> Greetings Randy:
>
> "It seems to me that it's the nature of probability to deal with prediction
> of future events and not the observation of already occurred events. No one
> is interested in hearing weathermen discuss the probability of today's
> weather occuring, they know that probability is one. They're interested in
> the probability of tomorrow's weather being a certain way. In the same say
> the chance of drawing a certain card from a standard deck, predicted before
> the card is drawn, is 1 in 52. The probability of drawing a particular card,
> after you've actually drawn it, is 1 in 1. I don't see what conclusion is
> established by observing the outcome of a trial, after the trial is
> concluded, and then discussing the probability the outcome had before the
> trial was run."
>
> Frankly, neither do I, but then I'm not a statistician. Those who are,
> however, do this kind of thing all the time, so they must get something from
> it.
>
> But to take your own argument for a moment, if this is the only universe
> that can exist or ever will exist, then the chance that it would have the
> constant value combination that it has now is 1, so it is equally useless
> for you to speak about how these current values have such a small chance of
> occurring.
Judging by the way you're mixing your tenses I think you're missing the
point of the argument. You say "the chance that [the universe] WOULD HAVE
the constant value combination that it HAD NOW is 1". But from the
perspective in time before these constants came to be their probability of
having certain values would depend on your theory of formation and would
not be 1. If you believe they formed because of the interaction of
impersonal laws then the probability of the constants having a particular
set of values would depend on the functioning of those laws. If you
believe these values depend on God's desire to make the universe a fit
habitation for homo sapiens(among others) then the probabilities involved
would be affected accordingly.
To rephrase this argument in Pim's "hand of cards" scenario you could
put it this way. The chance of the dealer in a game of poker drawing five
consecutive royal flushes would seem to be small unless the dealer is 1)
very good at manipulating the cards secretly and 2)desires to win every
hand. The interesting aspect in analyzing this situation is not to note
how unlikely the result is but to speculate on whether or not it came
about by "design". If we know these facts about the dealer beforehand the
chances of these five royal flushes occurring goes up markedly. In this
same way, the ID argument is a "theory of formation" argument. It deals
with these physical constants from the perspective in time before they
came to be.
>
> "Could the physical constants of our universe have been other than they
> are?"
>
> Certainly; there is even preliminary evidence that suggests they may be
> different in different places of the current universe.
>
> "What factors determine these constants?"
>
> The interplay of the various laws of the universe.
What factors determine these laws?
>
> "Are there events associated with the Big Bang that were indeterminate that
> could give rise to various values for these constants?"
>
> As I explained in a previous post, during the Planck Era just after the Big
> Bang, the four fundamental forces were all combined into one force and the
> laws as we know them had not yet been established. During this time the
> constant values could have been changing constantly and wildly.
>
> "Or were these constant-forming events determinate? Or are these physical
> constants not determined by any events that occured during the Big Bang? Are
> they determined by something more basic?"
>
> The answers to these questions are probably no.
>
> "But what would be more basic than the laws of the universe?"
>
> Even the laws of the universe had to be formed in the early stages of the
> Big Bang.
But I'm wondering at this point if there were factors more basic than
the laws of the universe that governed the formation of the laws
themselves. Were there any factors that were constant through the Planck
Era and into the post-Planck Era?
>
> Kevin L. O'Brien
>
>
Randy Bronson