Kay 17: @ pastor AIO

No. Rationality is Order$

Oh, it appears I misunderstood your point then, or did I?

When you say Rationality is Order do you mean it contains both Predictability and Chaos?

InesQor:

Oh, it appears I misunderstood your point then, or did I?

When you say Rationality is Order do you mean it contains both Predictability and Chaos?

I meant that Rationality is Order. I went on to say that both Order and Chaos were just opposing principles that interplay in the universe. Sometimes the universe is more Ordered and other times it is more Chaotic.

However you raise a very interesting point that introduces Fractal geometry into the discussion. What about the interaction of Order and Chaos? Do they interact in an ordered way or in a chaotic way? Perhaps the way they interact is sometimes orderly and sometimes chaotic. Then we can take it to the next level. the interplay of order and chaos in the way they interact, is that orderly or is that chaotic? So we can keep higher and higher into deeper differential orders of the interplay of Cosmos and Chaos. We end up with a dialectic of Cosmos and Chaos embedded within a dialectic of Cosmos and Chaos embedded in a dialectic of Cosmos and Chaos . . . . . and on and on ad infinitum.

it is interesting how this portrayed in mythology. Could get into that later.

InesQor:
The problem we have as human beings (even if armed with the elusive Theory of Everything) is that we can never know the exact state of things. Systems which exhibit extreme dependence on initial conditions also exhibit extreme sensitivity to the smallest inaccuracies or omissions in the form of equation used to evaluate future states.

I think that the problem that we have as human beings is that we can never know the exact state of things because the exact state of things are not 'knowable' in the sense that human's do their knowing. In other words Human knowledge is essentially flawed and cannot attain to Truth.

Pastor AIO:

I meant that Rationality is Order. I went on to say that both Order and Chaos were just opposing principles that interplay in the universe. Sometimes the universe is more Ordered and other times it is more Chaotic.

However you raise a very interesting point that introduces Fractal geometry into the discussion. What about the interaction of Order and Chaos? Do they interact in an ordered way or in a chaotic way? Perhaps the way they interact is sometimes orderly and sometimes chaotic. Then we can take it to the next level. the interplay of order and chaos in the way they interact, is that orderly or is that chaotic? So we can keep higher and higher into deeper differential orders of the interplay of Cosmos and Chaos. We end up with a dialectic of Cosmos and Chaos embedded within a dialectic of Cosmos and Chaos embedded in a dialectic of Cosmos and Chaos . . . . . and on and on ad infinitum.

it is interesting how this portrayed in mythology. Could get into that later.

Wow, this is an interesting perspective on the order/chaos interplay, and sounds plausible, even. As Ecc 9:11 states, time and chance happen to them all. I'm definitely interested in the mythology. Please do share once you have the time.

Pastor AIO:

I think that the problem that we have as human beings is that we can never know the exact state of things because the exact state of things are not 'knowable' in the sense that human's do their knowing. In other words Human knowledge is essentially flawed and cannot attain to Truth.

Yeah, human knowledge is flawed due to its limitation in scope. It will be impossible to say you attain "Absolute Truth" as a human, but Truth would be relative to previously accepted Truths (which in turn may be just as flawed, and someday all may fall like a pack of cards).

@thread, these posts deserve a proper responses of course, but I'll just toss this in case anyone misunderstands and assumes I'm ignoring the thread. Lovely posts (ALL WRONG, because I say so. Still beautiful to behold)

@pastor thanks for the info. Don't want to waste time anyone's time with piffle so want to familiarize myself with the idea before commenting. It is interesting of course


@okey, @inesq, at first glance your positions seem somewhat similar. Obviously, we probably have fundamental differences in the way we think. I don't think we would use occam's razor the same way if given the same problems. We might not even interpret occam's razor the same way, ie assuming you even subscribe to it. I'll be back defend why I think the scientific method, a strictly 'objective' version (can't think of a better word, I'm no pro philosopher), should be given precedence over a spiritual outlook when dealing everyday affairs, or at least those that involve other people who may or not share your beliefs. Tentatively I would say it's because your views/methods use speculation that is surplus to requirements, and maybe unjustifiable


On other matters, I don't have time enough just yet. Some initial thoughts

I might be misunderstanding you but you seem to be implying star formation for instance is an example of disorder to order. As far as entropy is concerned, the birth of the universe was the 'perfect' state, or the time when entropy was lowest. Everything after that, formation of matter and stars etc, increased entropy. So while stars might look mighty useful to use, forming them did indeed increase entropy, so it's not a case of disorder to order, it's the reverse. The resultant disorder being useful to us, just like when we synthesize energy and matter for our purposes. We are the products of disorder in the universe.

The constants which have determined the forces which led to us being here might seem to be too good to be true, but that I think is simply because we don't know enough. Just like how we thought our distance from the sun was some special number a designer explicitly set. The speculative article I posted earlier for instance would provide a reasonable explanation (multiverse) if we could somehow test it someday (unlikely). For now, we simply don't have enough info. Also, there are still elements of the anthropic principle here.

