Universe fine tuned?

[xoggoth]

What makes you say that?

Erm, everyday experience?


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Oh look I just did a set of dots and then

finished the sentence down here.

Isn't that a tiny example of free will, or do you have some esoteric definition in mind?

[TimberWolf]

Erm, everyday experience? Did somebody force me to respond to your comment?


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Oh look I just did a set of dots and then

finished the sentence down here.

Isn't that a tiny example of free will, or do you have some esoteric definition in mind?

A computer could do that. Do you think a computer has free will too?

[TimberWolf]

Either X must have have created itself or it always existed. No more/less plausible, whether X is matter or man.

You didn't create yourself, but yet you exist.

[VirtualMonkey]

Just Googled that. Fascinating that he found the idea of the universe having a beginning as pseudoscience, but then went on to propose some C-field thingy to continuously create matter.

like the higgs field you mean? HTH
personally i'm hoping for a trip to a universe where the government doesn't try and rape hard working freelancers with poorly thought out ideas like IR35

[VirtualMonkey]

A creator is as good a theory as any, it's just the established religions, the idea of a god who is interested in the salvation of individuals that makes no sense whatever.

a) Why would a loving god make man jump through all these hoops rather than just put him in heaven in the first place?

b) Why is an omnipotent god apparently not capable of eliminating evil?

c) Why is it just to condemn all men for sin equally when many things that make a man what he is, his genes, growth in the womb, nutrition, stress and trauma, upbringing, disease or injury, are entirely outside his control?

d) Why are the all the practices that god gave to other social animals for their survival, promiscuity, attacking other tribes, driving out or eliminating rivals and their offspring, suddenly sinful where mankind is concerned?

e) If wisdom comes from god who knows all things, why is there not a single thing in the words of any prophet or in any good book, that shows any knowledge whatever outside of the time and society in which they were said or written?

f) How is that revelations are so limited by time and place? Don't the souls of people born before the prophet/saviour or those who live far away and never hear his words matter? If truth is supposed to be revealed to all as some claim, how come it never actually happens? Why do people have diferent beliefs all over the world, generally whatever they are taught to believe?

g) Why has god mysteriously stopped performing miracles, appearing to the faithful, rumbling up mountains and handing our sacred scrolls since science has had the ability to record such events?

Lots of this could all boil down to the fact that we're all just a big experiment by some kind of creator.....
You don't try and change what's happening on the fly...you watch, learn then do it differently next time.
For the bits it doesn't cover I'm with you.

[EternalOptimist]

You didn't create yourself, but yet you exist.

if there is no free will. If everything is determined


how can anyone be a thief ?

[Doggy Styles]

a) Why would a loving god make man jump through all these hoops rather than just put him in heaven in the first place?

Wouldn't that be like playing, say, monopoly by declaring everyone the winner before the first dice are thrown?

It's the game of life, xog! The greatest game of all.

Or something. I imagine it would be quite boring sitting around in heaven for all eternity.

[TimberWolf]

if there is no free will. If everything is determined


how can anyone be a thief ?

Why would determinism rule out thieving? Rules consisting of: "see good thing, can get away with taking thing, take thing" would do it. Not so very different from the way people act most of the time.

[TimberWolf]

if there is no free will. If everything is determined


how can anyone be a thief ?

I would add, that when I say deterministic, I'm not saying the future is predestined or predetermined*, I refer to the underlying rules that when provided certain inputs provide certain outputs. The decision making rules can be numerous and complex and won't necessarily provide a deterministic end result, even though the underlying rules are deterministic.

Anyway it's about time someone explained what they think free will is, apart from "obviously it exists because I do it all the time".

* and I'm not saying it isn't either, as clearly in many cases the future is predicable, at least enough that we exist and can function

[NotAllThere]

e) If wisdom comes from god who knows all things, why is there not a single thing in the words of any prophet or in any good book, that shows any knowledge whatever outside of the time and society in which they were said or written?...

The book of Daniel so accurately predicts the future of the time after it was supposedly written (the fortunes of the Greek empire), that most scholars consider it was written after that time.

So, if you do find something that's accurate foretelling, it gets dismissed anyway as an obvious forgery, due to it being so accurate.