Stephen Harris wrote:

"Borcis" wrote in message
...

Radi Khrapko wrote:

An answer to the Fermi's question, `Where are they?', is
presented.


How do you get at the notion that fine-tuning the universe for an unique
civilization should be less "extreme" than fine-tuning it for many
civilizations ? It seems you imply an appeal to an interestingly
pathological version of the principle of parsimony


There is no _purpose_ involved in what you call fine-tuning or evolution.


Please note that I was borrowing the vocabulary of Radi Khrapko. As for
the matter of "purpose" that you introduce, I don't see a difference
between postulating "purposes" and postulating "objective" prior
probability distributions where we can't sample. In all these cases we
are dreaming up, to our emergent observations, invisible backstages that
we find plausible (according to our respective tastes).

Probability theory is just one manner to systematize and force
consistency in similar reasoning, and anthropic issues mark the point
where probability theory language becomes no better than a fig leaf (if
only) because there isn't enough data for it to meaningfully apply.

I was just trying to point out in Radi Khrapko's abstract, a core idea
that's at once most particular and debatable, namely the idea that among
initial conditions to the Universe, ones such that only a single
intelligent civilization emerges should be easier to come by, than ones
such that many intelligent civilizations emerge. The abstract implied it
was obvious, and I was questioning why should one consider this obvious.

Taking your reaction as a data point (= assuming it to be somehow
relevant), suggests that one should consider this obvious because "there
is no Purpose". This provides a model to my notion of "an appeal to an
interestingly pathological version of the principle of parsimony".

"The Teleological Argument explains nothing and is fundamentally flawed
in its logic. In order for life to exist, the universe must havecertain
necessary properties, but it does not follow that the universe has
those properties for the purpose of creating life. "

To me even this debunking of "The Teological Argument" is flawed in its
logic by discussing purpose without defining it. Ascription of purpose
belongs to sociology, and in order to deny the soundness of its
transposition to cosmology (or evolution theory, for that matter) one
needs to first fix the shape of the transposition. IOW, I don't know
what "the purpose of creating life" is supposed to mean, and this being
given I can't agree on the assertion that it doesn't follow.


It is more accurate to call it a comparison of random events repeating
themselves in similar environments. Suppose there are only a trillion
random events which have to repeat identically to evolve life and lead
to a civilization. The odds of that sting of events repeating in this or
a billion universes like this one is vanishingly remote. There are a lot
of unknown variables in the Drake equation. You would have to
assume that only like 50 random events had to repeat in a suitable
environment in the universe to roughly duplicate our history.


As a matter of fact I don't think your usage of "random" is
enlightening. I looks to me like standard litterature jargon to say
exactly what I said - when I said that the assumption we are alone,
promotes to significance what we would otherwise tend to dismiss as
probable idiosyncrasies of our particular past - because it would
promote these conditions to plausible conditions of possibility, not
just of ourselves, but of intelligent life in general.

I don't like the
term fine-tuning


Once again, not mine.

because it suggests an intentional manipulation
of an anthropic nature to a culminating event composed actually
of random happenings along the way which produced the
potential for an observing civilization of a pre-existing process.


I see what you mean, but (according to the generally acknowledged causal
picture) of course the "random happenings" are themselves the
consequence of the initial state, as much as anything else that
"randomly" happens.

And - what allows you to distinguish what you call "random happenings",
is precisely that you view them not as random but as related to our
existence as observers, by a link of functional necessity.

Regards, Boris Borcic
--
L'anthropie met un terme aux dynamiques