When it comes to a lot of alternative medicine, I take a sceptical but not dismissive approach. While some things might be based on outmoded ways of thinking, there might be some unforeseen benefits because people can believe in the right things for the wrong reasons. This is the nature of evidence-based medicine, if it works then I don't see a problem with its use.
Where I do draw the line is where there's no possible plausible mechanism. I am referring to homoeopathy, where by now it should well be established that there is no possible way it could work! Not only has it failed tightly-controlled empirical measure, but there is no underlying mechanism that could possibly work, the process sees to that.
A lot is made of how much a homoeopathic solution goes through, and homoeopaths don't seem to see why it is a big deal. It's a big deal because it's taking out any possible possible means of having any form of material solution. And that's just it, the claims aren't about a material solution. So it should be non-controversial that reasonable people would reject it on those grounds alone. For homoeopathy to work, there needs to be something beyond what we understand about how nature is.
But why are we still talking about it?
This is obvious nonsense, it at one point might have seemed to be a miraculous cure but testing has clearly demonstrated that homoeopathy is indistinguishable from a similarly administered placebo. At what point can we take the discipline behind the shed with a shotgun?
This is the problem I find with a lot of ideas that keep seem to come back. It doesn't matter how many times it's shown not to work, there are those who still cling to the belief. It's time for homoeopathy to die because we know that there's no hope of finding positive results. Keeping it in the public eye is now a health hazard, we know better and having people put their trust in it is a health risk not only for them but people around it. When there's the promotion of homoeopathic vaccines or homoeopathic malaria drugs, or even homoeopathic flu remedies - all of these extend the risk to others. And as for giving homoeopathic remedies to children?!?
Homoeopathy needs to die because health is a serious issue. People are harmed by the use of homoeopathy, people die because they put their trust in it. To argue otherwise is to be wilfully ignorant, through which the safety of individuals at risk as well as society as a whole. And while I have little doubt that homoeopaths truly believe their product works, but the fact remains that they are putting the safety of others in jeopardy. It's time to move on, homoeopathy may at one stage have looked promising but now it is clearly unscientific.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
Runaway Trolleys And The Problem Of Evil
A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?This is the trolley problem as proposed by Philippa Foot, giving the utilitarian imperative to save five at the expense of one. While not responsible for the situation, you as an individual have the power over the outcome. It's a terrible outcome either way, but your actions either way determine the consequences. You either flip the switch ensuring the death of one, or you fail to flip the switch and allow for the death of five.
While there are many variations on this thought experiment and various forms of objections to it, about 90% of people would throw the switch to save the five at the expense of one. Meanwhile, change the thought experiment just slightly so that instead of flipping a switch you push a fat guy then a mere 10% of people would still do it. Such an experiment is akin to harvesting a healthy patients for the organs to save five dying ones.
I'd contend that we have the obligation to participate because we have the power to change the outcome. Consider seeing a drowning child at a pool and being the only one with the ability to rescue the child. Would it be excusable to let the child drown on the grounds that its not your problem? Action of omission is still an action. We are forced into making unthinkable decisions over the power to change an outcome.
Sometimes it is a choice between the lesser of two evils. Should one get an abortion or carry to term a rape baby? It's a dilemma that too many women each year are forced to choose between. What about in war attacking buildings containing civilians because there are known terrorists inside? And consider medical expenses, is it worth a hospital spending huge amounts of money to keep alive one person when that money could pay for hundreds, even thousands of treatments for others?
When it isn't a choice between two evils, such as diverting the runaway trolley onto an empty track, surely then it becomes a matter of harm prevention rather than degrees of it. By action of omission it is causing the unnecessary deaths of five, even if you weren't the reason they were in that situation in the first place.
Enter the problem of evil. As told by David Hume, it is as follows:
"Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"Such arguments show the contradictory nature of a reality containing an omnipotent omniscient omnibenevolent deity with suffering and pain. While I don't think such a deity is worshipped by many, many claim that their respective deity has those attributes and thus it is a powerful argument against particular forms of theism.
