I don't remember you pointing that out. — Gnomon

Obviously.

I've had to repeat myself multiple times. I'm not going to continue doing this. If you want any more responses from me, read through my responses and ask questions about what I said.

:clap:

He won't respond to your actual criticisms or arguments because he can't. IME, @Gnomon is as disingenuous as he is an incorrigibly poor thinker.

In other words, the improbability that 'an uncreated, transcendent creator of universes' exists (e.g. Plato, Aquinas) is, at minimum, equal to the improbability that 'an uncreated, autopoietic universe' exists — 180 Proof

So you're saying the probability God exists is extremely low?

So you're saying the probability God exists is extremely low? — RogueAI

Also, by implication, I'm saying that, while "God" and the universe are equally improbable, "God" is completely nonevident such that parsimoniously the universe (as e.g. eternal, cyclical, a vacuum fluctuation, etc) suffices both as a physical explanation and metaphysical presupposition.

In other words, the improbability that 'an uncreated, transcendent creator of universes' exists (e.g. Plato, Aquinas) is, at minimum, equal to the improbability that 'an uncreated, autopoietic universe' exists — 180 Proof
So you're saying the probability God exists is extremely low? — RogueAI

In 's Immanentism worldview, the probability of a Creator outside of space-time is minimal-to-impossible, because he doesn't allow any inference from what-is to what-logically-must-be. Yet, cosmologist Max Tegmark constructed an extreme mathematical/logical hypothesis (modal reality) of an infinite array of simultaneously existing universes, of which ours is merely one of uncountable possibilities. Few physicists take his postulation seriously, but some mathematicians might accept it as reasonable. And some philosophers may view his hypothesis as an interesting Thought Experiment.

For me, the God-postulate is also not a provable fact, or even a belief to be taken on faith, but a logical conjecture about what must have caused the Big Bang beginning of the only universe we know anything about. Hence, the Platonic First Cause and the Aristotelian Prime Mover remain as examples of valid reasoning, even in the absence of material evidence. So, as Bayesian Probability exemplifies, your posterior statistical conclusions are dependent on your prior subjective beliefs. {generic you}

Quantum Gravity physicist Stephen Unwin wrote a book, The Probability of God, to present his "simple {Bayesian} calculation that proves the ultimate truth". Of course it's a mathematical proof, not a physical proof. Like Meyer in the OP, he concludes that the bible-god is highly probable. But he also admits that "the math probability does not transfer to the notion of belief".

is making a statement of personal belief, not a fact of science. So, I'm guessing that his Bayesian calculation assigned a low prior probability to anything outside of the physical world (transcendent), which makes the calculation of a low posterior probability almost a foregone conclusion. And that firm belief makes any postulation of a transcendent creator seem absurd. Which may be why he responds to such threads as this one with the sarcasm, derision, and mockery of a true believer, instead of modest & respectful philosophical dialog.

Ironically, until the Darwinian 19th century, most scientists & physicists*1 found the god concept to be both rational and believable, and in the absence of any better explanation : logically necessary. So, what has changed since then, to make a self-existent universe seem plausible? Perhaps, it's because cosmologists have traced the chain of causation back 14B years, which seems almost an eternity. But Quantum physicists have found that the foundation of material reality is grounded on probability, not certainty. Hence our scientific worldview is muddled, whereas religious --- and some philosophical --- worldviews are based on the certainty of Faith. :smile:


*1. Newton's God
Isaac Newton's view has been considered to be close to deism, and several biographers and scholars labelled him as a deist who is strongly influenced by Christianity. However, he differed from strict adherents of deism in that he invoked God as a special physical cause to keep the planets in orbits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton

PS__ says that his Immanentism worldview is "an application of Occam's Razor". But that pragmatic rule of thumb may not apply to the theoretical question of Cosmic Causation. Nevertheless, if you want the simplest causal entity, a single Mind seems to require fewer assumptions than a hypothetical infinite chain of Multiverses, or Many Worlds, or pre-bang vacuum fluctuations. All are conjectural, and unprovable. So, as I said, to insist on any of those ontological explanations requires either a leap of faith, or a conditional Bayesian belief. The latter is my preference, because it's the only one that addresses the Hard Question of how Mind emerged in a material world. :grin:

If the universe happened without a cause, it would certainly be a simulation; otherwise all things need a cause for them being there. If all the stars are there, there must be a cause for each one, unless it is a simulation of stars, then there may be reason other than direct genesis of stars.

↪180 Proof is making a statement of personal belief, not a fact of science. — Gnomon

:roll:

That so-called "personal belief" is an application of Occam's Razor, or a regulatory principle for abductive reasoning¹ (i.e. philosophy, not "a statement of fact" – like e.g. 'the uniformity of nature').

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning [1]

An aside. One of the problems for me is the emotional ladenness of this kind of wording. 'Accident' is already contrived as unfortunate. 'Chance' and 'haphazard' also sound like they have a criticism built into the very wording. It's a way of wrapping it all up as 'meaningful' versus 'dumb luck'... Essentially a William Lane Craig move. — Tom Storm

Actually, I had never heard of the term, Accidentalism, until I stumbled across it while researching the opposite of Creation & Causation & Determinism. Apparently, it's an ancient concept to characterize a chaotic worldview. So, it was not made-up by Craig or Meyer or Gnomon to troll those who troll Intelligent Design proponents. Apparently, the Accidentalists (Epicureans ?) preferred "dumb luck" to "design".

