Laetoli footprints (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, April 15, 2010, 00:56 (5146 days ago) @ dhw

MATT: My general goal here is to firmly demonstrate that this part of the discussion lies at the very edge of physics, and despite David's harumphs, the further explanation of "Many Worlds" has yet to be nullified, even if it ranks as #2 in the list of favored interpretations.
> 
> Despite lots of people's harumphs, the further explanation of a universal intelligence has yet to be nullified, and probably still ranks as No. 1 in the list of favoured interpretations. Not a very convincing argument, is it? Your comment below sums it all up.
> -Apples and oranges. We have an extremely accurate physical descriptions and models that surround both "Many Worlds" and "Consistent Histories." We have explicit phenomenon that can be predicted with 100% accuracy: name a formulation of design that can claim THAT! -Both God and MW/CH fill a gap, the only difference is that MW/CH are explanations that describe phenomenon that well--we can put into our hands for all intents and purposes. So again--apples and oranges. -
> MATT: As to your comment about truth: As would be predicted, I'm ultimately of the opinion that in this question there is no truth to be found; the event is so far away that we shall never be able to truly answer for what happened--all we will have is mere speculation, however educated we may think it.-> I had countered your claim that only the Big Bang (as opposed to life) smacked of intensive planning and foresight by pointing out that we didn't know what went bang. Your response then was: "we know a great deal more about the Big Bang than you seem to know about." I quoted the "nothing before" theory (I'm in no position to accept or refute it) just to point out another argument against your planning claim, though it would now appear that you agree with me after all that we don't really know a damn thing. For further information on the commonly held view that there was nothing before the Big Bang, see a very nicely written article by Paul Davies under www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/big-bang.html-My only issue here is that we do know "what went bang." All the energy that will ever exist in our universe. -As to your deeper thrust: Cosmologists argue that if many of the constants that appeared as our universe was born went slightly one way, or slightly another, the universe as we know it now couldn't have happened. If one wants to argue numbers, David is absolutely right on this point: Given this universe as the ONLY universe, the chain of events leading up to where life could begin is something like winning the lottery every day of your life until you died. So if there is incredibly intense control over the universe--it clearly happened at this point. But at some point--clearly--things relaxed. I don't mean to say that life's complexity "simply can't be designed," but that the level of control needed to get the universe to just the right mix of energy density requires a helluva lot more effort; we can conceive of a way to create life. (We've just been consistently wrong or not good enough.) There's no way to do the same thing for the former. The fine level of control that one would have to have over individual particles of raw physical energy is impossible with current quantum theory. (The act of observing it changes it.) You would have to be able to interact with a system without disturbing it, which is the act that is impossible.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"