Another thing to consider which is somewhat related. Notice how the beginning of the universe was a completely simple, elementary, 'pure' state. Very little complexity as to when contrasted with the universe today with matter, etc involved. Things progressed from simple - complex. Order - disorder. If you are to assume an disorder giver, where did it acquire complexity from? It would have had to have had intelligence, and as far as we can tell intelligence requires inordinate amount of complexity, or disorder.

This trend, simple to complex, makes by far more sense than the reverse in any universe. So, even if there was an intelligent conscious creator of laws that determined the constants in this universe, it must have been birthed from a system of simple to complex itself. It must have been created from something that preceded it, and it very likely would have to be subject to some laws as well. So an intelligent being could not have been first cause, something elementary and ordered must have been disordered and built it, that would accurately be the first cause. Therefore (again, maybe), If there were an intelligent designer for this universe, it would be responsible for the creation of this universe, not its own, and very likely subject to various laws, just like us. These laws and orders would have come into being without any conscious intelligent effort, just random chance likely. Why can't that logic be applied to this universe?

As for chaos, like you say, even if the process itself is deterministic, strictly speaking it's impossible to make predictions in this universe if uncertainty ultimately holds, as we can never fully determine initial parameters. At best we could only make calculated guesses, and the could lead widely different results from what would actually happen. An omniscient being abusing physical laws to discard HUP (impossible if it holds, but assuming) might be the ultimate prediction machine, but omniscience is impossible as well. Even from just basic logical premises. More accurately, the combination of omniscience and freewill or omnipotence, is impossible. That we can discuss later. But, if omniscience is impossible, god would have limits just as we do, and theoretically we should be able to catch up.

This was supposed to be short, look at the time I've wasted...

@Wiegraf, What is your definition of Order? At first you seem to be saying that something is thought to be orderly because it IS USEFUL. like stars etc.

Then on the other hand you seem to be saying that the highest order was at the inception of the universe and that disorder (entropy) has been increasing ever since. However you didn't tell us what makes the state at inception orderly.

I understand order to mean a Patterned structure whereby once you know the pattern you can make predictions about what will happen next.

Pastor AIO: @Wiegraf, What is your definition of Order? At first you seem to be saying that something is thought to be orderly because it IS USEFUL. like stars etc.

Then on the other hand you seem to be saying that the highest order was at the inception of the universe and that disorder (entropy) has been increasing ever since. However you didn't tell us what makes the state at inception orderly.

I understand order to mean a Patterned structure whereby once you know the pattern you can make predictions about what will happen next.

It's not clear? I'll edit it later. We're talking about different things maybe

I'll put it this way, I'm saying its commonly mistaken to think it is useful = ordered. This maybe fine for our purposes. So your definition I agree with in many contexts. But this is my point, and for elements of this discussion, in actuality that is incorrect. Every time we make something useful to us we make it more disordered. So, the state at the beginning of the universe was the most 'ordered' state.

If you were given energy from the beginning of the universe, in its 'pure', 'ordered' form, it would be theoretically possible for you to shape it to fit whatever purposes you have by disordering it. Apply this here and there, get rid of this and that bit, you have now increased entropy and rendered some energy more disordered. For some of the disordered energy, so much so you would not be able to disorder it again for anything useful. So, if you tried to use energy from trillions of years in the future, it would be so disordered it would be useless.

tl; dr: What we call order is a process of disordering. Perfect order would be the universe at its conception

@Wiegraf, I agree with you that usefulness is NOT equal to order. I don't think anyone has said so thus far. A crystal forming in a cave deep under the earth is not useful to anyone but there is no denying that it's crystalline structure is ordered and not chaotic.

As you have not defined what you mean by order I do not know what you mean when you say that the universe was ordered at the beginning. And who disordered it in order (pun?) to make it useful.

Pastor AIO: @Wiegraf, I agree with you that usefulness is NOT equal to order. I don't think anyone has said so thus far. A crystal forming in a cave deep under the earth is not useful to anyone but there is no denying that it's crystalline structure is ordered and not chaotic.

As you have not defined what you mean by order I do not know what you mean when you say that the universe was ordered at the beginning. And who disordered it in order (pun?) to make it useful.

The universe at conception was a nice big chunk of simple energy. That more or else implies sameness everywhere you look. This is what I call the ordered state of the universe. It's useless to us personally of course. Anyways, from there on out arbitrary fluctuations (like with uncertainty) and time disturb this state and it has become increasingly more disorganized. I suppose these fluctuations determine or are determined by the constants. They in turn determine the forces, and the forces determine the rest. That is a simplified version of how I understand the big b.ang worked. Of course I could be wrong, I'm no expert.

