New Miscellany: fine tuning, theodicy, climate, evolution (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 12, 2025, 10:49 (2 days ago) @ David Turell

Fine tuning again

DAVID: I'll stick with my statement. Fine-tuned are 26 major factors that make this universe what it is allowing life to develop in any comfortable, life-inviting area. It is an accepted concept which leads to thoughts of alien civilizations, life elsewhere than Earth. We don't really disagree. Our emphasis is different.

The disagreement is over the blatant contradiction between your statement that “the entire universe is fine-tuned for life to appear” and your statement that the universe allows life to develop “in any comfortable, life-inviting area.” The entire universe offers 26 major factors that ALLOW life to exist, but it cannot exist without environmental and biochemical fine tuning. No matter how many comfortable, life-inviting areas there might possibly be, they would be mere dots in the entire universe, and at the moment we only know of one. Ergo, the entire universe is NOT fine-tuned for life to appear. You agreed on March 3. Why do you disagree now?

Theodicy

dhw: You and countless theologians have twisted yourselves into knots trying to solve the problem of theodicy, which in fact you raised in the first place and which has caused trouble ever since humans started theorizing about the concept of a single, all-good God. (No problem for those who believe or believed in multiple gods.) Your solutions are to ignore the problem, to ridicule your God as being incapable of creating the world he would have wanted (unless you think he wanted evil), and to tell us how happy you are.

DAVID: We are alive, enjoying life, thanks to God. And you want to complain that a perfect God did not give you a perfect evil-less existence. It is obvious He couldn't.

The theodicy problem is not a complaint by me, and has nothing whatsoever to do with enjoyment of life. The explanation that your all-powerful God obviously did not have the power to avert evil is a contradiction in terms. Your “proportionality” argument is totally irrelevant, because evil exists. Just be honest, and admit that you have no idea how to reconcile the concept of an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God with the “obvious” fact that the creator of all things created a system which he knew would produce evil. There is no harm in admitting ignorance – we agnostics do it all the time.

Climate change
Timing a probable glacial period

DAVID: We agree on the effects humans have and should mitigate them, but you want it faster than I do.
And:
DAVID: Your urgency specifies a speed you may not realize. I'm just slower.

dhw: You are pleased that some countries like USA have already taken measures. I say “as quickly as pragmatically possible”, and you agree that this means measures must be taken at a speed which will not create social or economic havoc. Neither of us has set a date, so how can we gauge the speed at which these measures must be taken? I suggest we shake hands and congratulate one another on our complete agreement.

DAVID: Let's shake.

Done. Subject closed.

Evolution

DAVID: I refuse to accept humanized God forms.

dhw: You have proposed that your God enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, may or may not love us, may want a relationship with us, may want us to recognize his work and worship him, and probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. Furthermore, a God whose designing talents are messy, cumbersome and inefficient sounds all too human to me. Why do you refuse to accept your own humanizing proposals?

DAVID: The God-form proposals you conjure up are all very human. I apply the terms allegorically recognizing God is not human in any way.

You know perfectly well what you mean by enjoy, interest, love, etc., and we are dealing with your concept of God’s possible nature and purposes. If you think your own words don’t mean what you mean, then why use them? They are the human-like thought patterns and emotions which you think we may have in common with your God. Stop dodging.

Nature’s Wonders: octopus rape

QUOTE: "The poison, tetrodotoxin, the same poison used by pufferfish, paralyzed the female while the male copulated with her. His efforts continued until the female began to recover. The poison used by the male was made by bacteria that lived in its body.

DAVID: I guess it is better than being eaten, although a participating partner makes it all more enjoyable.

Great comment! Fascinating procedure. We have had countless proofs of bacterial intelligence and of symbiosis. I find it hard to imagine that your God would have instructed the female to eat the male and would also have instructed the male to paralyze the female in its own defence. The alternative: intelligent cell communities and intelligent bacteria working together to ensure their survival in the dog-eat-dog, octopus-eat-octopus free-for-all of evolution’s history.