To take the first trolley problem, we understand that there are two outcomes in our control. We are limited to either pushing the switch or refrain from pushing it knowing that either way we cannot prevent harm but only limit the degree. An omnipotent entity has no such restrictions by definition with an infinite number of ways to prevent harm from coming. In that sense, it is like the trolley problem where it's a choice between acting to prevent harm and allowing harm to pass.
Should we consider a person wicked if all they had to do to save a life was to push a button? I would argue that they are. This is illuminated by a comparable situation, finding a baby drowning in a bath where all it would take to save the baby is to reach down and pick it up.
The trolley problem is very much one in a vacuum, it's asking a question without regard of the many factors. It doesn't say who the people are which would matter a lot. If the one was your child and the five were strangers, would you still throw the switch? What if the 5 were convicted rapists and the one was a rape victim? (this is a mad philosopher remember) The problem is to illustrate how we would act in an abstract sense without complicating the thought experiment through too many variables.
The reason I've made this post was something I read recently regarding Christopher Hitchens getting cancer. In defending against the accusation of a benevolent deity giving Mr Hitchens cancer, the response was that God didn't give Mr Hitchens cancer but allowed it to happen as if there's a distinction between the two.
As soon as you start explaining events in terms of deities it starts raising questions why one thing happens but not another. The outcome is saying some genuinely horrific things, like that your daughter's rape was a test of your faith or that an infant dying of SIDS was because the infant was evil. Any rationalisation of the horrors will do because they illuminate the problem of evil so vividly.
This thinking is often taken to absurdity, think of those taking 9/11 as retribution to America for working towards a secular society or those who take any natural disaster as again a punishment for immorality. In each case the evil is manifest as the divine workings of a deity, demonstrating the deity is by no means benevolent.
No matter what the reason Hitchens got cancer (and I wish him all the best in a quick and as painless as possible recovery), a deity that can intervene had the possibility to prevent it. It is like a runaway trolley which would only require the touch of a button to prevent harm. The problem of evil is an insurmountable one because it shows the described nature of God being incompatible with the nature of nature.
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Getting Rid Of Big Government
I'd be willing to bet that most people don't like a big government. Conservatives hate it, liberals distrust it, and libertarians want to do away with it altogether. And while we are on the subject, regulation is little more than red tape that stifles legitimate competition. And don't get me started on all those nanny state laws designed to protect us from ourselves...
You know what, I'm going to bet that if you ask people where they stand on most of these talking points they would be unanimously against them. In the modern day world of sound-byte politics it should come as no surprise that these are perpetual talking points. Is anyone for unnecessary governmental expenditure? And in that lies my problem with such rhetoric. It's essentially meaningless!
Just what do you stand for?
It's so easy to be cynical when it comes to politics, perhaps a little too easy. With media sound-bytes portraying disingenuous politicians whose focus is on getting elected appealing to what we want to hear without saying anything that might hold them to account, the process is horrible and it's no wonder people distrust politicians. But it's important to remember that we are the selectors, we vote for these people and thus we need to take politics as a reflection of ourselves.
I say this because it needs to be remembered that we're in this situation now because we talk politics in sound-bytes. We don't know what proposals really entail any more, dress it up in words like national security or liberty or talk about the economy and beyond that we don't really know anything. We've reduced politics to polemic sound-bytes, everything from the environment to education is barely more than taking sides.
What amazes me is that issues like abortion and gay rights have the potential for elections to be decided around. That Bush was elected in 2004 on a pro-life anti-gay platform typifies the reason why I think there are so many cynics. It has turned into moralising, where politicians personal values become the issue. And perhaps that's in-part because we can easily understand what someone believes but not the consequences of any given policy.
Big Government as an issue in a way is a consequence of this type of thinking. Issues like gay marriage and abortion are issues that we are emotionally tied to, while the nuances of banking regulation are not. We can see the large percentage of money from our pay-checks but don't a connection between that and what the government does with the money. Figures like billions get thrown around which our mind can't even begin to adequately comprehend - it's no wonder we find Big Government bad!
That way we can say its too big without specifying how. Talk of cutting public service jobs as if those people were mere statistics. Ask for cutting taxes without knowing what taxes are doing. We don't have to know specifics because the specifics don't affect us. If we talk in generalities we can make ideological points without ever needing to substantiate it, and that's what Big Government has come to embody!
