster. Even though there are measures of inspiration and gut instinct that help thinkers discover ideas (call that faith if you want), those ideas are rejected when they don't stand up to evidence.

Here's my prediction: we're living in a dark age that future generations will look back at and wonder how we survived the ignorance. And, the time's coming when the human brain will be completely modeled in hardware or software. We will ask that brain if there's a God, and if it has a soul, and it will say "yes", because that's how that machine works.

Posted: **Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:33 am**

MehYam wrote:We will ask that brain if there's a God, and if it has a soul, and it will say "yes", because that's how that machine works.

A convenient position which cannot be falsified.

Posted: **Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:36 am**

You and I both know (for very different reasons) that there's a pretty good chance we'll never find out.

Although I disagree, my statement will be easily verifiable when the time comes.

Posted: **Sun Dec 28, 2008 12:35 pm**

In life there are two basic kinds of questions…

1. The Hows
2. The Whys

And as I wholeheartedly believe science will always be the better tool at answering the “Hows”, it will “never” be able to answer the “Whys”, for that, we will always need spirituality. (not religion)

And for those of you who will disagree, and say science will also at some future time, answer both types of questions…then to that I reply…you have simply replaced Religion with Science, and are making the same mistake as religious people in reverse. (The one tool to answer all questions)

Posted: **Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:44 pm**

Life began when I decided to cosmically take a nap and you're all in my dream. For instance, MehYam represents my inert sexiness.

Posted: **Sun Dec 28, 2008 4:50 pm**

It was as an accident - I am lactose intolerant. I am very sorry

Posted: **Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:02 am**

Jeff, you raise a very interesting point. Any hand you're dealt is extremely improbable - but if you get a royal flush for three hands (sorry, I'm not very good at card terminology!) in a row, than although it's just as improbable as any other card combination, it's far more *remarkable* - anyone would conclude that something more than random chance was probably at work, and it's the same thing when it comes to biological evolution. It seems that something more than mere chance is necessary to overcome the very low odds of a naturalistic occurrence of life, etc.

Personally I find this more useful in regards to the universe and the precise physical constants necessary for the evolution of life to be *possible* in the first place (not to mention fundamental forces that allow the formation of things like stars, light/heavy elements, and the precisely correct rate of expansion of the universe at the big bang that would result in either a recollapse or over-expansion preventing the formation of stars, galaxies, etc. if these factors were even infinitesimally altered.)

Posted: **Mon Dec 29, 2008 10:55 pm**

Snoopy wrote:If we had to have eyes,

This is where you lose me. Why would it ever be the case that we had to have eyes?

Snoopy wrote:and they are irreducibly complex

What do you think of the scaffold analogy that we discussed earlier in this thread?

Firewheel wrote:Personally I find this more useful in regards to the universe and the precise physical constants necessary for the evolution of life to be *possible* in the first place (not to mention fundamental forces that allow the formation of things like stars, light/heavy elements, and the precisely correct rate of expansion of the universe at the big bang that would result in either a recollapse or over-expansion preventing the formation of stars, galaxies, etc. if these factors were even infinitesimally altered.)

Ah, but I wonder how many universes exist with physical constants incompatible with life. An unanswerable question I suppose...

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:25 am**

I don't like the scaffolding idea, because it seems to imply lesser fitness.

I suppose there could be a case in which the \"scaffolding\" itself served a good purpose.... that added to the fitness of the species. I guess I don't like the term- it implies to me that it's completely useless other than to serve as an accessory to creating whatever is being made...

Also, why would we \"need\" eyes? I don't know... in fact I don't think it's the case (look at bats). I was using it as a example... the more realistic things that we could point & attribute to a \"need\" for life to have could be chemical interactions on the cellular level, or things of the type.

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:45 am**

Jeff250 wrote:but I wonder how many universes exist with physical constants incompatible with life. An unanswerable question I suppose...