So yes, of course you could simply say we are ordering matter/energy to fit our purposes. But you could also say you're destroying bits of it then rearranging what's left to fit your needs. I would focus on the second definition because it highlights the fact that by ordering it you're actually at some level damaging it irreparably. So in a discussion like this where something might seem chaotic, and we might assign less value to it because of its 'chaotic' nature, we might be ignoring the fact that the 'chaos' is probably the more valuable state despite its apparent uselessness to us. From that state the possibilities are endless, you could possibly shape out a species 'better' than ours, or a less hostile universe to life as we know it, or better diamonds etc. Once the 'chaos' has been 'ordered', its overall usefulness has been decreased. So why not term basic energy as the ordered state, and the same energy altered and irreplaceably damaged as chaotic since it is less valuable?

Tl; dr: entropy increases chaos or disorder, so why do we assume or call the more elementary state 'chaotic' or disordered?


Consciousness and intelligence require complexity to form, destroying lots of elementary data, or generating plenty entropy. So it's a simple to complex operation. Even if you have definite evidence of a creator for this universe, there likely would have been a universe where intelligence was formed from a simple to complex mechanism without any external intelligence being involved, just random luck and pure chance. That universe would be the true first cause (well, if it wasn't inadvertently created by another universe). It should have happened at some point, and since there's no evidence to support a designer in ours, why not assume our universe is said universe?


Hope its clearer, but I doubt it

wiegraf:
Consciousness and intelligence require complexity to form, destroying lots of elementary data, or generating plenty entropy. So it's a simple to complex operation. Even if you have definite evidence of a creator for this universe, there likely would have been a universe where intelligence was formed from a simple to complex mechanism without any external intelligence being involved, just random luck and pure chance. That universe would be the true first cause (well, if it wasn't inadvertently created by another universe). It should have happened at some point, and since there's no evidence to support a designer in ours, why not assume our universe is said universe?


Hope its clearer, but I doubt it

Consciousness and intelligence require complexity to form,

This is a big statement to make. Especially without evidence or back up arguments.


It appears that what you define as order is different from what I define as order. Okay no wahala. To me, what you describe as pure energy everywhere is my definition of Nothingness. What you described there is how I understand Creation ex nihilo. But that is another story.

Pastor AIO:


Consciousness and intelligence require complexity to form,

This is a big statement to make. Especially without evidence or back up arguments.

You are correct, but applying occam's razor, which we seem to use differently, this is far and away the likely way intelligence arose. We don't know of anything that just springs up and is intelligent. Even theoretically I believe, we've never been able to conceptualize it. It's always basic matter/energy rearranging itself constantly till you get something complex, like us.

Pastor AIO:
It appears that what you define as order is different from what I define as order. Okay no wahala. To me, what you describe as pure energy everywhere is my definition of Nothingness. What you described there is how I understand Creation ex nihilo. But that is another story.

Yes you aren't using the word the same way I'm using. I'm defining order from entropy, like this from the op

inesq:
In a closed system like the Universe, entropy can only increase. The probability of things aligning from disorder to order is almost zero unless acted upon by another agent, and if acted upon by another agent then it's not a closed system.

Though I'm not too sure about the closed universe bit yet. I've not gotten my head around what closed/open universes entails yet. But basically, regardless of what we may think we are doing, we are always disordering in one way or another. From that POV what we everyday call chaos is actually order. We disorder it to fit our needs.

Yes, that is one of my definitions for nothing, though I think it might not be the only one. I've been castigated for it before as well. When you consider that matter is constantly canceling itself out in collisions even vacuums (I think, not sure), it makes even more sense. If you go around telling people that you're a result of disordering nothing they'll look at you funny.

Anyways, it is ex nihilo as well, but I'm emphasizing that first cause was not intelligent, which you've already challenged. I bring this up because you all entertain the possibility that the constants etc, were setup by some intelligence. I want to stress that they more likely were not. At some point there should have been a truly random process(es) that did not involve any intelligence. Since there's no evidence for a maker in this universe, why not here?

okeyxyz:

I had a quick look at this wikipedia page and it just dosen't make sense. How does on argue against the existence of god by citing his(god's) imperfections? It's just like @logicboy03(mehn!!! This guy will begin to think I'm obsessed with him ) saying god does not exist because god is a racist, a misogynist and a slave-monger(this is an often punchline of atheists). That argument is simply holding two opposing positions. If you determine that god is imperfect, then you aknowledge that he exists, therefore defeating your argument. I'd much rather such a person brings an alternative explanation for the phenomena which we religionists attribute to god, rather than saying: "no!!, it's imperfect, it's inhuman, therefore god does not exist". No sense at all. Even the bible does not claim that nature is perfect, as the story of genesis tells: after the fall of man came all manner of imperfections in nature, causing disasters, diseases, wars, etc ultimately leading to the fulfillment of the curse(Death): but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil(notice the evil??), for when you eat of it you will surely die(Genesis 2:17).

So this begs the question: why is this "Argument_from_poor_design" trying to disprove a claim that was never made in the first place?

