Certain “scientific” theories sound as much like science as religion to me. Multiverse and Superstring are a couple of the big offenders in that, imho.
There is some very strong evidence for the “expansionary phase” refinement of the Big Bang theory. This suggests there are regions of space inside our universe that are simply too far away from us ever to be perceived. Such regions might (there is no evidence for this) have slightly different values on physical constants.
Anyway, there is some evidence for this particular version of the “multiverse” concept.
The idea of a Big Bang seems to imply the possibility of others. Why should such a thing only have happened once?
(Far as that goes, if God came into existence…why not more than once? There might be as many Gods as there are galaxies. Who the hell knows?)
Oh man, do I have a scam for you.
This is a real scam, and it’s done all the time in casinos, sports betting parlors, the internet, and at race tracks. It works like this:
Let’s say there are 5 horses running a race. Find 100 suckers. Tell them each that you have the ‘inside scoop’ on which horse is going to win the race. Then tell twenty of them that it’s horse 1, another twenty that it’s horse 2, etc. Of course, you don’t want to let any of them know about the others.
At the end of the race, there will be twenty people amazed that you called it correctly - especially if by chance the horse that won was a longshot. But they may still be skeptical and think that you may have just guessed correctly.
Now, take those twenty people, and say, “I told you I know. You want proof? I’ll give you the winning horse in the next race, too.” Then tell the first five that it’s horse 1, the second five that it’s horse 2, etc.
After that race, you will have five people who absolutely believe you know something. After all, what are the odds that you would have randomly picked both winning horses, right? So now they ask you to predict the winner for race 3. At that point you say, “Sorry. The first two were freebies, to show you that I wasn’t bluffing or guessing. The next pick is going to cost you $500.”
Four of those people will hate you forever, but you’ll have their money. The fifth one paid you $500, took your tip, and won. Maybe a lot. That guy is now yours for a very long time. He will absolutely believe that you know something. Of course, now you want to string him along for a while, knowing that the next ‘hot tip’ you give him is likely to be wrong. So now you can say things like, "Sorry, but my sources are more vague for the next race. I -think- I know, and I know enough for a bet to be profitable, but there’s some risk. So this time I’ll give you the tip for only $100.
Now, even if the guy loses, he’s still going to believe you. In fact, he may think you’re the most honest guy ever by being ‘straight’ with him about your lack of certitude about the next race.
It’s all about perspective.
Of course, this scam is much easier in the internet age. There are web sites out there promising such ‘hot tips’ on stocks, sports, you name it. And because they can draw in thousands of people, they can play that game for a long time. It’s big in sports betting where the odds are close to 50/50, because if you only lose half your suckers with each play, you can still have a lot of marks to fleece. Start with 10,000 people, and after five bets you still have over 300 people for whom you’ve been right every time, and you can start extracting serious money from them. And after five more bets, you will still have 10 people for whom you have called every single game correctly. How much do you think they’ll pay for the 11th tip?
Of course, the smarter way to do it is to not be certain, but to simply offer advice good enough to beat the spread. That way you don’t lose half each time, as people will tolerate some losses if the overall result is better than chance. Done right, you can run this scam for years and even look completely legitimate and no one will never know the difference. And all you’re doing is taking advantage of randomness and the difference in perspective between the person who is an outlier and the person who can see the ‘big picture’.
Perhaps. However, it is not as though there is no tradition of people from multiple religions in multiple parts of the world over the extent of multiple millennia referring to a spiritual realm that is separate from the physical.
I am not claiming that such claims are accurate, only that they are not some sort of mysterious speech that is incomprehensible to those who view the world as exclusively physical as if they had never encountered the concepts. Certainly, those who espouse a spiritual realm should refrain from claiming that it is “obvious” or “true” since they cannot provide physical evidence of a non-physical realm. Similarly, those whose view is that of a purely physical realm should refrain from pretending that they have no idea what their opponents are saying. A bit of courtesy on both sides will make your “tedious” and “exasperating” efforts go more smoothly.
