Posted by njili on November 23, 1998 at 10:07:04:
In Reply to: Incorrect odds posted by Pohl on November 22, 1998 at 22:42:49:
Odds are figures and 'figures lie and liars figure'. Everyone can read them just as he/she wishes. For instance your post of odds of spontaneous generation as being 10 to the hundred billionth. In what time frame? Within an hour, a day a year, an eon? Given eternity, those are very good odds ... once again we get unity.
I'll switch from odds (figures) to a more difficult to fathom line of reasoning. You may not agree instantly, but in time, perhaps, you will, it just takes times to think about it and let it 'think in'.
Things 'have to be as they are' in order for us to question them being 'as they are'. If the universe hadn't evolved as it did, either there'd be no one to question the odds of things being 'as it is', or something else would be calculating odds for those different things being 'as they are'. There's probably something on another planet in another galaxy calculating the odds on it's being there and coming up with similar long odds. But if it weren't there (or we weren't here) something else would be just as flabbergasted at the odds of it's being there OR there'd be no one to ponder and thus the question wouldn't exist. By asking the question you indicate an intelligence that requires you to be here.
I'm sorry if my powers of explanation are inadequate to this task but 'in my own little mind' I understand it. If life hadn't come about (and intelligent life at that) there'd be no question. The very fact that there is a question requires that life (as it is or different)intelligent enough to ask it, has evolved. To me the odds are 1 in 1. The only two possibilities are 1/1 or 0/0. Either way that's my unity again.
I also don't buy your guy who calculated the odds having the proper data with which to form his 'odds'. He couldn't possibly know all the possibilities unless he knows what's on every planet in every solar system in every galaxy (and in each universe??). One can say that the odds are 50-50 that you'll be born either in Asia or elsewhere .. but only if he knows how many elsewhere's there are and approximately what the populations of Asia and elsewhere are. Your man didn't have ANY idea as to what possibilites exist.
This is very interesting. I'm now (as an atheist) getting some idea as to the mindset of a believer who 'knows' that God exists but fails to convince others as to the 'fact'. I know your man's calculations are wrong and that I'm right (albeit shallow) in my conclusions. You'll have to choose for yourself whom to believe ... me or the Nobel Prize laureate.
What are the odds you'll agree with me???? Not too good I'd say; eh what!