All that was supposed to show was what looks perfect or designed to many is not so.

okeyxyz:
Abiogenesis is another funny phenomenon. To start with, it is all theories and hypothesis, yet many "scientists" will argue it as fact(just like they argue evolution fact ), when in fact no life has ever been created in any lab. I'm not even asking for a proof of "the evolution", as one could say that you need thousands or millions of years to demonstrate. But Abiogenesis(from the theory\hypothesis) requires just seconds or days, yet we are still waiting for this "artificial life". What scientists have been able to do is catalyze the formation of organic molecules like amino-acids which really means nothing. Amino acids are just molecules, no more no less. Amino acids are freely and naturally occuring, just like the rest of matter. I know the word "organic" in organic-chemistry can give a layman the false impression that this means "life" chemistry, but organic molecules are just as lifeless and freely occuring as H2O-molecules, carbon-molecules, Nitrogen-molecules etc. The "organic" in organic-molecules is just a label to differentiate them as hydro-carbons. Hydro-carbons are not more evolved or less evolved than non-organic molecules.

Abiogenesis is still asking how they can create an entity that has metabolism, which means such an entity would feed, grow, be intelligent, seek to preserve itself through behaviour or reproduction(not replication of molecules but of DNA\RNA).

True, it isn't confirmed, but ockam's razor points in that direction. Much more plausible than any god, let alone say xtian god

okeyxyz:
The link above tries to talk about the big-bang-theory(notice the Theory??) and how many attempts to explain it has failed, from albert einstein to the present day. The big-bang-theory starts as an assumption, then follows attempts to hypothesize and theorize the processes that has led from there to our present state of the universe. All these theories have so far failed. What scientists simply do is to assume a phenomenon, then look for "evidences" that fit and discard the ones that don't fit and pretend they don't exist. When such misfit is too obvious to discard, they simply assume or theorize that there's a "missing link" between the theory and the "misfit" which they hope to find sometime in the future. This is how evolution and archeology propagates dogmas as facts.

Even say this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation

Or all of these
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html#evidence

Support the big bang. It is a thoery of this nature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Theories_in_physics

It holds. You could try jumping from a cliff to test if gravitational theories are indeed valid, ie if you have a problem with the word 'theory'. It would make your friends, family, and NL very sad though

okeyxyz:
It's funny that you don't apply the bolded principle to your arguments too. ie: we don't understand != it just happened. Which is how "scientists" label anything they don't understand.

Don't think I'm bashing science, No!! I love science, both from a secular and religious POV(no, i don't mean the por.n genre. dirty minds!!! ) The christian doctrine commands us to learn, harness and use the power of science. I bet that would surprise atheists, else they wouldn't continue with the mindset that christianity is ant-science, but I'm wary of scientists who pollute this discipline with their own biases, just as there are christians who pollute christianity with their own biases.

It's not we don't understand = it just happened
It's more we don't understand = we don't understand

Science avoids placing weight on unfounded speculations. It keeps an open mind till a definite conclusion is attained

InesQor:

"Truth is not objective", you say, but once again remember to specify a domain. "Objective" means based on observable phenomena, and who are we to decide that physically observable phenomena entail the complete picture? We can't know for sure.

Trying to cut it down to maybe to this.

As for evidence, it's all about the method I guess, science simply doesn't have time for unfounded assumptions. Religious assumptions are constantly begging the question, among other things. Why so and so? Because god. But you've not even proven god exists. Reasonable assumptions would always be entertained. Big bang was championed by a priest, iirc. He didn't have support from say einstein at first, but after looking at the evidence he gave it his full support.

Going back to why I think science should always take precedence, and I'm sure you've heard this before.

While we can't decide that the physical entails the complete picture, due the unfalsifiable nature of the claim, we cannot just accept pure speculation just because. If there's no objective method to verify claims, then Pikkiwokki really is real. As are Thor and FSM. You can't prove me wrong. So it's obviously now a case of 'because I say so'.

When people are led down this path, ridiculousness ensues as anything goes. You now have people harming others for the silliest of unfounded reasons. True, it can provide people with a lot of comfort, but it is undeniably harmful as well. So of course, in anyone's private life he could believe in whatever he wishes to. But once it involves another, basing your actions around unverifiable claims, actions which could harm the other party, borders on being criminal.

I don't want you voting? Why? Because you're a woman, and my unverifiable beliefs state you are not my equal, therefore you don't have a say in what I do. etc etc. Even for benign situations, material evidence should take precedence. You can't go around basing your actions which deal with others 'because I say so'.

So if I had a pet for instance, that I adored and even aided in keeping me healthy. Say with emotional support at the very least or even around my farm. If this pet kept on harming my neighbors, potentially fatally, would I be justified in still keeping it? Religion isn't even alive, unlike my poor pet. Its just a group of beliefs. Of course I understand your beliefs are much more valuable to you than a pet, but to people who don't share your beliefs, they very well could be of much less valuable. So forcing them to bend to your will over 'because I say so', well...

This might be useful.

