# Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111 "2005-06-27T23:46:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/21 "2005-06-28T11:45:21Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > I thought I recalled your saying that you had seen drug induced hallucinations. Wherefore is it now that you had seen God? Sorry - overly brief shorthand. “Saw God” = “Attained a neurological state of synchronised activity in the temporal lobes interpreted by some (and me _at the time_) as a _divine_ experience”. (And no drugs were involved, although later drug experiences were similar in some respects.) I might similarly say, as a skeptic, that as a child I saw a monster in the cupboard. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/22 "2005-06-28T11:53:21Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Sorry - overly brief shorthand. “Saw God” = “Attained a neurological state of synchronised activity in the temporal lobes interpreted by some (and me _at the time_) as a _divine_ experience”. (And no drugs were involved, although later drug experiences were similar in some respects.) I might similarly say, as a skeptic, that as a child I saw a monster in the cupboard. Well, then. If you wish, let us posit that you have recovered from your delusions while I have fallen prey to mine. After all, I used to be an atheist (and incidentally, may we say that “Atheist” = “Failure to perceive reality”?). Where is the scientific evidence that decides for us whether it is God Who made the temporal lobe or the temporal lobe that made God? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/23 "2005-06-28T12:03:31Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > Where is the scientific evidence that decides for us whether it is God Who made the temporal lobe or the temporal lobe that made God? I do not recall suggesting that there was any. I said that my _interpretation_ of that temporal lobe activity was one way as a teenager and another now. I would not call you “delusional” any more than I would tell the schizophrenic that they do not hear voices - clearly they _do_, I merely suggest a different _source_. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/24 "2005-06-28T12:08:13Z")
> [@Lib](#): > > incidentally may we say that “Atheist” = “Failure to perceive reality”? Say what you like, friend. These shapes on the screen cause me no pain since I know that they are not shaped to wound. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/25 "2005-06-28T14:25:20Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Well, I’m not sure what ‘four gigbaud’ is, I assume you meant four gigabits. It’s an increasingly archaic term, and one most often used by older, less-computer-literate folks, but baud is a valid term to use. A baud is one symbol per second (one state or frame transition). The nice thing about using “baud” is that it’s a rate, rather then a quantity. So one could say “baud” rather than “bits per second” and save some keystrokes, I guess. But it makes ever so much sense to talk about bits per second (or in this case, gigabits per second). ---
**Author:** ![MirabileAuditu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MirabileAuditu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MirabileAuditu)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/26 "2005-06-30T03:28:13Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Yeah, I remember the first time I read a Josh McDowell book, too. 1. My remarks do not derive from a “Josh McDowell book.” 2. Please find for me any reference by any author to the term “Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies” and I will buy you a new car. 3. Petty condescension such as you and your pals display here is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific. ---
**Author:** ![MirabileAuditu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MirabileAuditu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MirabileAuditu)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/27 "2005-06-30T03:45:41Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Welcome to the boards. 🙂 > > Do you have a cite for that? As a site dedicated to ‘fighting ignorance’, we like to see proof where possible. > Did you use the phrase before these people did? > > Where did DNA come from, ultimately? Who made these wonderful "rules and laws of nature’ that they should be so convenient, and stable, and perfectly reproducible? Why, it all originated with the Big Bang. > Either that was "an accident’ of nature, or else it was designed. If it was not designed by our Creator, then someone needs to explain whence came energy and matter and organization, and the Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies that surround us, from the beauty of sight, which derives from the beauty of light, and countless other "coincidences’ that are not encoded in DNA, to the beauty of a newborn baby, whose tooth enamel and cornea both originated from one single, replicating cell. > Our Creator made this universe for us to observe and learn from, but also to each other and him, and certainly not to deny his part in this magnificent work we call the cosmos. > > [http://www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,207%7E24945%7E2882967,00.html](http://www.sgvtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,207%257E24945%257E2882967,00.html) > > Ecclesiastes 1:7 All rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence rivers come, thither they return again. > The cyclical nature of nature encompasses us. The water cycle is described only with utmost brevity in Ecclesiastes. Today we understand (considerably better than did Biblical authors) the evaporation of water. Beyond this, we can see and describe cycles of carbon, and nitrogen, and oxygen, and hydrogen. We are able to comprehend the nature of energy, and the conservation of not only energy, but also of matter itself. More