Let me start with the caveat that I am NOT a big fan of defending ID through universal constants. I agree that the numbers really DO appear to line up in a designed manner, BUT, I'm uncomfortable with GUESSING what the possibilities for life would be in a universe with different constants. Too many unknowns for my taste. In it's defense though, among physicists and cosmologists, even ID's opponents seem convinced that if you niggle with the universal constants, you end up with a universe incompatible with life. So my lack of confidence is very probably just a result of my ignorance.

Dembski has pointed out a serious problem with the infinite multi-verse theory. IF you assume there are an infinite number of universes, then it becomes CERTAIN that there will be a universe like ours that is perfectly balanced for life. BUT, the reason it becomes certain is because it is now certain that every possible universe exists. EVERY POSSIBLE. The implications of that are terrifying once you really consider them. That means it's not just probable, but certain, that there exists a universe, that is identical to this one, but that only sprang into existence a few seconds ago. None of us would have actually existed 5 minutes ago, but now we all exist, and just happened to spring into existence with memories built in. So we wouldn't have any way to KNOW that the universe only just sprang into being. Highly improbable, yes, but once you have an infinite number of universes, highly improbable has no meaning.

With an infinite number of universes, not only is anything possible, but everything becomes certain. EVERYTHING. The expectation that we should be able to make sense out of our universe drops to near zero.

One MORE caveat, I really REALLY hate the multi-verse theory. It's inelegant and UGLY. So, I'm VERY prejudiced against it.

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:40 pm**

I don't see that you've presented any contradictions, just that you think an infinite number of universes is an aesthetically unattractive idea. Well, there's no reason to expect the explanation to be attractive! But even so, I think we can make it more attractive:

1. I don't see any reason why we would need infinite universes. Maybe just 4238471239438124 universes. Why 4238471239438124? Why not? If you think that 4238471239438124 is somehow more unlikely than infinite universes (other than being less likely to generate our universe, but then just keep adding 0's to the number until you are sufficiently convinced), then I would like to see your math. But if we had any conception of the order of things outside our universe, then maybe 4238471239438124 would be the expected number and any other number just wouldn't make any sense. But as it is, there is no way to speculate.

2. Maybe there are constraints to the universes, such as that, even though all universal constants can vary, all universes must be born out of a big bang. Not only does this idea seem consistent with aesthetics, but it also instantly dismisses Demski's example, since our universe could not have been the result of a big bang a few seconds ago.

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:55 pm**

Jeff250 wrote:Maybe there are constraints to the universes, such as that, even though all universal constants can vary, all universes must be born out of a big bang. Not only does this idea seem consistent with aesthetics, but it also instantly dismisses Demski's example, since our universe could not have been the result of a big bang a few seconds ago.

First, TWO apologies. The concept I was attempting to present was actually mentioned in a book of Behe's, not Dembski's. Also, I misrepresented it. I'll explain below.

Jeff250 wrote:I don't see that you've presented any contradictions

Absolutely correct. I reject the Infinite universes hypothesis for the same reason I reject solipsism. Not because it's impossible, but because it's just not very useful. If there are an infinite number of universes, then there exist an infinite number of universes where such highly improbable things have happened that science is useless.

The concept that I misrepresented in my last post originally comes from a book called "Anthropic Bias" by Nick Bostrom. Take, for example, hawking radiation coming from a black hole. Black holes emit random particles. There is a very, VERY, small, but *finite* probability that ANYTHING might pop out of a black hole. A pot of flowers or a whale, for example. The probability is so low that in a single universe, we need never worry about these things happening. In a finite multi-verse we would probably never see them. BUT, if you have an INFINITE number of universes, then all bets are off. Anything that has a finite probability should happen, and should happen an infinite number of times.

This means, if there are an infinite number of universes, we should expect an infinite subset of those universes where pots of flowers and blue whales were spontaneously emitted from black holes. Furthermore, we should expect an infinite subset of universes where human brains were spontaneously emitted by black holes. Brains that were complete with memories and sensations exactly the same as yours at this moment. "Freak Observers" who's observations have nothing to do with reality but are just an accident that occurred when infinity and probability collided.