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that is the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. Perhaps the most familiar manifestation of entropy is that, following the laws of thermodynamics, entropy of a closed system always increases and in heat transfer situations, heat energy is transferred from higher temperature components to lower temperature components. In thermally isolated systems, entropy runs in one direction only (it is not a reversible process). One can measure the entropy of a system to determine the energy not available for work in a thermodynamic process, such as energy conversion, engines, or machines. Such processes and devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when converting energy to work. During this work, entropy accumulates in the system, which then dissipates in the form of waste heat.
In classical thermodynamics, the concept of entropy is defined phenomenologically by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases or remains constant. Thus, entropy is also a measure of the tendency of a process, such as a chemical reaction, to be entropically favored, or to proceed in a particular direction. It determines that thermal energy always flows spontaneously from regions of higher temperature to regions of lower temperature, in the form of heat. These processes reduce the state of order of the initial systems, and therefore entropy is an expression of disorder or randomness. This is the basis of the modern microscopic interpretation of entropy in statistical mechanics, where entropy is defined as the amount of additional information needed to specify the exact physical state of a system, given its thermodynamic specification. The second law is then a consequence of this definition and the fundamental postulate of statistical mechanics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

Pastor AIO:

I think that the problem that we have as human beings is that we can never know the exact state of things because the exact state of things are not 'knowable' in the sense that human's do their knowing. In other words Human knowledge is essentially flawed and cannot attain to Truth.

Premature conclusion.

We need to clarify our terms

Related to original question posed about purpose, from entropy:

So which do we have as order, @pastors definition, or the initial state of the universe, the 'sameness' which I will call 'perfect harmony'? Though I can't be sure if it's sameness. I just know entropy, or disorder (in my speak), was lowest at that time.

Do we assume the word 'order' indicates more usefulness than the word 'chaos'?
If so, can we even objectively decide which state is more valuable? Is the raw material, the order (in my speak) at the beginning of the universe, more valuable than the disorder that led to us? While we'd obviously select the later, to alien beings capable of manipulating the raw material but incapable of reversing entropy, which would be more valuable?

That would depend on the objective, yes? But then if there were a conscious objective or purpose behind our creation, it's hard to think of one, particularly for us humans. We are a flawed race in many ways. What sort of purpose could we possibly achieve that could not have been handled more efficiently by an intelligent being? We breed hairless cats in a few hundred years because we have purpose and intelligence. Evolution on the other hand has no purpose or goals to achieve, the results are haphazard. Due to our intelligence, if we survive long enough we will even consciously determine what we evolve to.

I would posit we are less valuable than the order at the beginning of the universe, unless one can provide a valid objective we were designed to achieve which could not have been more easily attained.

Regardless of entropy and my assigning more value to the ordered state, the whole process is so inefficient I find it hard to assume a purpose. When you throw entropy into the mix it becomes worse, because it's a waste of finite material.

Tl: dr; due to amount of inefficiency involved in creation, assuming there's a purpose to all this I would say is unreasonable

Neither chaos nor order necessarily imply usefulness, I see them like two sides of a coin and both are "useful". Afterall usefulness is subjective and there is no such thing as "useful in all ramifications". Useful for what purpose? Ah, and we're back to that pupose matter again.

The raw energy at the Big Ban'g was useful in its own way. The current state of the Universe is also useful in its own way; I see no sense in comparing the two without deferring to "purpose". Why the universe rather than the nothingness? For what purpose? After all, a closed system may either increase entropy or maintain it. Why did it choose to increase entropy instead?

InesQor: Neither chaos nor order necessarily imply usefulness, I see them like two sides of a coin and both are "useful". Afterall usefulness is subjective and there is no such thing as "useful in all ramifications". Useful for what purpose? Ah, and we're back to that pupose matter again.

The raw energy at the Big Ban'g was useful in its own way. The current state of the Universe is also useful in its own way; I see no sense in comparing the two without deferring to "purpose". Why the universe rather than the nothingness? For what purpose? After all, a closed system may either increase entropy or maintain it. Why did it choose to increase entropy instead?

But there's no indication it willingly chose entropy, it's just something that happened. A being with a purpose wouldn't setup a system as wasteful as this one. I would still say lack of a purpose would explain what we see, rather than a purpose. Unless, of course, you could come up with a reasonable purpose. Which is of course why you opened this thread.

And here we see how we apply occam's razor differently.

wiegraf:

But there's no indication it willingly chose entropy, it's just something that happened. A being with a purpose wouldn't setup a system as wasteful as this one. I would still say lack of a purpose would explain what we see, rather than a purpose. Unless, of course, you could come up with a reasonable purpose. Which is of course why you opened this thread.

And here we see how we apply occam's razor differently.

Oh my bad in using the word "choose", as I had no intention to mean it "willingly decided". I meant, why an increase in entropy for apparently no reason? Without any external disturbance, closed systems will usually maintain their state of entropy, and not spontaneously begin increasing. Entropy is currently increasing in the universe because it exploded and began expanding, doing work in the process. But something influenced that initial disturbance, and this may be termed a purpose (touche, it may have been random though the odds seem so slim).

