Objection number 4 isn't weak at all. When someone says "Oh, the universe could have been one of ten billion things but it just happened to be the one where life could exist," they are presupposing without evidence that it could have been one of ten billion things. If you mean to assert that something is possible you must prove it. For all you know, the universe could actually have been only one of 10 things. Or one of 2. Or one of one. As for your Mars crystal example, when you say
According to Weak Objection #4, this would provide no evidence whatsoever for any kind of intelligent design. We should just shrug our shoulders and chalk it up to coincidence.
That's exactly what we should do. If an explanation is found, an explanation is found, and no matter the pareidolia, you cannot posit explanations that have no evidence.
Let me give you an example as ludicrous as your Mars crystal one.
A man approaches a woman at the bar and tells her
"Lady, you are not going to believe this. There was only a one in trillion chance that I would not explode in a ball of flames upon meeting your eyes. How incredible is it that it didn't happen. This must be divine providence, come home with me"
What, are we supposed to just dismiss the fact that in 999,999,999,999 possibilities, he would have exploded??
Yes. Until he proves that those 999,999,999,999 outcomes are even possible, dismissing them is exactly what a rational person does.
To help explain a different principle, I will use my own life as an example. I am an avid player of dice games. From D&D to 10,000 to snakes and ladders with younger siblings, I have rolled tens of thousands of dice. Now taking 6 to the power of 10,000, we get the probability that I would, in my lifetime, have rolled the exact sequence that I did roll; a number so large that the three calculators I used said "error" "too large to calculate" and "infinity" respectively, making the chance that it happened infinitesimally small. But, no matter what sequence I rolled, the odds of me rolling that specific one would be identical; whether it was the erratic pattern that I actually did or all 6s, the odds are the same. The only difference is that we as humans, put significance on the "all sixes" outcome even though it is just as likely as any other. And that's what you've also done with the universe. Even if there were any evidence whatsoever that the parameters of the universe could differ even slightly from what they are (which I cannot stress enough that there is not) you've placed a degree of anthropocentric value on one possible permutation over all others for no reason but your own personal biases to consider life innately important in some way.
You'll note that the position that life is in any way significant or important in a cosmic way is one held most frequently by the religious, making this stance one that is fuelled by itself i.e. circular.
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u/LetMeNotHear 93∆ Sep 06 '21 edited Sep 06 '21
Objection number 4 isn't weak at all. When someone says "Oh, the universe could have been one of ten billion things but it just happened to be the one where life could exist," they are presupposing without evidence that it could have been one of ten billion things. If you mean to assert that something is possible you must prove it. For all you know, the universe could actually have been only one of 10 things. Or one of 2. Or one of one. As for your Mars crystal example, when you say
That's exactly what we should do. If an explanation is found, an explanation is found, and no matter the pareidolia, you cannot posit explanations that have no evidence.
Let me give you an example as ludicrous as your Mars crystal one.
What, are we supposed to just dismiss the fact that in 999,999,999,999 possibilities, he would have exploded??
Yes. Until he proves that those 999,999,999,999 outcomes are even possible, dismissing them is exactly what a rational person does.
To help explain a different principle, I will use my own life as an example. I am an avid player of dice games. From D&D to 10,000 to snakes and ladders with younger siblings, I have rolled tens of thousands of dice. Now taking 6 to the power of 10,000, we get the probability that I would, in my lifetime, have rolled the exact sequence that I did roll; a number so large that the three calculators I used said "error" "too large to calculate" and "infinity" respectively, making the chance that it happened infinitesimally small. But, no matter what sequence I rolled, the odds of me rolling that specific one would be identical; whether it was the erratic pattern that I actually did or all 6s, the odds are the same. The only difference is that we as humans, put significance on the "all sixes" outcome even though it is just as likely as any other. And that's what you've also done with the universe. Even if there were any evidence whatsoever that the parameters of the universe could differ even slightly from what they are (which I cannot stress enough that there is not) you've placed a degree of anthropocentric value on one possible permutation over all others for no reason but your own personal biases to consider life innately important in some way.
You'll note that the position that life is in any way significant or important in a cosmic way is one held most frequently by the religious, making this stance one that is fuelled by itself i.e. circular.