Fine-Tuning & Design: The Lego Blocks Analogy
To illustrate an aspect of apparent design and fine-tuning, substitute Lego Blocks for the fundamental particles (of force and matter). It's probably easier to visualize this way.
Now Lego Blocks are clearly designed to fit together to form way more complex structures and obviously come in several types. Let's arbitrarily say Logo Blocks come in 16 different colours, and let's have each colour represent a fundamental force or matter particle. So we have red (electron); pink (electron-neutrino), yellow Higgs boson), orange (up-quark), brown (down-quark), tan (photon), gray (graviton), black (gluon), white (muon), green (muon-neutrino), blue (tau), violet (tau neutrino), purple (strange-quark), turquoise (charm-quark), silver (top-quark) and gold (bottom-quark) Lego Blocks. There's more of course than just these, like the weak nuclear force particles, and of course all of the anti-particles, but you get the idea.
Now clearly there are many, many more ways of designing these 16 differently coloured Lego Blocks such that they don't fit together (and thus can't form more complex structures) compared to the one way they do. So if Lego Blocks came to be naturally, by chance, by accident, then the odds would be that they wouldn't on the whole fit or snap together to form increasingly complex structures. Yet they do.
Even if you add intelligence into the mix, if you took 16 different people at random, gave them a colour, and asked each of them to design a single type of Lego Block, what are the odds that the 16 resulting different types of Lego Blocks would mesh together? Probably bugger-all.
The alternative is an intelligent designer, like the type of human intelligence that actually designs Lego Blocks sharing the common purpose that all Lego Blocks are designed for form more complex structures. Theists of course will claim a supernatural deity done it. I suggest that a natural computer / software programmer done it and this is evidence that we're in a simulated landscape and our Universe is a virtual reality Universe.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I love Legos and have always used them to demonstrate who the universe and life appeared, without an intelligent driving force.
Say you take 1,000,000 copies of the same Lego set and dumped all the individual pieces in a giant tumbler. You turn on the tumbler and as the pieces are randomly bouncing around, when 2 pieces collide with one another in a way that they'd snap together, they snap together.
Thing is, if they don't snap together in a way that adheres to the instructions, they don't form a stable bond and break apart. When 2 pieces collide in such a way that follows the instructions, they form a stable bond and don't break apart. As time goes on, you'll have countless unstable connections for every stable connection.. but at the same time, you have sets slowly coming together. Eventually, and through random occurrence, complete sets will start to come together.
Now I've used this analogy before and those who support some kind of intelligent design just reply "well you have instructions, so right there is intelligent design". First, they're simply (and likely purposely) missing the point of the analogy. Second, if the instructions are analogous to anything, it's the natural laws of physics and chemistry. In the subatomic world, particles collide and join all the time.. but there are only a few select ways that they can collide and form a stable, lasting bond. The stable bonds are due to the natural laws of physics. The rest don't adhere to them and aren't stable enough to last. Same with abiogenesis and the build blocks of life coming together. Chemically, there's only a few select ways the building blocks can meet and join to form a lasting bond. They can join together in countless other combinations, but if they're not physically and chemically stable, they break apart. Eventually, one stable combination will meet another stable combination and those would then form a new stable combination, rinse and repeat.. leading up to the appearance of life.
FatherOfNyx
Level 7
Oct 3, 2018
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Do you not wonder though where those natural laws of physics and chemistry came from? And what about the space and time that frame your particles?
Aren’t you taking a lot for granted?
@WilliamFleming No, not really. Just the way it is. Same if you took my Lego analogy and used squares, circles, and triangles that you cut up into tiny pieces. There's only one way they can fit back together and that way is just a product of their properties.
@johnprytz I guess that's if you feel the need to believe in an ultimate existence.. but there's no reason to think that you could have laws governing mass and charge and whatever else while thinking they can't allow for X to combine with Y. The natural laws that we observe are just that, natural. No rhyme or reason. If you were somehow able to alter a basic fundamental law of the universe all the way back to the beginning of time, the universe that comes into being will appear to be perfect for those laws. It's like how Creationists claim that life was made perfect for Earth, that the traits of life were made for the conditions of Earth.. but that's only because life adapted to those conditions. If you traveled back in time and changed the conditions, life would evolve to those conditions and once again appear to be made perfect.
@johnprytz If you answer how the laws are the way they are, you'll answer why the laws are the way they are.
@johnprytz Well luckily we don't live in a video game with rules written by an omnipresent intelligent being. Natural laws are just that, natural. If they were different for whatever reason, then they'd also be the natural laws that naturally formed.
@johnprytz You've put forth a belief that, so far, cannot be proven true or false.. much like God. So I can't say that I know 100%, but what I can say is that when one doesn't have a belief in the supernatural, unnatural, or metaphysical, all you're left with is the natural/physical. Meaning the laws of physics are natural.
This belief you've put forth is no better or worse than the belief in God. It's just another example of humans making shit up to try and make sense of the natural world they can't understand. God, Allah, Odin, aliens that created humans, aliens that created a program that we are living in, Matrix style robots that became self aware and using us as batteries, every atom actually being operated by an interdimensional being that if we could visualize it would appear to be a purple bear with lizard skin and white bat wings, the multiverse, our universe being contained in an electron of another universe and that electron is part of a molecule inside a unicorn turd.. You can literally make up any stupid shit to fill the gaps of your understanding of the natural world and put it forth in such a way that is impossible to be proven true or false, which is where this "we're living in a program/simulation" belief is. Just the belief in God wrapped in a different label.
@johnprytz Lol, pretty sure every theist believes they have a rational argument for their belief as well. It's a huge leap to say that because humans invented computer programs that it's plausible we are living in one. By that logic, humans have invented "reality" television shows.. so it's just as plausible we are part of an alien reality television show where they remain hidden and broadcast our antics galaxy wide. Humans have invented books, so it's just as plausible that our reality is just the imagination of an alien, sentient being reading a book that we are all characters of.
Now I'm pretty sure you'd think those 2 ideas are idiotic.. but they use the same "logic and reason" as you have to justify us living in a computer program
@johnprytz When I said just as plausible for my TV show/book examples, it was implying that they (and us living in a program) are not very plausible. Yeah, anything that can't be disproven is technically plausible.. but that really just means that your theory is just as plausible as God. We very well could be living in a simulation, but we could also be living inside a bubble being blown by an alien toddler.. or any other bat shit crazy idea that you can make up that can't be disproven.
@johnprytz It's not bat shit crazy to hypothesize and take as entertainment, but it is to think it is true.
@johnprytz You know, theists pull the "closed mind" card all the time. You see, just because you propose an idea and someone rejects it, that doesn't mean they haven't thought about it before. This belief system of yours has been around for years, you are not proposing anything new. Because of that, it has been processed time and time again. Seriously, just like a theist. They propose their belief, one that you've already considered, and since you reject their claim, they pull the "closed mind" fallacy in a pathetic attempt to degrade the opposition. Enjoy your belief system buddy.
Humm. I bought a new car and once I get it re-designed and fine tuned it will all be OK. I could not do this without the lego blocks. Keep in mind that humans and animals do not suddenly appear as we see them today. This process takes a tremendous amount of time. Cars on the other hand are pretty much the way you see them from the beginning. So far the cars have no real intelligence. That is supposed to be for us humans and the lessor animals.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Oct 3, 2018
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@johnprytz Are you joking me or simply misunderstanding my remark about cars? What is,- is! I'm not trying to put out some believers idea of how "god did it." My basic car idea is against "fine tuning." It should work well when you get it and do so without fine tuning. I'm not holding out for some Flintstone idea of auto evolution.
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