complex by far is the transformation of matter into energy, which gives us sunlight continuously. Why should all these things be? And why so reliably? Why are chemical reactions so wonderfully and perfectly reversible? Why? For the same reason that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. For that reason. These Profound Fortuitous Interdependencies did not just fall into place with Megaluck over Megatime, as some scientists posit, their fingers crossed. > [Science In The Bible](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1371815/posts) > > I gather that you believe this: > > - because conditions here on Earth are within narrow parameters for life to exist, this proves that God created the Earth. > > The problem I have with that is that if things were different, we wouldn’t be here. > > Also, why did God create the Moon? > Do you think there is life on the Moon, or did God make a mistake? 1. Who do you think “these people” are? Please, start fighting ignorance, will you? Think. 2. Let me provide you with some statistical perspective. A. There are ~10^80 fundamental particles in the universe. B. Assuming that 10^50 grains of sand would fill a sphere the size of our solar system fifteen times over, what is the probability of selecting, at random, ONE specially marked grain of sand from that pile of 10^50 grains on the first and only try? Would anyone like to hazard a guess of, say, one chance in 10^50? No repeat tries. No infinite number of tries. ONE and one only. 1. This is a working definition, and a very plausible one, of “impossible”, i.e. one chance in 10^50. You see, the earth is pretty large. It has lots of grains of sand on and around it. Jupiter is a whole lot bigger. But funny thing, the sun dwarfs both jupiter and earth. Here’s the good part. The orbit of pluto is way big. Multiply that sphere by 15, fill it with sand, and have at it. Once. Now the probability that the gravitational constant would be exactly what it is out of the nearly infinite number of values it could have been is profoundly less likely than one chance in 10^50. 1. The gravitational constant is merely one of the dozens of constants that are extremely precise. 2. Which brings us to smartass retorts. Said the fellow who fell 25,000 feet from an airplane and survived to tell the tale: “The probability that I would fall 25,000 feet from an airplane without a parachute and survive was exactly 1. After all, I’m here, aren’t I .” All too many anti-intellectuals really have no concept of what probability means. Probability is a measure of the chance that an event will occur. One does not merely point about at everything that has happened and say that all probabilities are “1” because these things occurred. That is about as foolish as it gets. “The universe is unlikely. Very unlikely. Deeply, shockingly unlikely.” Martin Rees, astronomer Since the statistical “wizards” think they know so much about probabilities being 1, then please, one of you, give me the winning numbers for the next Super Lotto this Saturday in California. After all, the probability that the winner is going to win is “1”, isn’t it… What ARE those numbers. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/28 "2005-06-30T03:56:18Z")
[QUOTE=glee] Welcome to the boards. 🙂 \*\* this magnificent work we call the cosmos. \*\* Well…really cool maybe but magnificent?? Gosh :o ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/29 "2005-06-30T04:00:54Z")
> [@MirabileAuditu](#): > > Now the probability that the gravitational constant would be exactly what it is out of the nearly infinite number of values it could have been is profoundly less likely than one chance in 10^50. You cannot demonstrate this to be true. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/30 "2005-06-30T04:06:15Z")
In all seriousness, what you’re presenting here is just a dressed up version of the argument from incredulity. Your terminology may be new, but your ideas aren’t. And they’ve been analyzed, dissected, and found wanting. Also, you may want to hold off on rambling about the nature of probability before you grasp the difference between an event in the past and an event in the future. ---
**Author:** ![MirabileAuditu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MirabileAuditu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MirabileAuditu)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/31 "2005-06-30T04:13:33Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Ten to the thirty-ninth is a measure of the weakness of the gravitational force as compared with the electromagnetic. > > Frederik Pohl, _Beyond the Blue Event Horizon_ gosh, gosh, gosh, 10^-39 is a measure of the weakness of the gravitational force as compared with the STRONG NUCLEAR, NOT the “electromagnetic.” “We’re here, we’re here, we’re here.” - Horton Hears A Who “It’s taking a lot longer than we thought.” - “I am no one to be trifled with.” - The Dread Pirate Roberts ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/32 "2005-06-30T12:17:29Z")
Just think of all those poor people in all those other universes where the conditions were such that they simply _couldn’t exist_; just imagine them sitting there, moaning, “it’s such a terrible shame we can’t exist” and “Not only is it deeply unfair that we can’t exist, it’s evidence of lack of design in the universe” ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111/33 "2005-06-30T13:42:03Z")
> [@MirabileAuditu](#): > > Since the statistical “wizards” think they know so much about probabilities being 1, then please, one of you, give me the winning numbers for the next Super Lotto > this Saturday in California. > > After all, the probability that the winner is going to win is “1”, **isn’t it** … > > What ARE those numbers. No. Sometimes the prize is unclaimed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/profound-fortuitous-interdependencies/310111.md?page=1)