16-12-11, 08:29 AM
|
#1
|
Name: Jam
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: England
Posts: 341
|
Swinburne and the Anthropic Principle
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Richard Swinburne
An objector may now urge that although the order of the universe is an objective matter, nevertheless, unless the universe were an orderly place, men would not be around to comment on the fact. (If there were no natural laws, there would be no regularly functioning organisms, and so no men.) Hence there is nothing surprising in the fact that men find order -- they could not possibly find anything else...
...[the aforementioned] argument fails totally for a reason which can best be brought out by an analogy. Suppose that a madman kidnaps a victim and shuts him in a room with a card‑shuffling machine. The machine shuffles ten decks of cards simultaneously and then draws a card from each deck and exhibits simultaneously the ten cards. The kidnapper tells the victim that he will shortly set the machine to work and it will exhibit its first draw, but that unless the draw consists of an ace of hearts from each deck, the machine will simultaneously set off an explosion which will kill the victim, in consequence of which he will not see which cards the machine drew. The machine is then set to work, and to the amazement and relief of the victim the machine exhibits an ace of hearts drawn from each deck. The victim thinks that this extraordinary fact needs an explanation in terms of the machine having been rigged in some way. But the kidnapper, who now reappears, casts doubt on this suggestion. 'It is hardly surprising', he says, 'that the machine draws only aces of hearts. You could not possibly see anything else. For you would not be here to see anything at all, if any other cards had been drawn.' But of course the victim is right and the kidnapper is wrong. There is indeed something extraordinary in need of explanation in ten aces of hearts being drawn. The fact that this peculiar order is a necessary condition of the draw being perceived at all makes what is perceived no less extraordinary and in need of explanation. The teleologist's starting‑point is not that we perceive order rather than disorder, but that order rather than disorder is there. Maybe only if order is there can we know what is there, but that makes what is there no less extraordinary and in need of explanation.
|
Is this madman-with-cards analogy an appropriate refutation of the anthropic principle as an explanation for "fine-tuning" in the universe? I've been puzzling over this for some time...
As little religion as possible please; I want to keep this strictly logic-based for now.
_______________________________
The above post is not intentionally rude or offensive.
"If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman and make the drop with a smile on your lips."
|
|
|
Today's Toppers
1Likes