Drowning the baby in the bathwater
Of course there is the expectation of wasteful spending in government, each individual system cannot be micromanaged through democratic scrutiny, much like shareholders don't go through their company's books with a fine-tooth comb. It's the general overall health that matters.
But perhaps in terms of value for money, the illusion that the corporate enterprise as a profit-driven approach would be looking to maximise profits while a government does not. What is unnecessary doesn't get done, and a government cannot operate like that. Imagine a school system which was profit-driven. It should be about maximising outcomes for the students, ultimately schooling is an integral part of society. It's not to say a profit-driven approach cannot work, but that the outcomes are sufficiently distinct to warn against the approach. Surely having better educated children is the goal of the education system.
This is where I feel we run the risk of wanting to drown the baby as well as getting rid of the bathwater. The baby is just going to keep needing a bath so getting rid of the baby stops the necessity of bathwater. Sounds crude, but this is exactly what some propose in order to get rid of excess government fat. Why need the government at all? The services the government provides can be done without government, and by the free-market process should be much more efficient.
Before we drown the baby, perhaps it's important to ask why we have babies in the first place. Is our goal the best value-for-money education system or the most effective? Do we want the cheapest possible health system or a healthy society? I'm going to guess that the value for money is a secondary consideration for most people. For me personally, I want an education system that values education. I want a health system that looks after the health of people. I'm quite happy for these to be government programs because accountability lies within providing the services.
At the bottom line a broke government can't function. It needs to remain viable as well as providing those essential services. From my perspective, it's such a shame that so much money is thrown into defence at the expense of other services. It's understandable why, security is a huge issue and no-one wants to be thrifty when it comes to national defence. It has been taken to absurd proportions but is the bloat in military spending reason to get rid of the military altogether?
The dirty secret
No-one is an island, indeed no island is an island any more. We are interconnected, firstly from the self to the family and community in which we live, then from the community to the greater area. And so on until we hit state, country, and now beyond that. Each of us isn't working as individuals trying to get our own, we are a social species who have social obligations. We benefit from living in this social structure.
If an alpha male wolf doesn't share enough with other wolves in the pack, they rise up against the alpha. Perhaps analogous to the role of us as individuals. If we all don't prosper from our social situation then we are fostering the demise of society. The reach of the modern person has pushed to extremes the inequity of wealth, breeding resentment among the have-nots who are forced to work against their will for just enough to survive.
Dreams of a revolution are just that, the dirty secret is that the society we have around us now is one built for our prosperity. We have running water, an education system, health, welfare, access to general services, food, infrastructure - all this and much more are considered basic standards for living. And so they should be!
The government are a means to an end, and in a democracy there is at least a partial sense of ownership from the individual and the society to the government itself. They aren't some external force, but a culmination of internal ones. We lose democracy the moment we treat it as a monarchy. We stop having a representation of the will of the people and create Big Government.
If we want to get rid of Big Government, we need to change our attitude towards the democratic process. Government is an expression of us as a society, its prosperity is our prosperity and vice versa. Until that is realised Big Government will remain as a threat. This is the consequence of using rhetoric with little substance, it creates a bogey man instead of looking to address real issues.
You know what, I'm going to bet that if you ask people where they stand on most of these talking points they would be unanimously against them. In the modern day world of sound-byte politics it should come as no surprise that these are perpetual talking points. Is anyone for unnecessary governmental expenditure? And in that lies my problem with such rhetoric. It's essentially meaningless!
Just what do you stand for?
It's so easy to be cynical when it comes to politics, perhaps a little too easy. With media sound-bytes portraying disingenuous politicians whose focus is on getting elected appealing to what we want to hear without saying anything that might hold them to account, the process is horrible and it's no wonder people distrust politicians. But it's important to remember that we are the selectors, we vote for these people and thus we need to take politics as a reflection of ourselves.
I say this because it needs to be remembered that we're in this situation now because we talk politics in sound-bytes. We don't know what proposals really entail any more, dress it up in words like national security or liberty or talk about the economy and beyond that we don't really know anything. We've reduced politics to polemic sound-bytes, everything from the environment to education is barely more than taking sides.
