New Miscellany Part 2: alien life, fine-tuning, symbiosis (General)

by dhw, Monday, April 21, 2025, 12:12 (5 hours, 28 minutes ago) @ dhw

Possible alien life

A chemical only from life is found on distant planet:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/science/astronomy-exoplanets-habitable-k218b.html?ca...

DAVID: From a previous discussion: "Thus fine-tuning is throughout the universe while life appeared so far only on Earth. We think life might be out there somewhere because the same factors are everywhere, so we discuss possible alien life."

dhw: You never give up, do you? The all-important environmental and biological factors are NOT present everywhere! My view: Only if life is proven to exist in a particular place can it be said that that place is fine-tuned for life. March 2, 2025 you wrote: “I have accepted the Wilsonian view of fine tuning.” Please accept what you have accepted.

DAVID: I follow your view that life's presence indicates fine-tuning! Inverted: life can appear wherever there is fine-tuning. Potential vs. actual.

Without the environmental and biological “fine-tuning” factors life is impossible. These factors do not exist everywhere in the universe, but only in individual places. It is therefore nonsense to say that the universe is fine-tuned for life. Indeed we know of only one place that’s fine-tuned for life, but there may be others. Please stop trying to justify your earlier statement although you’ve agreed that it is wrong.

dhw: Your own questions basically revolve around your obsession with your theory that your God created the entire universe in order to produce humans plus food.

DAVID: Fine-tuning involves more than 20 integrated factors, NOT minuscule. Now you have my belief as an obsession!!! Do not name-call!

It’s not the number of factors that is minuscule but the number of heavenly bodies which combine ALL the factors necessary for life. There is no name-calling: almost all your questions revolved round the importance of humans, because you reject any theory that conflicts with your belief that we were your God’s sole purpose from the very beginning, even though this makes you ridicule him for his inefficiency.

SYMBIOSIS

DAVID: You are always fussing about the darkness in some areas of the world. I have no control over happenings in Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan, so why should I fret? I do sympathize with the Ukraine people and their horrible history with Russia.

dhw: Sadly, this ties in with your attempts to brush aside the very existence of evil in your effort to ignore the problem of theodicy. I really can’t see why anyone should reject my proposal that peace is preferable to war, and my regret that humans so often opt for competition as opposed to symbiosis. I never imagined that this would lead to any sort of disagreement. I wasn’t asking you to go out on a crusade.

DAVID: But that is exactly what your rhetoric calls for.

It does no more than reiterate basic principles which would make for a better world, and these principles apply at every level of life, whether individual, social, political, national or international.