Because the way I understand it is somehow the universe will do magic and create intelligence by doing some random shit? Isn't that woo? Can someone please explain tome how the Anthropic Principle is somehow better thsn Intelligent Design?
Quote from: CrucifyCindy on September 06, 2015, 04:25:51 AM
Because the way I understand it is somehow the universe will do magic and create intelligence by doing some random shit? Isn't that woo? Can someone please explain tome how the Anthropic Principle is somehow better thsn Intelligent Design?
There is no universal will or intelligence. and the 'Anthropic Principal' is as much woo as 'Intelligent design'.
Just because I am sitting having a coffee and looking at the web does not mean that the whole of existence was created for or had a guiding principal to bring this moment about.
There is the Strong Anthropic Principle and the Weak Anthropic Principle. The former requires
a being to have created the Universe whereas the latter does not since it can be explained by
science and particularly physics. When discussing this it is important to differentiate between
the two interpretations. Some times the Fine Tuning Argument is used as proof of the Strong
Anthropic but this is totally false for it proves nothing of the sort. The statistical improbability
of the Fine Tuning Argument does not render it invalid in and of itself. It simply means it was
less probable to happen than not to happen although it is still within the probability spectrum
Something that those who believe in the Strong Anthropic seem to be some what unaware of
It's a question of semantics. One could consider the AP as woo. In science, it is taken as just an assumption. And it's given the honorary title "principle" as it can never be proven. Personally, I see it as a fad that comes and goes. Nothing to lose sleep over.
surrepititious57 - Yes and no. The weak anthropic principle has no explanatory power ... so it is useless. Basically only a universe where humans are possible, can be allowed. Then this is back peddled to the 24? tunable parameters of the Standard Theory ... to justify why those values instead of others. It is a rationalization prima facie, an attempt to cover the theoretical embarrassment of the Standard Theory (which mostly works otherwise, if you accept good values for the parameters). An ideal theory would have no tunable parameters ... but that is aspiration, not reality. Unicorns of unified field theory.
Fine tuning paradox is a non-issue, because reality doesn't care how many decimal places people use ... if Pi is part of the parameter justification ... and it is part of the fine structure constant ... then the last digit of Pi is significant ... and can never be known by definition ... that parameter is infinitely fine, since it is a transcendental number.
CrucifyCindy - There are several universal principles in science. One is Uniformitarianism ... that what physics is here and now, is what physics was and will be ... everywhere in the universe. There is no way to prove this ... but there is plausible evidence that it is so. It is also a truism, that this universe has to be of a type (assuming it could be anything else) that allows human life. Also science by principle, allows no gods, so science can never demonstrate any gods, and still be self consistent. Intelligent Design for most folks, means short term Creationism of 6000 years ... but this is polemic on the part of seculars, that is not why Paley brought it up 200 years ago. My own experience is that the universe is the result of Cruel Design, not Intelligent Design. I am a theist who does not worship G-d.
Turing Machine theory allows "oracles" which technically are input from outside the Turing machine that could not be produced by any Turing machine. To the process of the Turing machine, an "oracle" is transcendental, just as transcendental numbers have no final digit. A Turing machine (or a human) can only calculate an approximation of Pi, yet it is believed that the full value of Pi is real anyway. This is not unlike the original debate about imaginary numbers.
It is a separate question, whether quantum randomness can produce a universe like we know, on the macro scale. It certainly works over short periods of time and small spaces. But it is beyond demonstration, like Uniformitarianism is over large scales and long times ... because of human limitation. A scientist does a repeatable observation or a controlled experiment. The arrangement produces data, which is charted, and a curve is drawn thru the data. The arrangement is the outcome of the cumulative understanding of nature of the scientist (voltages exist in some sense for example). The type of curve drawn thru the data is also the outcome of the cumulative understanding of theoretical matters (Ohm's law is reasonable). And the results are fed back into further repeatable observations and controlled experiments. But given raw data, any number of curves could be drawn thru the data .. but scientists have an imperfect way to obtain consensus, called peer review. That and the observation or experiment can be repeated or improved. But this is simply a cycle of confirmation bias ... that is amazingly effective, because empirical nature cooperates. Even Einstein felt that the effectiveness of mathematics in science was woo ... but was comfortable with philosophical concepts anyway.