What amazes me is that issues like abortion and gay rights have the potential for elections to be decided around. That Bush was elected in 2004 on a pro-life anti-gay platform typifies the reason why I think there are so many cynics. It has turned into moralising, where politicians personal values become the issue. And perhaps that's in-part because we can easily understand what someone believes but not the consequences of any given policy.
Big Government as an issue in a way is a consequence of this type of thinking. Issues like gay marriage and abortion are issues that we are emotionally tied to, while the nuances of banking regulation are not. We can see the large percentage of money from our pay-checks but don't a connection between that and what the government does with the money. Figures like billions get thrown around which our mind can't even begin to adequately comprehend - it's no wonder we find Big Government bad!
That way we can say its too big without specifying how. Talk of cutting public service jobs as if those people were mere statistics. Ask for cutting taxes without knowing what taxes are doing. We don't have to know specifics because the specifics don't affect us. If we talk in generalities we can make ideological points without ever needing to substantiate it, and that's what Big Government has come to embody!
Drowning the baby in the bathwater
Of course there is the expectation of wasteful spending in government, each individual system cannot be micromanaged through democratic scrutiny, much like shareholders don't go through their company's books with a fine-tooth comb. It's the general overall health that matters.
But perhaps in terms of value for money, the illusion that the corporate enterprise as a profit-driven approach would be looking to maximise profits while a government does not. What is unnecessary doesn't get done, and a government cannot operate like that. Imagine a school system which was profit-driven. It should be about maximising outcomes for the students, ultimately schooling is an integral part of society. It's not to say a profit-driven approach cannot work, but that the outcomes are sufficiently distinct to warn against the approach. Surely having better educated children is the goal of the education system.
This is where I feel we run the risk of wanting to drown the baby as well as getting rid of the bathwater. The baby is just going to keep needing a bath so getting rid of the baby stops the necessity of bathwater. Sounds crude, but this is exactly what some propose in order to get rid of excess government fat. Why need the government at all? The services the government provides can be done without government, and by the free-market process should be much more efficient.
Before we drown the baby, perhaps it's important to ask why we have babies in the first place. Is our goal the best value-for-money education system or the most effective? Do we want the cheapest possible health system or a healthy society? I'm going to guess that the value for money is a secondary consideration for most people. For me personally, I want an education system that values education. I want a health system that looks after the health of people. I'm quite happy for these to be government programs because accountability lies within providing the services.
At the bottom line a broke government can't function. It needs to remain viable as well as providing those essential services. From my perspective, it's such a shame that so much money is thrown into defence at the expense of other services. It's understandable why, security is a huge issue and no-one wants to be thrifty when it comes to national defence. It has been taken to absurd proportions but is the bloat in military spending reason to get rid of the military altogether?
The dirty secret
No-one is an island, indeed no island is an island any more. We are interconnected, firstly from the self to the family and community in which we live, then from the community to the greater area. And so on until we hit state, country, and now beyond that. Each of us isn't working as individuals trying to get our own, we are a social species who have social obligations. We benefit from living in this social structure.
If an alpha male wolf doesn't share enough with other wolves in the pack, they rise up against the alpha. Perhaps analogous to the role of us as individuals. If we all don't prosper from our social situation then we are fostering the demise of society. The reach of the modern person has pushed to extremes the inequity of wealth, breeding resentment among the have-nots who are forced to work against their will for just enough to survive.
Dreams of a revolution are just that, the dirty secret is that the society we have around us now is one built for our prosperity. We have running water, an education system, health, welfare, access to general services, food, infrastructure - all this and much more are considered basic standards for living. And so they should be!
The government are a means to an end, and in a democracy there is at least a partial sense of ownership from the individual and the society to the government itself. They aren't some external force, but a culmination of internal ones. We lose democracy the moment we treat it as a monarchy. We stop having a representation of the will of the people and create Big Government.
If we want to get rid of Big Government, we need to change our attitude towards the democratic process. Government is an expression of us as a society, its prosperity is our prosperity and vice versa. Until that is realised Big Government will remain as a threat. This is the consequence of using rhetoric with little substance, it creates a bogey man instead of looking to address real issues.