I feel you are wrong in terming the creation as a wasteful process. This is like calling a sculptor a wastrel for "setting free" the figurine whose "essence is trapped in the stone". Once again, we return to purpose. If the purpose was to make a figurine, a fine replica of Alexander the Great with his interesting nose, and the sculptor spent extra time (thus increasing entropy) chiseling away at the nose, and we have more stone chippings than we would have had if an amateur did a shoddy job; can we say the sculptor is a wastrel? No, he achieved purpose. However if the purpose were to use as little stone as possible to make a mere semblance, then the amateur did better and the sculptor wasted resources.

In the case of our universe, I think the sculptor wasted nothing because the constants just seem to fit (maybe this is confirmation bias, I agree).

There are three schools of thought about the universe's expansion. The first believes the universe began expanding, and will soon reach a point at which it will begin recompressing until its back to a singularity, then the process repeats itself in time (I.e. Our same universe) or in space (another place). The second school of thought believes the universe will keep expanding infinitely. The third believes the rate of expansion is tending towards a critical value such that it will still retain its properties. I am of this third school of thought and this is yet another reason I believe in some initial conditions carefully preset at the universe's onset of expansion.

For the Universe as we know it today to exist, some asymmetry was necessary. If everything had balanced out perfectly and come out even; matter and antimatter; fields canceling fields; entropy unperturbed we wouldn't have a universe.

But why this perfectly calculated initial imbalance, no matter how small? Could it really have been some random chance?

InesQor:
Oh my bad in using the word "choose", as I had no intention to mean it "willingly decided". I meant, why an increase in entropy for apparently no reason? Without any external disturbance, closed systems will usually maintain their state of entropy, and not spontaneously begin increasing. Entropy is currently increasing in the universe because it exploded and began expanding, doing work in the process. But something influenced that initial disturbance, and this may be termed a purpose (touche, it may have been random though the odds seem so slim).

Ok, so we'll call first cause purpose?
And the bold is important. I'll see if I can make my case for it being random

InesQor:
I feel you are wrong in terming the creation as a wasteful process. This is like calling a sculptor a wastrel for "setting free" the figurine whose "essence is trapped in the stone". Once again, we return to purpose. If the purpose was to make a figurine, a fine replica of Alexander the Great with his interesting nose, and the sculptor spent extra time (thus increasing entropy) chiseling away at the nose, and we have more stone chippings than we would have had if an amateur did a shoddy job; can we say the sculptor is a wastrel? No, he achieved purpose. However if the purpose were to use as little stone as possible to make a mere semblance, then the amateur did better and the sculptor wasted resources.

In the case of our universe, I think the sculptor wasted nothing because the constants just seem to fit (maybe this is confirmation bias, I agree).

Yes, of course this all makes sense, but like you say it depends on the purpose. And I cannot think of one that would warrant such waste, so I would generally default to assuming there wasn't one. This would explain why nature is so haphazard and seemingly purposeless in its dealings. And yes, I think the antrophic principle still stands, those numbers simply might not be perfect, they just seem that way to us.

InesQor:
There are three schools of thought about the universe's expansion. The first believes the universe began expanding, and will soon reach a point at which it will begin recompressing until its back to a singularity, then the process repeats itself in time (I.e. Our same universe) or in space (another place). The second school of thought believes the universe will keep expanding infinitely. The third believes the rate of expansion is tending towards a critical value such that it will still retain its properties. I am of this third school of thought and this is yet another reason I believe in some initial conditions carefully preset at the universe's onset of expansion.

I'd never heard of the third option, it is interesting. Yes, I'll agree that if it holds it would add more weight to your claim. Even if it does though, does it negate the problem of entropy increasing? That would still be a design flaw

InesQor: For the Universe as we know it today to exist, some asymmetry was necessary. If everything had balanced out perfectly and come out even; matter and antimatter; fields canceling fields; entropy unperturbed we wouldn't have a universe.

But why this perfectly calculated initial imbalance, no matter how small? Could it really have been some random chance?

I still think so, but obviously I cannot be certain. Until a a valid multi-verse theory or something similar is proposed, we can't be too sure. But those numbers might not be so perfect, just like the number of fingers on our hands aren't so perfect. 10 will do but so would 8 or 12. There might be even better configurations as far as creating a universe that is less hostile to life (which might not even be life as we know it) is. And we also know that something can indeed come from 'nothing'. With uncertainty at the core of this madness, it's not so far fetched to imagine one of these collision going big bang. We know nothing about conditions before the big bang though, or even if there's a before, so it's all speculation.

If you propose an intelligence, you'll still come to the problem of how first cause gained intelligence, and a few others. What purpose, its nature, etc. Without intelligence you just have to worry about its nature/properties. It's the simpler, much less complicated solution, and it is supported by the supposed purposelessness, uncertainty/fluctuations and nothing from something. So I would pick it.


edits

wiegraf:
Ok, so we'll call first cause purpose?