The remarkable accuracy of mathematics in explaining how the Universe functions and its myriad of applications in other
disciplines is what has made many ask if it was created or discovered. And that may be why Einstein thought it was woo
with regard to its scientific application. Now given that it is an axiomatically deductive system of logic that uses proof to
validate its premises I think it was discovered. Now of course this itself ironically cannot be proven but neither can it be
disproven. Whereas other types of abstract systems can be compromised by human interpretation mathematics cannot
Hence why I think it was discovered. Since it is way too perfect to have been imagined into existence by mere humans
Mathematics is not the same kind of reality as physics, it is true. But if it is discovered, and it exists outside of the reality of physics, then where is it? And bam! We are back, back, back to the past with ... Plato, not with Samurai Jack.
My personal view, is that pure objectivity is not obtainable, it is relative, not absolute. Therefore you can't legitimately take the observer out of the physics experiment. You also can't take the savant out of the math. The orderliness of nature, partly lies within us ... and the orderliness of math, completely lies within us ... and because those two worlds overlap, that is why math is so spooky effective. What lies outside of us, is partly us ... and what lies inside us, partly isn't us. Like the recursive interlaced boundary between regions in chaos theory or a Mandelbrot set.
Quote from: surreptitious57 on September 06, 2015, 09:37:20 AM
The remarkable accuracy of mathematics in explaining how the Universe functions and its myriad of applications in other
disciplines is what has made many ask if it was created or discovered. And that may be why Einstein thought it was woo
with regard to its scientific application. Now given that it is an axiomatically deductive system of logic that uses proof to
validate its premises I think it was discovered. Now of course this itself ironically cannot be proven but neither can it be
disproven. Whereas other types of abstract systems can be compromised by human interpretation mathematics cannot
Hence why I think it was discovered. Since it is way too perfect to have been imagined into existence by mere humans
I lean on the side that math is invented. It's a human product. All of math resides on one idea, the law of identity, which is another human construct. All math can be shown as a mapping between two sets (another human construct). You add structure to you math by being choosy on which two sets you pick and which mapping you pick. From there, you can define topologies, manifolds, linearity, differentiability, continuity, and so on. You DISCOVER along that creative process that certain definitions (concepts) are more useful than others. Sometimes that discovery make take centuries: case in point - the imaginary numbers were thought to be useless until physics started to use them just about everywhere; case in point, Grassmann had invented numbers that was thought to be totally useless by none other than the great physicist Hamilton in the 19th century. In the 1960's, physicists realized that they are just perfect to describe fermions. Today, if you want to learn QFT, you need to brush up on Grassmann numbers.
So in summary, math in the initial process is a creative process of the human mind, then it's a discovery that it is useful to describe the real world. It is no different than words, which used is the same manner: invention, then discovery of its usefulness.
Quote from: CrucifyCindy on September 06, 2015, 04:25:51 AM
Because the way I understand it is somehow the universe will do magic and create intelligence by doing some random shit? Isn't that woo? Can someone please explain tome how the Anthropic Principle is somehow better thsn Intelligent Design?
It's not woo and it's not magic. That seems clear in the definition of the anthropic principle. Any attempt to insert those qualities into it, even if you really really want them to be included, doesn't mean they are there.
The Anthropic Principle's usefulness can be exposed by considering its contrary: suppose that in this universe you discover that the form of the natural laws, and the values of the parameters those laws are governed by, disallow the development of intelligent life, particularly us? Then we have ample reason to believe that something is seriously screwy with physics because physics shouldn't allow our existence, yet we exist all the same â€" by any natural explanation, we should not exist, yet we do. That suggests that naturalism (only naturalistic laws are in operation in our universe) is false.
Creationist arguments all take this form, one way or another, with the sole exception of the Fine Tuning argument. Those other arguments boil down to, "The world isn't governed completely by naturalism, therefore God." Young earth creationists try to characterize the universe (and Earth) as young to make it impossible for humans to have evolved by naturalistic means by cutting down the time we would have to evolve naturally, therefore God. Irreducible complexity arguments try to make it impossible for humans to have evolved naturalistically by placing barriers to that evolution, therefore God. And if such a thing were to be observed, they would be very potent arguments against total naturalism â€" obviously, not everything could be explained by naturalism (like us).
