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all 10 comments

[–]prajnadhyana 4 points5 points ago

[–]Ourobeauros 3 points4 points ago

This is twice I've laughed at this from you in like two minutes. I hope to see this on all "what I feel like" comment sections in the future.

[–]imomushi8 2 points3 points ago

"Indeed, there may be a multitude of other universes, forever inaccessible to us, in which they are different. Thus, with a huge choice of possible universes, one must exist that could support intelligent beings who can observe and question." http://www.amazon.com/Just-Six-Numbers-Forces-Universe/dp/0465036732/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339906487

[–]Panda_Superhero 6 points7 points ago

It IS fine tuned. Minor variations in any of the fundamental forces of nature, matter distribution, spacetime expansion rate and countless other factors would not have produced earth and would have resulted in a universe completely incompatible with life as we know it or indeed incompatible with ANY life at all. This doesn't admit of a supernatural explanation though.

See anthropic principle:

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

Edit: I really suck at formatting.

[–]CowBellPlayer01 2 points3 points ago

The problem with this argument is that you assume that this is the only way in which a universe can exist. I'll admit it, if you did change the perimeters of this universe then 'life as we know it and the universe as we know it' would cease to exist but that does not mean that life as we do not know it or a universe with laws different from our own could exist. Example, if I could change my DNA or my personality, I would cease to exist as I am today. There would be no 'me' as I'm known. I would be gone. However, you cannot assume that someone different than me with different DNA or a different personality could not exist. A vast multiverse of universes could exist. Most incapable of stars and galaxies. Most incapable of life as we don't know it. And of course at least one capable of life as we do know it. Each universe is a simple dice roll of various laws of physics each unique as a set of shuffled cards, no two the same. But to say that it is 'fine tuned' is no different than saying that the lottery was 'fine tuned' just for the winner, with no possibility of another winner.

Edit: Spelling

[–]thecrazing 2 points3 points ago

Well, you should've clicked his link, tbh. He was making that point, but he just put more emphasis on 'ANY' than 'doesn't admit'. Also, like anything, Asimov talked about it:

"A number of things of varying degrees of likelihood. A kind of profile. For instance, about 9o percent of the inhabited planets in the Galaxy have rotation periods of between twenty-two and twenty-six Galactic Standard Hours. Well - " " Trevize cut in. "I hope you didn't pay any attention to that, Janov. There's no mystery there. For a planet to be habitable, you don't want it to rotate so quickly that air circulation patterns produce impossibly stormy conditions or so slowly that temperature variation patterns are extreme. It's a property that's self-selective. Human beings prefer to live on planets with suitable characteristics, and then when all habitable planets resemble each other in these characteristics, some say, `What an amazing coincidence,' when it's not amazing at all and not even a coincidence."

"As a matter of fact," said Pelorat calmly, "that's a well-known phenomenon in social science. In physics, too, I believe-but I'm not a physicist and I'm not certain about that. In any case, it is called the `anthropic principle: The observer influences the events he observes by the mere act of observing them or by being there to observe them. But the question is: Where is the planet that served as a model? Which planet rotates in precisely one Galactic Standard Day of twenty-four Galactic Standard Hours?"

[–]reekoman 0 points1 point ago

It's not quite that simple, actually. Quite a few constants could be changed somewhat without a whole lot of consequences, if any, and if you allow changing several at the same time, even more change can be done. No doubt some forms of life could exist even if some parameters were changed. I reccommend Victor Stenger's The Fallacy of Fine Tuning – a great read!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Fallacy-Fine-Tuning-Universe-Designed/dp/1616144432

[–]Dielon 0 points1 point ago

Universe as we know it is pretty finely hashed out.

As it points out in the article, most scientists and logic itself easily supports the WEAK anthropic principle, or the fact that since our universe supports life is the reason we are here to observe it no the other way around.

With the equations we have today, parameters can be changed to allow for different universes that may prove hostile to human type life forming. As for the definition of life in general etc that is up to you. Many of the factors going into our creation are density, lambda constants, curvature of the whole god damn universe, and of course the more relevant ones: particle synthesis constraints. If you screw with any of these usually on the scale of 101 they will produce crazy results.

Source: Astrophysics student.

[–]quivering 0 points1 point ago

I like it because the religious want to put it all down to God, physics, biology and especially humans. You only need to show one counter-example to this.

[–]thegreatwhitemenace 0 points1 point ago

presumably after this, you dismember them and swap their arms and legs