No. Using phrases such as “magic logic nullifier” and “weasel words” is being snide, as is claiming that you are being rational as if your opponents are not, regardless how you wish to view yourself as just being right. And reacting with hostility or snideness, as though you have never heard such concepts is not being rational; it is being emotional.
Please note that I am not claiming that both arguments have or should have equal weight in such a discussion. My original point simply noted that there was an irreconcilable barrier to most such discussions. Challenging me to defend one side or the other is silly. Asserting that your opinion is the one that is obviously correct while using dismissive language to describe the opposite view is being snide.
You are perfectly free to assert that appeals to a non-spiritual realm are pointless. Doing so in a snarky manner does not promote the discussion in which cymk apparently wishes to engage.
Hang on, The post I made is not an hypothesis or a claim to be representative of any scientific theory. There is no evidence for it. Arguments like this are rather a philosophical thought experiment. They are an answer to the claim that fine-tuning MUST be evidence of a God. I don’t have to prove that a multiverse exists in this context. I just have to present a thought experiment that says, “IF there is a multiverse, then your claim of divine intervention does not follow.”
Such an argument would not be a valid rejoinder to an actual scientific claim, because it then violates Occam’s Razor, among other things. But in the context of disputing a claim that also has no evidence but relies on the argument that lack of an explanation implies God did it, it’s valid so long as it doesn’t contradict known physical laws.
By saying “The latter seems simpler” you appear to be applying Occam’s Razor. That’s an invalid approach because both arguments have no basis in evidence, and neither one can be said to be ‘simpler’. Or if you don’t accept that, here’s the simplest explanation: It just happened. It was random. We got lucky. We don’t have to invoke a multiverse or anything else. If we just look at the evidence of the Big Bang and don’t speculate about anything beyond it, it’s still valid to say that A) we don’t know everything, and in time we may learn how this ‘tuning’ happened, or B) there’s no reason for it, other than it just happened that way by chance.
You don’t need a multiverse for that. You just need a really big universe. And in fact, there’s evidence that we DO live in a really big universe, and that the universe we can observe may be just a tiny pinprick in a much larger one, all of which was created in the big bang.
For example of evidence of this, we can look at the measurements of the topology of the universe, which seems to be incredibly flat. There are only two ways that can happen: Either the amount of matter in our universe is exactly enough to flatten space, or the universe is so incredibly vast that even if space is curved or toroidal or whatever, the amount of curvature we can measure is insignificant. Like trying to measure the curvature of the earth with a micrometer.
But you’ve got the argument all wrong anyway. Skeptics don’t say Bigfoot is impossible, they say that there’s no evidence for Bigfoot, so there’s no reason to believe in one. That’s all. If there’s a parallel Earth out there that has a Bigfoot, then presumably there will be evidence and Skeptics on alternate Earth won’t have a problem with it.
If the argument is that the entire universe obeys the same physical laws, then Skeptics will still be right regardless of whether Nessie or Bigfoot or Alien visitations happen on those Earths. They’ll just be skeptical of different things.
But given a sufficiently large universe, random chance tells us that there will be regions of it where there ARE identical Earths. Not just that, but regions where there’s not just identical Earths, but identical visible ‘light bubbles’ (i.e. on alt-earth, even the stars look the same and are in the same places). And every possible variation thereof. It would take a truly gargantuan universe, but it’s possible.
That’s acceptable under our physics, but those same physics tell us that there’s no way for us to ever know, as the distance to them makes them utterly unavailable to us due to the speed of light limit.
It’s simple. You just gotta BELIEVE!!!
When someone asks for a cite that a particular word was used to characterize something, and a cite is “provided,” I think I’m justified in expecting to find that word within the quoted material.
Quite apart from the issue of the material you omitted in the ellipsis, that’s pretty annoying.
No, this would be indicative of un-intelligent design.
Surely an intelligent designer would use a method with a high probability of achieving its goal, rather than trying for a long-shot ? The long-shot argument (such as it is) only makes sense if the designer is a minor magical entity desperately battling against an adverse environment - not of its own making.
Quite apart from? When you ask someone for a cite, and they deliver a rough approximation of what they claimed by thoroughly misrepresenting the source, your problem is that they only delivered a rough approximation?