Are the assumptions of science justified?

[The Pixie]

I think you've put the fine tuning argument in too simplistic a form.

I invited Metacrock to state what the predictions are, but so far nothing. If I put it simplistically, it is because I wanted something to go on.

First, cosmology proceeds like some forms of social science from pure observation, not experimentally and predictively, as we can't construct our own controlled universes for testing purposes, and even if we could, well then it still might be problematic, since at best, we could ONLY construct the types of universes that WERE designed by intelligent agents, no?

No.

Cosmology in science builds a model, and then builds predictions about what we would see in the here-and-now. Background cosmic radiation is a great example of that.

Fine-tuning really doesn't make the wider claim that "everything was made for us", but only that, in observation of the twin facts that we do exist, and that certain universal parameters would seem to have to be very precisely just what they are to allow that, then the positing of some kind of "intention" behind the construction of such a universe - one that lets sentience arise to ponder this question at all - seems a reasonable theory....

So in fact no predictions at all? That is what I thought, but Metacrock made this grandiose claim that it was an assumption grounded in the same justification as the assumptions of science.

[met]

I'm not sure that all "new science" makes new predictions? That's a pretty rigid, dogmatic description of scientific methodology. Some "new science" maybe just simplifies the assumptions or calculations needed to produce the same results? Cf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe.... but since "simplify" or "make more elegant" are somewhat subjective qualities, there can be a lot of debate about those kinds of things.

....hence, a lot of people find the anthropomorphic principle - "we can't assume non-coincidence in the universal fine-tuning because both we and the fine-tuning itself have to be here first before we can assume it" - to be convoluted, "inelegant", and unconvincing & that's led to new interest by many cosmologists in multiverse alternatives.

So, it seems like both philosophical assumptions and aesthetic judgements can enter through the back door into scientific debates?

[sgttomas]

I can say confidently, after 9 pages of this, that this statement I have underlined is falsified and hence, on rigorous scientific grounds to dismiss....

There are other minds very similar to our own

So we have a hypothesis, what would we predict? If those minds also inhabited similar bodies, then we would predict that they would behave in a similar manner. Look around you. How many people are doing the things you do, talking the same language about the same subjects.

I think that that is good empirical evidence that there are other minds very similar to our own

-sgtt

[The Pixie]

I'm not sure that all "new science" makes new predictions? That's a pretty rigid, dogmatic description of scientific methodology. Some "new science" maybe just simplifies the assumptions or calculations needed to produce the same results? Cf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe.... but since "simplify" or "make more elegant" are somewhat subjective qualities, there can be a lot of debate about those kinds of things.

....hence, a lot of people find the anthropomorphic principle - "we can't assume non-coincidence in the universal fine-tuning because both we and the fine-tuning itself have to be here first before we can assume it" - to be convoluted, "inelegant", and unconvincing & that's led to new interest by many cosmologists in multiverse alternatives.

So, it seems like both philosophical assumptions and aesthetic judgements can enter through the back door into scientific debates?

There is a difference between hypotheses under discussion and hypotheses accepted as science. The one-electron universe is definitely in the former group. It is an interesting idea, but no more than that. The same is true of string theory, which Metacrock brought up before. It is rather more developed than one-electron, but it is still just a hypothesis up for discussion. The anthropomorphic principle and fine-tuning are the same. Hypotheses up for discussion; definitely not part of accepted science.

People, scientists included, have opinions on what hypotheses are right, and religion and elegance will apply. But a hypothesis does not become accepted science until its bold predictions have been confirmed.

[Metacrock]

I think you've put the fine tuning argument in too simplistic a form.

I invited Metacrock to state what the predictions are, but so far nothing.

sorry my friend you are mistaken I told you several predictions. All the studies on the effects of mystical experience are making predictions aboiut those effects an the m scale gives us a way to verify it,that's what i said,