Saturday, 3 July 2010
The Principle Of Stability
It must be incomprehensible at times to look up at the universe and not see intelligence. After all, we are agency-seeking apes. Detecting intelligence and looking for intentionality is what we do best. In navigating through social situations, and trying to understand the motives of other bits of matter, it's a very useful trait. When it comes to nature, not so much. We know now that order in species is a result of the evolutionary process, and order in nature is but an expression of the laws of physics. As Dan Dennett might put it, ultimately there are those who want an ultimate skyhook to explain all those cranes. Enter fine-tuning arguments.
Consider the anthropic principle in its most basic form: that the conditions of the universe must be that which allow for observers to exist. It's a truism by definition, if the universe couldn't harbour the kind of life observing it then there would be no observations of it. We know the universe can support us because we are here.
Various forms of fine-tuning are inevitably proposed to explain just why were are here. Certain types of fine-tuning can be explained already. For example, that we are so suited to the planet we live on can be explained by evolutionary theory. Or that the planet has a stable orbit and is the right distance from the sun can be explained by the huge number of planetary systems that there would be. etc. But there are some things that seem yet unexplained.
While there are non-controversial explanations for particular aspects, there are still aspects of nature which we don't understand. There is not yet a theory of everything, so it's no surprise to see a whole host of arguments based around seemingly improbable aspects of the universe. I think it's quite silly, because there are so many things critical to our existence it means that any any change means we don't exist.
I think the problem stems from our vantage point. We are looking at a universe 13.7 billion years old, we aren't seeing the process but the result. Like us being a result of 3.5 billion years of evolution, that evolution produced us does not mean that evolution was designed to produce us. Likewise, us existing in the universe does not mean the universe is the way it is for our existence.
I want to illustrate this using a thought experiment, invoking the principle of stability. Another truism, the principle can be stated as stable forms last longer than unstable forms. We can understand this function already in terms of stable and unstable isotopes. Nitrogen-14 is a stable atom, but when bombarded with cosmic rays in the atmosphere transforms into Carbon-14. Carbon-14 is an unstable form of carbon and decays back into the stable Nitrogen-14.
Imagine rolling a die 1000 times and recording the sequence. A simple procedure but one that will generate a sequence of immense improbability 1.4x10778. Each role has a 1 in 6 chance of being any value yet the number you end up with is beyond all human comprehension of improbability. It produced a huge number, one that wasn't by any means inevitable but it did result through the series of chance rolls. It's only a problem to explain if you're expecting the outcome to be a particular 1000 roll sequence. This is why instead of looking backwards we should look fowards and ask whether a process could allow for the possibility of our existence instead of looking for improbable things in order to invokean infinite improbability drive God.
If we go back far enough in time, we are going to do away with a lot of things. Life on this earth is but a few billion years old, our solar system only 4.6 billion years old. The heavy elements that we see in great amounts would eventually go to, for we know they are forged in stars and distributed by supernovae explosions. Eventually we get back before there's galaxy formation, to a universe where there's only light atoms (hydrogen, helium and a tiny bit of lithium) then before atoms can form, then before before there were particles like protons. Going back further we see elementary particles then back further a place before elementary particles where there were no fundamental forces.
Like the die experiment, look at the process going forward. It's not an aim to get what we have now, but to see what would happen if we took the process on the principle of stability. Stable things last longer than unstable things, so in the most unstable state imaginable, some form of structure should emerge. Consider this initial structural states as elementary particles. Now that there is a basic form of structure. With those particles interacting, there's always further possibility that bigger particles could be made. Not all interactions need to lead to bigger particles, but if only a small percentage of particles could form stable structures they should emerge on account of stable structures being more stable than unstable structures.
On the principle, this should continue until there are no more possible increments in complexity. So now we have a whole host of particles, some composites of many iterations of smaller particle collectives colliding, and some that are still elementary particles. Some of these particles may only be able to exist when the universe is energetic enough and should not be seen in the latter universe except through high-energy collisions. And some states of interactivity might not be able to happen until the universe is sufficiently cool enough to allow for them. Atoms might be a good example of this, not being able to form until 100,000 years after the big bang.
