The OP addressed the question at the metaphysical level, and the discussion should have stayed there. OP merely rehashes the tired argument from design. Well, the beauty of symmetry and predictability of physical laws don't imply a designer, and the "randomness" and "alternative universes" oppositions are straw men long since burned down. Either matter and energy will exist or they won't. As it happens, they do, so to speak of nothingness is to speak idly. So if existence is the case, that which exists will express the laws necessary to its existence and behavior, including the interconvertibility of matter and energy. We humans, extreme latecomers to this universe existing for billions of earth years before our arrival, whose existence was made possible only by temporary conditions on one obscure planet (out of perhaps a decillion others about which we know little or nothing), NATURALLY find beauty in the symmetries of mathematics, electricity, gravity, magnetism, etc., because we are creatures of those forces. Just as children love their parents, we all love the natural world IN WHICH, AND ALONG WITH WHICH, WE COEVOLVED. How could we not find it beautiful? If there were a designer, then how come we humans capable of appreciating this "design" were a mere afterthought in the nature of an asterisk on a footnote arriving after eternities of astrophysical wonders beyond comprehension? Yet mathematical truths, like gravity, were there all along, just with nobody around (that we know of) to declare them beautiful or symmetrical or harmonious or mysterious.
Learning about crossovers helped convert me from atheist to a believer in God
Let’s see if this one survives.
I have been an atheist for 50 years. Recently I became a believer. One factor that helped tip the scales is the “fine tuned universe” argument - the idea that the physics constants, e.g. the mass of an electron, are so finely “selected” that if they weren’t very close to what they are, life wouldn’t exist. This is an argument for a creator. The best counter argument seems to be that there are an infinite number of universes and we got lucky.
When I got into audio, and started learning about crossovers, I was ASTOUNDED at how well the pieces fit together. Octaves are exact doubles of frequency. 3dB describes so many seemingly unrelated phenomena. But the one that really got me was the magic of capacitors and inductors. They share no parts, other than wires sticking out at each end (usually), one acts due to voltage, one acts due to electromagnetism, one resists AC, one resists DC. And yet, somehow, they are mirror images of each other, using almost exactly the same equations, behaving perfectly orthogonal to each other, even to the extent of how powerfully they perform their function (3dB again). How is this possible? Could this have happened due to random chance? I smell a creator.
Showing 3 responses by hickamore
@mahgister Your erudition on this topic as others is impressive, yet (as ever) incondensable to a cogent argument for or against any particular proposition. Please try this one: why should the wildest of all conceivable explanations -- a supernatural cause, something outside nature, hence unknowable to natural beings -- ever arise to a level of probability worthy of mention by homo logicus contemporaneous? Surely the line connecting the harmonic sequence to "god" is anything but a straight one. |
Sorry; you had indeed referenced the prime number sequence; it was others who invoked harmonic sequence and 3dB and so much else that is beautiful and elegant but which nonetheless COULD NOT BE OTHERWISE. OP notes that "multiple universes" conjectures are still around: yes, but not to denote "randomness" as the supposed only alternative to supernaturae. |