Leonard Susskind arguest in the Cosmic Landscape paraphrasing:
The evidence for fine-tuning is so overwhelming that many are lead to believe that the universe must be designed. He responds with a parable. He imagines fish debating the meaning of the fine-tuning of the temperature of the water. He calls them fishicists and they develop what is called the ickthropic principle. Eventually they conclude that the water must be fine-tuned within a certain temperature, otherwise they would not exist. Therefore, it is not surprising that the water is fine-tuned.
Susskind’s argument has the following structure:
D or not D
If A then B
A
Therefore B
Therefore not D
The environment is designed or not designed
If we exist then the environment is fit for life
We exist
Therefore the environment is fit for life
Therefore the environment is not designed
This is a fallacy. There is nothing in premises 2 and 3 that obtains the conclusion in 5 which is not D
The structure you outlined is not his argument. If it were, it would indeed be fallacious, but it isn’t. I understand how you might have read it that way, but it’s incorrect.
That is the structure of his argument. he’s attempting to rebut the argument from design. why don’t you enlighten me and outline the structure of his argument yourself.
the weak anthropic principle is one that I actually like quite a lot, so I’ll provide a quote that explains it more directly than the fishy one you provided:
“conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist”
if that is not immediately obviously true to you…I don’t know what else to say. seems pretty intuitively obvious to me.
these are my words:
OF COURSE we exist in conditions that allow for our existence. why would we exist on a planet or in a universe that wouldn’t allow for our existence? how does the suggestion that we have equal likelihood of existing in unsuitable conditions make sense at all? OF COURSE we exist where our existence is allowed! of course.
Well, the WAP is relevant, and more than tautological, as a response to the creationist argument that, because we exist in a place that’s perfectly suited for our existence, with very specific conditions, that something must have deliberately made it so. It’s not the case that something must have deliberately made it so, and the WAP and perhaps other APs are useful to explain why – even without a creator, we would expect to find ourselves in conditions that allow for our existence.
It doesn’t explain whether or not the environment is designed, it just debunks the idea that because the conditions are so rare, it must have been created. Perhaps you see it as a fallacy because you think it was trying to prove it wasn’t designed, but that’s not what it is an attempt to prove.
No, FJ, it’s the atheists who are using this argument to attempt to prove that the universe is not designed.
In any case, you just admitted that the weak anthropic principle doesn’t prove anything other than the mere fact that theists and atheists already agree on, namely, that we must live in a universe that is fit for life.
So do you admit that the WAP does nothing for atheism?
Theists do, in fact, sometimes argue that because we exist in a universe that has the conditions that allow for our existence, it means god must have created it. If you don’t recognize that theists sometimes argue that, that’s fine. I’m not going to argue with you whether or not they do. I was a Christian for some time, and I’ve heard this argument from people in my community. Even in the goddamn wikipedia page for the Anthropic Principle it says that people make the argument I’m saying they make:
you don’t disprove D or not D by arguing if A then B, A therefore B.
Your AP does nothing to prove one way or the other whether or not the universe is designed or not. Both theists and atheists agree that we must live in an environment fit for life.
Here’ Susskind’s actual words:
As you can see Susskind has done nothing to refute D or not D. He has only asserted a mere tautology that everyone already believes in.
Also, FJ, do you admit that the WAP does not refute the argument from design? Susskind thinks he has a positive argument in favor of atheism. The universe could still be designed where we find the environment fit for life, correct?
It seems that the intent of the parable was the inductive implication that “because we all know that the ocean was not fined tuned for the fish, the universe must, in parallel, be not tuned for humanity.”
As kyle stated, the conclusion has nothing to do with the premise. Susskind merely provided a parallelism for the exact same problem, but it lends nothing to the logic and has nothing to do with design or no design. According to the story, the ocean was in fact designed to support the fish within it. So how is the parable supporting anything?
If you want to misrepresent what other people say, you’re more than welcome to do that Kyle. The actual quote was significantly different from your paraphrasing. The whole “D,A,B” formulation was just such a big misrepresentation that I can’t even take this thread seriously any more. You’re doing it on purpose, making these ridiculous straw-man arguments. Try putting your biases to the side for long enough to read and understand what he’s saying. You might learn something.
I don’t, I don’t have any. I’m done, and your thread will probably die pretty soon. That’s what tends to happen in these sorts of threads.
Do some research on the actual weak anthropic principle, and try not to put so much effort into misunderstanding it next time.
why don’t you go ahead and demonstrate that i’ve misunderstood. essentially, you’ve given up on argument and you’re now resorting to ridicule. Here’s the structure of your ingenious argument:
I don’t think that kyle was arguing the anthropic principle, but rather its use in trying to argue for or against intelligent design.
I agree with FJ on the fact that the anthropic principle is a silly argument FOR intelligent design and should never have been brought up by Christians, Jews, or Muslims (Muslims do it even more). But Susskind’s counter argument doesn’t display why it shouldn’t be used or what is wrong with it, but instead merely attempts to use it in what he apparently thought was a silly parallel so as to expose the fallacy. It doesn’t expose the fallacy of using it.
FJ is right. The “fine tuning” argument for intelligent design doesn’t compel, because there’s nothing about this “fine tuning” that can be shown to necessitate intelligent design. It’s obvious (in hindsight, for some) and tautological except when it’s utilized as a counterargument to a misguided line of reasoning. Pointing out the obvious is a perfectly reasonable approach in such cases.
Anthropic principles are interesting to me, because they (correctly, I believe) in some way break down the strong divisions created by realist outlooks. Not that I’m not a realist myself, more or less, but I think the division between mind (“in here”) and reality (“out there”) is exaggerated, misunderstood… whatever. The weak anthropic principle should be obvious. The strong anthropic principle strikes me as just monotheism in sheep’s clothing. But I believe somewhere inbetween those two poles may be a theory that could shake us all up a little bit and move physics forwards. Maybe that theory already exists, and I just don’t know about it, or I don’t understand it…
The actual discussion, despite the title, is about Susskind’s argument, not the actual “Weak Anthropic Principle”. I agree that the principle does not support intelligent design, but nor does it refute it in any way. The principle is irrelevant to the concern of ID.
Weak Anthropic: “It has apparently happened this way for whatever reason”
Strong Anthropic: “It necessarily must happen such as to eventually lead to this point”
Both are necessarily true, but still have nothing to do with Intelligent Design theory.
What is the “obvious” you think was pointed out in Susskind’s parable argument?
That in a universe with many environments, and only some small fraction suitable for life, we, being life, would obviously expect to find ourselves in one of the small fraction suitable for life.
That is merely stating the principle. But Susskind’s argument was supposed to be about Intelligent Design. What, in his argument is he supposed to be making clear concerning ID? It can’t merely be the principle itself because that principle has nothing to do with ID.