Perhaps now you have a state where you can have structural formations, composites of atoms interacting together in a new structure - like for example in stars. And in those new states, in turn new forms of structure might emerge, like atoms fusing together to form heavier atoms. And from there perhaps those atoms by their interaction will come together to form spherical structures, and on some of those spherical structures, organising principles there will allow for complex chains of molecules. Which in turn might serve as templates for creating copies of the complex chains. That process might become better at doing so, creating a new means of generating complexity. And so on...
By now the principle should be illustrated, that is to say that if we take the events looking through time instead of back at them we should tend to see the gradual emergence of more complex structures by pure necessity.
I'm not saying this is the way that it happened, or even that it could happen this way. It's a means to think about the problem in a different way. That we look backwards means we aren't seeing the process, instead seeing a whole lot that needed to be the way it is for us to exist. But why shouldn't there be a whole host of things necessary for our existence? We exist, therefore the universe must have the conditions necessary for our existence.
A parallel argument is invoked by those who support biological fine-tuning called Irreducible Complexity. This suffers from the same process, it's looking backwards at what there is instead of considering the process by which to get to it. Can evolutionary theory account for irreducibly complex structures? It can! Any mutation that is advantageous may through later mutation make it necessary. Thus the structure looks like it is evidence against a gradual process, but only because it's looking after the fact instead of considering how the process works.
And I think the same error in thinking in all fine-tuning arguments. It's looking for that which is hard to explain by conventional thought without giving consideration as to what can explain it. By attaching huge improbabilities to that particular structure, it makes it seem like it needs a grand explanation.
One final thought is that perhaps this line of argument falls into irrelevancy if humans aren't treated as a necessity. That it could result in observers doesn't mean that the goal of the universe was to have observers. Likewise that evolution created sapient beings doesn't mean that evolution was made to create sapient beings. That we did evolve and that we do have the capacity to observe the universe says nothing about the laws of nature other than they have to be that way necessarily. It's because we are here to observe that we know that, but they are not that way so that we can be here to observe. Putting us as the focal point generates the improbability because we are very improbable - just like everything else!
Consider the anthropic principle in its most basic form: that the conditions of the universe must be that which allow for observers to exist. It's a truism by definition, if the universe couldn't harbour the kind of life observing it then there would be no observations of it. We know the universe can support us because we are here.
Various forms of fine-tuning are inevitably proposed to explain just why were are here. Certain types of fine-tuning can be explained already. For example, that we are so suited to the planet we live on can be explained by evolutionary theory. Or that the planet has a stable orbit and is the right distance from the sun can be explained by the huge number of planetary systems that there would be. etc. But there are some things that seem yet unexplained.
While there are non-controversial explanations for particular aspects, there are still aspects of nature which we don't understand. There is not yet a theory of everything, so it's no surprise to see a whole host of arguments based around seemingly improbable aspects of the universe. I think it's quite silly, because there are so many things critical to our existence it means that any any change means we don't exist.
I think the problem stems from our vantage point. We are looking at a universe 13.7 billion years old, we aren't seeing the process but the result. Like us being a result of 3.5 billion years of evolution, that evolution produced us does not mean that evolution was designed to produce us. Likewise, us existing in the universe does not mean the universe is the way it is for our existence.
I want to illustrate this using a thought experiment, invoking the principle of stability. Another truism, the principle can be stated as stable forms last longer than unstable forms. We can understand this function already in terms of stable and unstable isotopes. Nitrogen-14 is a stable atom, but when bombarded with cosmic rays in the atmosphere transforms into Carbon-14. Carbon-14 is an unstable form of carbon and decays back into the stable Nitrogen-14.
Imagine rolling a die 1000 times and recording the sequence. A simple procedure but one that will generate a sequence of immense improbability 1.4x10778. Each role has a 1 in 6 chance of being any value yet the number you end up with is beyond all human comprehension of improbability. It produced a huge number, one that wasn't by any means inevitable but it did result through the series of chance rolls. It's only a problem to explain if you're expecting the outcome to be a particular 1000 roll sequence. This is why instead of looking backwards we should look fowards and ask whether a process could allow for the possibility of our existence instead of looking for improbable things in order to invoke
If we go back far enough in time, we are going to do away with a lot of things. Life on this earth is but a few billion years old, our solar system only 4.6 billion years old. The heavy elements that we see in great amounts would eventually go to, for we know they are forged in stars and distributed by supernovae explosions. Eventually we get back before there's galaxy formation, to a universe where there's only light atoms (hydrogen, helium and a tiny bit of lithium) then before atoms can form, then before before there were particles like protons. Going back further we see elementary particles then back further a place before elementary particles where there were no fundamental forces.