Denial of Design in the real world seems to require Accidentalism*1 as an explanation for the natural rational order that Science depends on. For example, how did the Big Bang begin with nothing but extreme heat & pressure, yet then evolve into what Darwin described as "From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved".

Many cosmologists, who recognize the "unfortunate" "haphazardness" of Accidentalism, postulate (by inference, not evidence) that the Bang was organized by pre-existing logical Natural Laws, which in the works of men, are signs of design. Since the advent of Quantum Theory, the role of randomness*2 in physics is undeniable, except by Einstein. However, Darwin's theory combined Randomness (variation) with Selection (design) to describe how Nature has evolved into Cosmos instead of Chaos*3. :smile:


*1. Accidentalism
Theory that the flow of events is unpredictable, or for Epicureans, that mental events are specifically unpredictable. See also chaos, determinism, libertarianism, tychism.
https://philosophy.en-academic.com/20/accidentalism

*2. Tychism (Greek: τύχη, lit. 'chance') is a thesis proposed by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce that holds that absolute chance, or indeterminism, is a real factor operative in the universe. This doctrine forms a central part of Peirce's comprehensive evolutionary cosmology. It may be considered both the direct opposite of Albert Einstein's oft quoted dictum that: "God does not play dice with the universe" and an early philosophical anticipation of Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychism

*3. Cosmos vs Chaos
In Plato's Timaeus, he describes the universe as a rational, ordered cosmos created by a divine Craftsman, or Demiurge, from a pre-existing chaos. Plato's use of the term "chaos" is not meant to imply a complete lack of order, but rather a type of order that is opposed to reason. Plato's cosmos is dynamic, with a chaotic tendency that can undermine the rational order of the world.
___Google AI overview

NB: a cosmos (i.e. an emergent, autopoietic, dissipative fractal-structure) is only one of countless phase transitions of chaos (i.e. void, formlessness, randomness) – like sound in silence or a wave on the ocean or a cloud in the sky or a spot on the sun ... anthropic illusions of "design" :eyes:

Since most of the posts on this thread have been dismissive of the philosophical arguments presented in Return of the God Hypothesis, for an eternal, logical, intelligent, and intentional First Cause of the physical universe, I'm adding a Post Script to summarize Stephen Meyer's Epilogue, in which he responds to "scientific objections to its arguments" with scientific counter-arguments.

# Anthropomorphic Fine Tuning
"Lawrence Krauss challenged the idea that the physical parameters of our universe were fine-tuned to make life possible". Instead, he argued that "life on earth is fine-tuned to the universe".
Meyer : "the precise fine tuning of many critical factors needed to arise first before any conceivable form of life could have begun to evolve . . . "
Note --- Hence, a nursery world compatible with Life was a necessary prerequisite for fragile life to emerge from thermodynamic processes that produce only Entropy. In my thesis, I labeled that Vital Force (Negentropy) as positive Enformy*1*2.

*1. A Theory of Enformed Systems :
"Under TES, enformy, the capacity to organize, is essential to morphogenesis"
https://vxm.com/2.CompTheory.html

*2. Enformy vs Entropy :
Entropy is a property of the universe modeled as a thermodynamic system. Energy always flows from Hot (high energy density) to Cold (low density) -- except when it doesn't. On rare occasions, energy lingers in a moderate state that we know as Matter, and sometimes even reveals new qualities and states of material stuff .
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, in a closed system, Entropy always increases until it reaches equilibrium at a temperature of absolute zero. But some glitch in that system allows stable forms to emerge that can recycle energy in the form of qualities we call Life & Mind. That glitch is what I call Enformy : the tendency to create new forms of matter (morphogenesis).
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html


# Eternally Cycling Multiverse
"Several cosmological models have appeared . . . . to portray the universe as infinitely old". "Roger Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology*3 and Paul Steinhardt's cyclic cosmology . . . . oscillating universe".
Meyer : "This model was subject to the problem of steadily increasing entropy . . . . with each cycle". "To address this problem, Penroses's model invokes a hypothetical Phantom Field with powers associated with no known physical field (but instead, only with a god-like agency)".
Note --- Physical Eternity must have some way to deal with destructive Entropy. On Earth, Life has adapted to the seeming inevitability of Death, by importing energy from outside the living organism. Hence, Life is an open system --- organized in a manner to capture and make use of the Morphological Potential that is inherent in ambient Energy.

*3. Is conformal cyclic cosmology really debunked?
". . . . CCC is wrong because it violates the conservation of information, something that you need to do physics in the first place, and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, . . ."
https://www.reddit.com/r/cosmology/comments/jfu7mm/is_conformal_cyclic_cosmology_really_debunked/

Note --- Meyer labels his Intelligent Designer theory generically as "Theism", which could apply to any of the thousands of world religions and god-models. Yet, he avoids specifying that his designer is supposed to be the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Ironically, his scientific arguments are identical to those of Deists, who don't accept the Bible as the Word of God. Instead, they read Nature as the Work of G*D.

Suppose several other life forms were discovered in the universe, some not carbon based, some not even needing a planet to exist on. How would the perspectives illustrated here change? How much of our beliefs are homo sapien based? What if the universe was designed for a totally different life form and homo sapiens are just a temporary part of the chaos? What if the universe wasn't designed for any particular life form and various life forms just pop into and out of existence?