I mentioned before how the universe is finely tuned. But not just the laws but it also seems that the cosmological constant is very finely tuned. Anthropic scientists had no other alternative but to consider an intelligent designer. That was the very last thing they wanted to do. So after awhile came the many world's interpretation that their are an infinite number of parallel universes. However again the need for a intelligent deisigner came about because some of those universes are likely to be very complex. So now their is speculation that we are living in an computer stimulation, this offers a natural mechanism. So as you see nothing can knock of naturalism. Naturalism is held as a position, and it more tightly defended when contrary evidence comes along like mentioned above. Of course, other contrary evidence is survival of bodily which their is vasts amounts of evidence supporting it. Also psi phenomena and other type of phenomena such as stigmata etc.
Here's is an interesting pdf lecture by Alan Gauld on memory traces.
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~thegroundoffaith/Lecture_3.pdf
At the end of the lecture Alan Gauld conclusion is follows
An viable theory of memory will accommodate:
1. Top down rather than bottom up. Laws characterizing the system as a whole, rather than the whole being derived from the parts.
2. Memories cannot be tied to particular anatomical loci. Memories can be transferred to different parts of the brain.
3. It will regard nerve tracts that transmit nerve impulses to one part of the brain to another not as conduits for the transmission of 'information' in the loose sense commonly adopted by psychologists, but as means by which spatiotemporal patterns of activity in different regions may be fined tuned to create overarching patterns.
4. We cannot regard the matter as decided and clear....work in progress
2 comments:
On fine-tuning, I wonder how you would respond to this argument:
Natural selection has not only diversified forms of life but also resulted in the extinction of the vast majority of species on planet Earth. As Richard Leakey points out, "99.9 percent of all species that have ever lived are extinct... [L]ife's grip on Earth is evidently more precarious than we might like to accept" (Leakey and Lewin 1995, p. 197). The same processes which lead to the emergence of life also give way to its extinction, both individually for specific organisms and collectively for species as a whole. Surely human beings will share the fate of all other organisms and succumb to extinction. In fact, if we extrapolate the future of human beings from the course of human evolution in the past, it is likely that human beings will become extinct within the next ten million years (Hartmann and Miller 1991, p. 232). Although various forms of life will likely continue long after the extinction of the human race, all life on the planet will vanish when the Earth is no longer hospitable for life. And though there may be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, given all likely scenarios for the future of the universe, the entire universe will one day become inhospitable for life. By all indications, the long absence of sentience from the beginning of the universe until the emergence of higher life will be followed by a permanent absence of sentience in the universe after the extinction of all life. As Ernest Nagel has succinctly put it, "human destiny [is] an episode between two oblivions" (Nagel 1960, p. 496). While the universe may superficially appear designed with life in mind, the indisputable cycle of speciation and extinction shows that life is temporary and apparently does not serve any purpose for any supernatural agencies.
Fine-tuned for the purpose of being permanently extinguished?
Keith,
The cosmological constant is an exmaple of extreme fine tuning, rather we live it or not it appears to indicate their is an designer behind the universe. Also according to inflationary theory when this part of the visible part of the universe ends, their could well be other big bangs. In fact physicists now are planning on possibly creating a universe in an laboratory. If we live in an computer stimulation, extinctions themselves may just be a part of the game itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEu0AvjoAvQ&feature=related
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