Like the die experiment, look at the process going forward. It's not an aim to get what we have now, but to see what would happen if we took the process on the principle of stability. Stable things last longer than unstable things, so in the most unstable state imaginable, some form of structure should emerge. Consider this initial structural states as elementary particles. Now that there is a basic form of structure. With those particles interacting, there's always further possibility that bigger particles could be made. Not all interactions need to lead to bigger particles, but if only a small percentage of particles could form stable structures they should emerge on account of stable structures being more stable than unstable structures.
On the principle, this should continue until there are no more possible increments in complexity. So now we have a whole host of particles, some composites of many iterations of smaller particle collectives colliding, and some that are still elementary particles. Some of these particles may only be able to exist when the universe is energetic enough and should not be seen in the latter universe except through high-energy collisions. And some states of interactivity might not be able to happen until the universe is sufficiently cool enough to allow for them. Atoms might be a good example of this, not being able to form until 100,000 years after the big bang.
Perhaps now you have a state where you can have structural formations, composites of atoms interacting together in a new structure - like for example in stars. And in those new states, in turn new forms of structure might emerge, like atoms fusing together to form heavier atoms. And from there perhaps those atoms by their interaction will come together to form spherical structures, and on some of those spherical structures, organising principles there will allow for complex chains of molecules. Which in turn might serve as templates for creating copies of the complex chains. That process might become better at doing so, creating a new means of generating complexity. And so on...
By now the principle should be illustrated, that is to say that if we take the events looking through time instead of back at them we should tend to see the gradual emergence of more complex structures by pure necessity.
I'm not saying this is the way that it happened, or even that it could happen this way. It's a means to think about the problem in a different way. That we look backwards means we aren't seeing the process, instead seeing a whole lot that needed to be the way it is for us to exist. But why shouldn't there be a whole host of things necessary for our existence? We exist, therefore the universe must have the conditions necessary for our existence.
A parallel argument is invoked by those who support biological fine-tuning called Irreducible Complexity. This suffers from the same process, it's looking backwards at what there is instead of considering the process by which to get to it. Can evolutionary theory account for irreducibly complex structures? It can! Any mutation that is advantageous may through later mutation make it necessary. Thus the structure looks like it is evidence against a gradual process, but only because it's looking after the fact instead of considering how the process works.
And I think the same error in thinking in all fine-tuning arguments. It's looking for that which is hard to explain by conventional thought without giving consideration as to what can explain it. By attaching huge improbabilities to that particular structure, it makes it seem like it needs a grand explanation.
One final thought is that perhaps this line of argument falls into irrelevancy if humans aren't treated as a necessity. That it could result in observers doesn't mean that the goal of the universe was to have observers. Likewise that evolution created sapient beings doesn't mean that evolution was made to create sapient beings. That we did evolve and that we do have the capacity to observe the universe says nothing about the laws of nature other than they have to be that way necessarily. It's because we are here to observe that we know that, but they are not that way so that we can be here to observe. Putting us as the focal point generates the improbability because we are very improbable - just like everything else!
Promiscuous Teleology
Being fair, not all arguments are born equal. One argument that fails utterly is the argument from design, it is both philosophically impoverished and empirically unjustified. Yet so much effort is put into discrediting Darwinian evolution as if the only barrier to design being accepted is the current scientific paradigm. It isn't! Nonetheless implicit and explicit arguments from design still emerge as if they are proof of a divine hand in nature.
Reading Pharyngula, I came across this article. While the content of this article is horrible (PZ sums it up well), what I want to focus on is this one passage from the article.
What I find odd is that he's dismissing Hitchens as if it's a child not understanding an adult worldview. This couldn't be further from the truth! Design of that magnitude is something children normally impose on nature. There is a psychological term for that kind of thinking: promiscuous teleology.
This is not a child failing to understand an adult worldview, it's an adult failing to recognise that he has the explanation of a child. It's a childish inference, any adult making such an observation should be ashamed that they haven't grown out of childish thinking.