Yes, we can do that.

In the late 40s Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle proposed a Steady State theory as opposed to the Big Ban'g theory, doing away with the requirements for a beginning of the Universe. The believed the Universe didn't always contain all this matter, but as it expands new matter continually emerges to fill in the gaps and maintain the average density of the Universe. Then galaxies reach the end of their lifecycles, stars in them burn out and teh galaxies die but the universe keeps expanding. The steady state theory is less popular but it is more acceptable to those who don't want the complications of a universe that had a beginning (whether first-cause creation or the unlikely random chance)> Believers in steady-state mostly encompasses atheists and agnostics and a handful of Christians who believed God can be behind a steady state expansion with continuous creation of matter, just as well as setting off the Big Ban'g (with everything we will know in the Universe exploding out of a fully-packed singularity point of infinite density).

Assuming we agree on the Big Ban'g model as opposed to the less-popular "Steady-State theory", then the Judeo-Christian God is at least as good an explanation as any other, for that initial imbalance which set off the Universe. Genesis 1:1 could then read "In the beginning God created everything that would later be known as the Heavens and Earth, and laws that direct their outcome, and God caused it all to begin happening". For me as a theist, for instance, who sees the Genesis creation account as a metaphor, a human description of an event whose magnitude defies human poetic expression, I find this explanation at least sufficiently significant enough until I find one that bears greater weight.

wiegraf:
And the bold is important. I'll see if I can make my case for it being random

Nice! I'll really like to see your case for a random first cause.

wiegraf:
Yes, of course this all makes sense, but like you say it depends on the purpose. And I cannot think of one that would warrant such waste, so I would generally default to assuming there wasn't one. This would explain why nature is so haphazard and seemingly purposeless in its dealings. And yes, I think the antrophic principle still stands, those numbers simply might not be perfect, they just seem that way to us.

Hmmm we may not think of a purpose that seems to warrant the waste, but maybe, just maybe, the seeming waste was necessary to fashion our Universe into this exactly habitable version. Ah, the anthropic principle. I guess this will forever be an unanswered issue until we can study another habitable universe. As it were, studying our own early Universe is difficult enough because none of the proposals can be falsified or confirmed in direct experiment or observation e.g. after realizing that there are infinite possibilities for the geometry of 4D space in the early universe, one geometry was selected over the others because of its "mathematical elegance" (though other theories have not been eliminated, they may be more correct or even contradictory to what scientists are working with). But Math in itself is not such an infallible guide, as Godel's incompleteness theory informs us (that in any mathematical system rich enough to include the addition and multiplication of whole numbers, there must exist mathematical statements whose truth or falseness can’t be decided from within the system). We cannot go about discovering where inconsistencies lurk in a Mathematical system except by accident. So if the numbers seem to work perfectly so far after all of science's experiments, I really doubt it's by accident.

wiegraf:
I'd never heard of the third option, it is interesting. Yes, I'll agree that if it holds it would add more weight to your claim. Even if it does though, does it negate the problem of entropy increasing? That would still be a design flaw

As per the three options, they are a result of Friedman's calculations. In 1917, two years after Einstein released his theory of General relativity, as he reviewed his own theory he was really annoyed to realize that the solutions to the theory meant the Universe was expanding. He personally thought it was of a static size. When the implications began to emerge, Einstein wrote in a letter "To admit such possibility seems senseless", and he did what some of us do when we meet evidence that opposes our personal stance, we try to crush the evidence. Einstein tried to adjust his theory to cancel predictions of an expanding universe by adding a "cosmological constant", a mathematical constant of nature representing a force of anti-gravity. Lol. He later called it the biggest blunder of his life.

Russian Alex Friedmann opposed Einstein and used a zero cosmological constant to solve Einstein's equations and got the family of three solutions above, unfortunately he died young and his solutions got lost except to curious mathematicians. Friedmann's was similar to the priest Lemaitre's solutions although Lemaitre was more interested in how the solutions described the origins of the universe (he first envisioned what we now call teh Big Bang but he was ridiculed for it). Hubble brought Einstein, Friedmann and Lemaitre's work together and himself observed that except for galaxies clustered closest to us, every galaxy in the universe is increasing in distance from us; and generally except for galaxies already close together, every galaxy in the universe is increasing in distance from every other galaxy. This Hubble's separation of galaxies only confirmed what Friedmann already calculated years earlier.

Friedman's solutions (see drawing attached below):
(a) The Universe expands to a maximum size of separation between galaxies, and then recollapses at a "Big Crunch".
(b) The Universe expands rapidly and never stops expanding.
(c) The Universe expands at exactly a critical rate to avoid recollapse.

Nowadays, only (b) and (c) are seriously considered although I accept (c) because (b) seems to be a "waste", to use your terminology, as entropy will forever be on the increase. Solution (b) is the "design flaw", but (c) reaches a critical rate and cannot be a design flaw, and this is why I agree with it.

