New Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 08, 2025, 18:23 (26 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: It is without foundation for you, without God. The author and I had a surprising viewpoint considering how complex life is, how could it appear so quickly right after the severe Hadean period of formation. If so complex, how come so quick is a reasonable thought.

dhw: In addition to my objection above: If there is an omniscient and omnipotent God who created the universe 13.7 billion years ago, and planet Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and his only aim was to produce us and our food, I could ask why it took him so long (9.2000,000,000 years and countless stars and solar systems) to produce a planet suitable for life. (Same problem as below.) If there is no God, we’re still none the wiser as to how long it ought to take for life to develop. An atheist would presumably say that the chance combination could have occurred at any time.

Your human brain is challenging God's choice of method, just a I do. Are we right/wrong?

Evolution

DAVID: You just duplicated my thought. Great designer of organisms, in a slow inefficient system.

dhw: And who, according to you, designed the inefficient system?

God. Again, why not direct creation? Didn't happen as God chose His method.

T-cells and immunity

DAVID: You don't understand the cells at work. One mechanism makes the antibodies from one reactive system placing a foreign antigen into a destructive molecule. It uses the enemy to fight it. Not endless specific instructions for each threat, just one.

dhw: You told us “God gave all organisms a degree of adaptability to use.” Every new threat demands a different response, so I take this “adaptability” to mean the ability or mechanism or intelligence to adapt their responses accordingly. What else could it mean? Meanwhile, the death of millions denotes the inefficiency of your God’s “instructions”, whatever you mean by that. The bad doesn’t disappear just because his instructions have led to more good than bad.

Reread what I just presented. That is how it works; stop reaching for something out of context.

Fine-tuning

DAVID: As the CMB is the early blueprint for all the universe there are no odd ball areas. It is the same everywhere. In all fine-tuning discussions years ago, no one raised your point. You might want to join the multiverse folks.

dhw: For all we know, ours is the oddball area, and indeed you keep telling us how unique it is! I don’t know who raised what points years ago, but please explain to me why YOU are so sure that the 95% of the universe that we do not know is fine-tuned for life.

I explained it to you above. Take a look at what was discussed by experts years ago in their books and papers. It is a vacuum to you,

Emmy Noether

DAVID: she has not been publicized until now. She is Einstein in female form. The Nazi's forced her to come to Bryn Mawr College in the U.S in 1933. She died in 1935. If she had survived, I can imagine imagine her working with the atomic bomb development group.

dhw: I won’t pretend to understand the work that she did, but I find her personal story rather moving. Thank you.

It is a sad tale.