A bee has a different spectrum of light to us, it can't see the red we do but can see into the ultraviolet. There are flowers with patterns on them only visible in the ultraviolet, something our eyes can't detect but bees can. To us they just look plain, but to a bee they see the patterns that we can't detect.
Thus this kind of argument falls into absurdity. If our eyes detected at a different wavelength, then we would see things we don't see now, and would not see things that we do see now. Of course things are going to look to us a particular way no matter what way we can look. Is there any particular reason why we should value the colour of the sky or trees or water beyond that we do see them the way we see them?
If we could see in the range of bees, some flowers might seem even more beautiful. After all some of these flowers are that way to attract pollinators. Would that be proof of God's handiwork? What about if we were colourblind? The different shades of grey would be all that we know. Then trees would be a particular shade of grey and the sky another. And wouldn't it be just a perfect testament to God's handiwork that the sky is just the right shade of grey for us?
That a child thinks in such a manner is expected. It's how cognition has been shown to work through extensive psychological research. Adults, however, should be able to avoid such mental trappings. It's not a child trying to understand an adult worldview and failing, the adult worldview if it entertains such childish notions is right to be mocked by people of all ages.
But now, let’s talk, one grownup to another.* If your worldview at its core has this kind of thinking, then it isn't an adult worldview. If not, then you should be praising Hitchens for being able to see through such obvious falsity and correct him on what the belief really entails. Otherwise you can't claim that your worldview is adult, it is anything but. If you think like a child, don't be surprised if another child is able to see through it...
*I can't take credit for this condescension, this pure George Berkin
Reading Pharyngula, I came across this article. While the content of this article is horrible (PZ sums it up well), what I want to focus on is this one passage from the article.
As with many atheists, Hitchens’ non-belief got its start in childhood, when he heard a religious person say something that, even to a child, came across as dumb. With Hitchens’s mentor, it was something about the color of the sky and human eyeballs.I have read God Is Not Great (which is my least favourite of the recent atheist literature) and the idea that the child Hitchens found as dumb was an argument from design that creeps into so much religious thinking.
For me, there’s something inane about an adult beginning to base their adult worldview on something wacko recalled from childhood.
What I find odd is that he's dismissing Hitchens as if it's a child not understanding an adult worldview. This couldn't be further from the truth! Design of that magnitude is something children normally impose on nature. There is a psychological term for that kind of thinking: promiscuous teleology.
This is not a child failing to understand an adult worldview, it's an adult failing to recognise that he has the explanation of a child. It's a childish inference, any adult making such an observation should be ashamed that they haven't grown out of childish thinking.
A bee has a different spectrum of light to us, it can't see the red we do but can see into the ultraviolet. There are flowers with patterns on them only visible in the ultraviolet, something our eyes can't detect but bees can. To us they just look plain, but to a bee they see the patterns that we can't detect.
Thus this kind of argument falls into absurdity. If our eyes detected at a different wavelength, then we would see things we don't see now, and would not see things that we do see now. Of course things are going to look to us a particular way no matter what way we can look. Is there any particular reason why we should value the colour of the sky or trees or water beyond that we do see them the way we see them?
If we could see in the range of bees, some flowers might seem even more beautiful. After all some of these flowers are that way to attract pollinators. Would that be proof of God's handiwork? What about if we were colourblind? The different shades of grey would be all that we know. Then trees would be a particular shade of grey and the sky another. And wouldn't it be just a perfect testament to God's handiwork that the sky is just the right shade of grey for us?
That a child thinks in such a manner is expected. It's how cognition has been shown to work through extensive psychological research. Adults, however, should be able to avoid such mental trappings. It's not a child trying to understand an adult worldview and failing, the adult worldview if it entertains such childish notions is right to be mocked by people of all ages.
But now, let’s talk, one grownup to another.* If your worldview at its core has this kind of thinking, then it isn't an adult worldview. If not, then you should be praising Hitchens for being able to see through such obvious falsity and correct him on what the belief really entails. Otherwise you can't claim that your worldview is adult, it is anything but. If you think like a child, don't be surprised if another child is able to see through it...
*I can't take credit for this condescension, this pure George Berkin
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