Solution (a) is generally not taken seriously nowadays because when one cycle of expansion and collapse has finished, the Universe would end up with such a massively high level of entropy that the Big Ban'g. The universe at the beginning was so organized that "if it were to be cut in half, it would show almost no structure" (Hawking and Penrose). At the Big Crunch? The Universe would be a total mess. If this entropy is used to begin a new cycle of the Universe, a totally different sort of Universe would be obtained! This current one would likely be the only iteration of Universes in which we can live. Of course, solution (a) is taken seriously by those who believe in a doomsday universe: someday everything will end at the Big Crunch and that will be the end to life in this universe, even though the Universe reincarnates.

wiegraf:
I still think so, but obviously I cannot be certain. Until a a valid multi-verse theory or something similar is proposed, we can't be too sure. But those numbers might not be so perfect, just like the number of fingers on our hands aren't so perfect. 10 will do but so would 8 or 12. There might be even better configurations as far as creating a universe that is less hostile to life (which might not even be life as we know it) is. And we also know that something can indeed come from 'nothing'. With uncertainty at the core of this madness, it's not so far fetched to imagine one of these collision going big bang. We know nothing about conditions before the big bang though, or even if there's a before, so it's all speculation.

True, we don't know anything about conditions before the big ban'g. Even with all of man's observation, time is not on our side. Everything we can observe in space is stale news; the answers might be right out there so until we can process information faster than the speed of light, all we can do is to speculate.

wiegraf:
If you propose an intelligence, you'll still come to the problem of how first cause gained intelligence, and a few others. What purpose, its nature, etc. Without intelligence you just have to worry about its nature/properties. It's the simpler, much less complicated solution, and it is supported by the supposed purposelessness, uncertainty/fluctuations and nothing from something. So I would pick it.

edits

Well, if the first cause is from outside our universe, then we need not worry about it's purpose, nature and the source of its intelligence! After all, we're our subject of study is the universe. The first cause would then be a perturbation that affected teh universe externally and set it off. I think this concern of yours only applies if the intelligent first cause is the universe (some sort of self-organization), or is a part of the universe itself.

@wiegraf Lol I looked up your frequently used tl;dr and I found the expression amusing.

inesQor and the sciences,
good to see from you after these whiles.

Image123: inesQor and the sciences,
good to see from you after these whiles.

Hey brother Image123! Long time no see, indeed!

wiegraf:

If you propose an intelligence, you'll still come to the problem of how first cause gained intelligence, and a few others. What purpose, its nature, etc. Without intelligence you just have to worry about its nature/properties. It's the simpler, much less complicated solution, and it is supported by the supposed purposelessness, uncertainty/fluctuations and nothing from something. So I would pick it.


edits

It would be helpful if we could define intelligence before we continue. Just in case we don't end up talking about 2 different things.

Sometimes defining terms can help obliterate a problem that is set in said terms without even having to deal with the problem itself. It just disappears once you clear on what it is you're actually talking about.

InesQor:

Well, if the first cause is from outside our universe, then we need not worry about it's purpose, nature and the source of its intelligence! After all, we're our subject of study is the universe. The first cause would then be a perturbation that affected teh universe externally and set it off. I think this concern of yours only applies if the intelligent first cause is the universe (some sort of self-organization), or is a part of the universe itself.

If the first cause influences the universe, even started it . . . and . . . We can interact with this first cause (presuming it is God as per the christian/muslim/theist understanding, in other words it can influence the universe and the universe can influence it, . . . . then . . . Can the First cause really be said to be outside the universe?

I'm thinking of a universe as a Set of all events that can mutually influence each other. If there is any being or event that cannot be influenced by events in this universe then that being is understood to be outside of the universe.

Pastor AIO:

If the first cause influences the universe, even started it . . . and . . . We can interact with this first cause (presuming it is God as per the christian/muslim/theist understanding, in other words it can influence the universe and the universe can influence it, . . . . then . . . Can the First cause really be said to be outside the universe?

I'm thinking of a universe as a Set of all events that can mutually influence each other. If there is any being or event that cannot be influenced by events in this universe then that being is understood to be outside of the universe.

This really makes a lot of sense! But...

If we assume that the First Cause exists independent of the Universe, and predates the Universe, then can't we say that there is an "aspect" of the First Cause that is a part of the Universe? The First Cause in entirety cannot be a part of the same Universe that it created, I feel this would make no sense logically.

And like the Abrahamic (or other monotheist) God, as well as there are aspects of God we can relate to or with in the Universe, there are aspects that we cannot e.g. existing outside time (which binds the Universe).

So referring to the intelligence of the First Cause with which the universe was created, this is an aspect outside the universe, since it already existed before the universe.

I just realised that my definition of a universe was just a definition for a closed system. So in other words, A universe is a Closed system.

I guess we can appeal to the 2 aspects of God to get out of this. That God is both Immanent and Transcendent.

You still haven't told us what you mean by Intelligence and how it functions.