Black holes are certainly not necessary for this phenomenon. Anything that randomly crashes atoms together has a finite probability of smashing them together in a manner that produces some highly improbable object.

An infinite number of universes completely destroys statistics and probability. And if there are an infinite number of "freak observers" popping in and out of existence throughout the multi-verse, what reason is there to believe that you are not one of them?

So, no, there is NOTHING in this that is self contradictory. But like solipsism, it's pointless. Pointless and UGLY!

Jeff250 wrote: I don't see any reason why we would need infinite universes. Maybe just 4238471239438124 universes.

Absolutely. I did not mean to be addressing a finite multi-verse, only an infinite multi-verse. Behe also had some objections to a finite multi-verse. Probably valid objections, but, since I'm not a fan of the whole "universal constants" field, I see no need to spend hours and hours defending it. I waste enough time defending theories I like.

Anyone who wants more details on Behe's point of view on a finite multi-verse should check out "The Edge of Evolution" By Michael J. Behe. It's an excellent book, worth your time.

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:32 pm**

We can see only 4% of our observable universe and that, as some cosmologists speculate, is only 1/1,000,000th of the whole universe and by the whole universe I mean the event created during our big bang expansion.

So, every photograph we have ever taken, or every star we have ever seen through a telescope, was within that 4%. Whether our universe is all there is or there are other universes next to ours like soap bubbles in a sink will never be known.

Someday the LHC, which is broken right now, will create tiny universes and with those we will be able to get an idea of what could happen on a large scale and I'm willing to bet that multiverses will be seen.

Bee

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:54 pm**

Kilarin wrote: Behe also had some objections to a finite multi-verse.

just realized I said this wrong. His objections were NOT that a finite multi-verse couldn't exist, but only that it didn't settle the problem of a fine tuned universe or answer the question of whether evolution by random mutation and natural selection was adequate to explain the origin of life.

Posted: **Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:51 am**

Bet51987 wrote:I'm willing to bet that multiverses will be seen.

I'll take that bet, Bet.

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You have to realize that the multi-verse idea is simply a method physicists have used for resolving ambiguities or apparent contradictions in their particular field.
"Well, according to the model, we should get both A and B."
"But they can't both happen at once, not in our universe."
"So, let's talk about it in terms of multiple universes..."

A good example is quantum mechanics, which is highly driven by models involving probability structures (where quantum "states" of something like an electron are defined in terms of a probability distribution, rather than a definitive state). So, yes, it's natural that people start thinking about the model in terms of multiple concurrent possibilities.
"What if the electron is in both states?" / "What if the coin flip is both heads and tails?"

Yes, quantum mechanics probability works well to model physical reality. However, it does not follow that reality must be probabilistic in nature, or that there must be multiple realities to accomodate each possible result. The 50%/50% probability model for the result of a coin flip works quite well! ...but it doesn't mean there must be a separate universe for heads and tails.

Remember, physicists are working with mathematical models. The fact we can make an accurate computer model of my car doesn't imply that my car exists in a computer somewhere. (Maybe it does, and we're really in something like The Matrix, but that's more philosophy than real science.)

Discussion of multiple universes is interesting stuff (and it makes for great sci-fi!), but it doesn't yet belong in rigorous science.

IMHO, rather than finding other universes, I believe what we'll find is that reality in our universe isn't as definitive as we'd like to think... maybe electrons can be in multiple quantum states...?

Kilarin wrote:IF you assume there are an infinite number of universes... it is now certain that every possible universe exists. EVERY POSSIBLE. The implications of that are terrifying once you really consider them.

Ugh.

One of my pet peeves is misunderstandings about infinite sets, and this is one of them. MD_1118 posted something similar a few weeks ago during one of his philosophical ramblings, and it's just plain wrong.

Even if you have an infinite set of universes, this does not mean that it necessarily contains "every possible universe", even if you include the caveat that they must all be distinct.

"S is an infinite set of distinct universes" does not even come remotely close to "S includes every possible universe".

DescentBB

How do you believe the universe started?

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