But that means that every time naturalism is upheld, it must diminish God's role in the universe. That's the way empiricism works. The observation that the universe follows laws that, in the end, allow for our existence can only support naturalism and never undermine it. Thus, Fine Tuning arguments, which argue essentially that, "The world is governed completely by naturalism, therefore God," are wrong. Period. In fact, the more fine tuned the universe needs to be to create life, the more naturalism is supported, because then the only place you'd expect to find life (ie, you) is in a universe that is fine tuned! It's a very sharp prediction of naturalism, so when that prediction bears out, our confidence in naturalism, it gains support in spades.
The Fine Tuning argument is simply creationists wanting to have both prongs of the argument â€" they want the observation demolishing naturalism to support their position; they want the observation confirming naturalism to support their position. They want any observation to support their position. Sorry, not happening.
Thus the Anthropic Principle is explained: in it's weak version, it's simply the requirement that the universe follows naturalistic laws â€" we should make no observation that forbids our existence in a completely naturalistic universe. The Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP) and the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP) are wrong â€" we cannot assess universes which allow for our existence but don't actually contain us.
Tell that to the multi-universe theorists ... which are driven by the QM interpretation problem, the QM measurement problem et al, along with Superstrings ... to posit an infinity of universes, most of which don't contain us. This ties in with Feynman's path integral way of doing QM ... which says that while there is only one universe that is observable, it is the sum (integral) of an infinite number of sub-universes which are not (as indeed true for ordinary quantum waves which are not observable themselves, yet impact the observables that are. This problem comes from realism ... that what kind of process is found, in the equation that the consensus drives thru the data (data partly selected by that same consensus) must be found in nature. Otherwise it has no explanatory power.
Of course this is really an argument over harmonic analysis ... are the waves real, or just the sum of the waves? ... and that ties directly into the climate warming analysis for example, which basically says that anything driving the output, must be identifiable by frequency ... that carries over from the input to the output. Since the human input has a particular frequency, and this shows up in the output of the model as a primary cause to match the historical weather/CO2 data ... then humans are the primary component. Or are they? One has to assume a sufficiently linear PDE for that analysis to work ... similarly given the complex model of a particular situation, the obviously probability driven input ... is the weather model too linear compared to reality? Otherwise you get queer things happening in the transfer function.
Irrelevant. We cannot access these other universe to confirm any of what you say.
Thiests
After much testing
(https://38.media.tumblr.com/3f1bb02d7c13f73db579c99de31b50a7/tumblr_mv73r0fJDD1rdfgw4o1_500.gif)
We have found your gawd in one of the multiverses!
(https://33.media.tumblr.com/5cd3f5df371ee990ec2f08a42506f82a/tumblr_n3rd80B8fr1s2wio8o1_500.gif)
She's in one created by human consciousness
(http://www.catholicpulse.com/cp/images/columns/francis_sitting_hand.jpg)
Exactly ... but the human consciousness and unconsciousness are miraculous. The consciousness etc doesn't come from the physics, the physics comes from the consciousness etc. Creativity is a human super-power.
needs bombing
Quote from: Baruch on September 06, 2015, 06:03:21 PM
This ties in with Feynman's path integral way of doing QM ... which says that while there is only one universe that is observable, it is the sum (integral) of an infinite number of sub-universes which are not (as indeed true for ordinary quantum waves which are not observable themselves, yet impact the observables that are.
Perhaps there are people who might think that, but Feynman's path integral is anything but that. In the calculations, one considers all paths, true, but each path is multiplied by a phase factor so that those paths that deviates from the classical path are less likely to happen, and are cancelled by other paths. What remains are those paths very near the classical trajectory. There are no sub-universes in this calculation. Anyway, I have a blog doing all these calculations. For those not of faint-of-heart kind of people, see: http://soi.blogspot.ca/2014/05/path-integral-simplified.html
I may visit ... my current review of QM that I am doing for a personal project ... doesn't go as far as that.
The question of relative (local) phase is something the elementary treatments don't ... get into. And some problems don't require all the bits and pieces of the Fourier analysis. Feynman himself never mentions universes in that way ... just that there are multiple virtual particle paths that sum to one real particle path .. in the same way that a charged particle is surrounded by a boiling sea of virtual particles that effect in small measurable ways, some of the properties of the particle in question (QED). Of course Feynman invented himself that way of visualizing a bunch of terms in an infinite series for the numerical calculation of some quantum observable ... but is it literal or just a convenient way to organize the math?