New Miscellany: fine tuning, theodicy, climate, evolution (General)

by David Turell , Monday, March 10, 2025, 19:49 (52 days ago) @ dhw

Fine tuning again

dhw: The third quote is Siegel’s sole mention of fine-tuning, but he has left out the crucial biochemical and environmental fine-tuning. Of course the universe as it is ALLOWS life, or makes life POSSIBLE. But that doesn't mean that ”the entire universe is fine-tuned for life to appear”. Without biochemical and environmental fine-tuning, life could NOT appear, and the only place that we know has this fine tuning is Planet Earth. Therefore, as you agreed on March 3rd, the entire universe is NOT fine-tuned for life to appear. Please stop disagreeing with yourself.
(David’s red. Dhw’s bold)

DAVID: The first bolded/colored statement above is the essence of the fine-tuning concept. I have agreed to your point to add secondarily a local friendly-to-life climate.

dhw: You are deliberately ignoring the whole point of this discussion. Allowing life, or making it possible, is not enough to produce life! Life requires biochemical and environmental fine-tuning, without which it cannot exist. Indeed, the sheer complexity – the fine tuning - of living things (and their interaction with the all-important, fine-tuned hospitable environment) is a crucial factor for your faith in the existence of a designer. It is therefore absurd to claim that “the entire universe is fine-tuned for life to appear”, when as far as we know, the fine-tuning for life has taken place only on Planet Earth. That is my view of fine-tuning.

DAVID (March 3): I have accepted the Wilsonian view of fine tuning in my statement.

dhw: […] then of course we can close the discussion.

DAVID: Yes, close.

dhw: Please stop disagreeing with yourself.

I'm disagreeing with you. Having a life allowing universe is always a FIRST requirement. Your friendly climate is a secondary requirement in that order.

Theodicy

DAVID: The good came with the evil side effects. God had to accept them.

dhw: Your all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God had to accept that he was powerless to prevent the evil he had created, and did not have the knowledge to create the world he wanted (assuming that in his all-goodness he disapproved of evil).

We cannot have the good without the evil. An all-knowing God had no solution for that side-effect. I'm alive and enjoying the good. Yes, I'm fully aware of evil, but not twisted into knots over it as you are.

Climate change

Timing a probable glacial period

DAVID: We agree on the effects humans have and should mitigate them, but you want it faster than I do.

dhw: I have not specified a speed. You agree that we need to start now, and we must proceed at a speed which will balance the need to avoid increasing damage to the environment against the need to avoid social and economic disaster. I don’t know why you are so desperate to withdraw your agreements with me.

I'm not withdrawing it. Your urgency specifies a speed you may not realize. I'm just slower.

Evolution

DAVID: God evolves all. You don't like it, but it works eventually.

dhw: I have no objection to the theory of evolution. I only object to the absurdity of an all-powerful God who is messy and inefficient. You refuse to consider alternatives.

DAVID: I refuse to accept humanized God forms.

dhw: You have proposed that your God enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, may or may not love us, may want a relationship with us, may want us to recognize his work and worship him, and probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. Furthermore, a God whose designing talents are messy, cumbersome and inefficient sounds all too human to me. Why do you refuse to accept your own humanizing proposals?

Adler warns we must think allegorically about God's attributes. Your problem is you laugh at Adler and do not realize I am thinking allegorically about God. God used evolution as His standard pattern of development, with the Big Bang to the current universe as an example. Then He evolved life to finally reach humans. Evolution is God's preferred method of creation, and we do not know why. All I can say is the giant tree of evolution gave us an enormous supporting supply necessary to let us survive.