Re: Fine Tuned Intelligent Design - should it be taught in schools?

[Robert Charleston <rc3673@student.open.ac.uk>]

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Probability, necessity, contingency. (Hilary and Edward)

I am writing a new section outlining in a bit more detail the probability
debate, which in the literature I've read does not favour the scientific
multiple universes account or the designer account in any meaningful way.
I will, of course, make sure I answer the points H&E have raised better
than this, but until I've finished the new section, I will just say that:

Hilary. Your points 1. and 2. look to me to be a 'brute fact' response,
coupled with a relativist account of probability. Or, technically, that
all events have a retrospective probability of 1 (cf. David Lewis and
counterfactual causation?) And that in advance or in itself alone, nothing
is probable or improbable unless its occurence has been repeatedly
observed in the past. So any possible configuration of the universe - even
one that allows things like us to exist - cannot be likely or unlikely in
itself, since the universe is only configured *once* and cannot be
repeatedly observed to find probabilities; and all we can say after the
event is 'that's the way it was'. 

Each configuration of molecules in my secret agent's airtight room was of
equal probability - that's what the rules of probability say. The chance
of the 3 hours of life-preserving combinations following one another that
obtained is - technically - the same as any other series of combinations
in advance; and perhaps always 1 after it has obtained, depending on your
theory of causation. So in that sense there is nothing improbable about
the path to survival that obtained. As it went along, it was just as
likely as any other. After the event, you may think it was of proabability
(1). But that's one of the problems with traditional probability theory,
it's so counter-intuitive. I think it's still somewhat surprising to
survive. In the case of the agent we could - presumably - run the
experiment several times and see how many agents survived, so get some
probabilities. With the big bang we cannot. But I'm uncomfortable with the
idea that this denies probability or improbability to the big bang in
itself. That lo
oks like a jump from an epistemological problem to a metaphysical denial.
I think that there are things that can only happen once (our sun going
supernova, my 21st birthday) that still have a probability of occuring
other than 1 or 0. So I don't trust the theoretical assumptions on which
improbability is being denied.

But then positively, I'm defending the idea that there is a sense of
'unlikely' separate from 'improbable in the sense of being observed to run
contrary to what happens most often in the same conditions'. That's what
the secret agent example is doing. You may find 'that's just the way it
was, it has to be something' a satisfactory response to a suspicious
conjunction of variables (I take it I am allowed 'suspicious' even if
you're not prepared to give 'improbable'?) but I'm not sure I do. 

Edward - of course, almost all variables and constants we have found in
physics have the kind of interconnectedness and co-dependence you are
talking about. However, these 20 do not. They might be related to the
universe existing at all, or to one another, of course. But at the moment
we have no reason to think they are, have no evidence or even hint that
they are not truly 'cut free' and arbitrary of there being some sort of
big bang, and I don't think we are entitled to assume that any such link
exists. Or to put it another way, on current evidence (Martin Rees' Just
Six Numbers is a nice summary of - wait for it - the evidence about 6 of
them) a belief that they are tied in that way to the big bang or one
another or some other as-yet undetected entity would be pretty much a
matter of pure Faith rather than the rational reason I am trying to build
an account on.

For what it's worth, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to be said
about necessity and contingency as concepts in this context, and I'm
probably going to start questioning myself after a bit more background
reading. Necessity might still leave us with the question 'why is it
necessary?' though, depending on what kind of necessity is established.

Phew...

Rab.



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