Saturday, March 16, 2013

Cosmic De-tuning

I really appreciate all the comments on my Fine Tuning Argument for Naturalism (FTAN). Ben Yachov made the excellent point that a constant tweaking by God of the natural laws would itself appear to be a sort of natural law, and not a miracle. Tyler asks about the amount of parameter space that would be gained by God's intervention, and would it really be as large as I am suggesting. He writes, "...we need the numbers to argue concretely." Together, these two criticisms make a serious challenge to my argument. I have tried to answer them in brief in the comments, but here I will try to give a fuller account, complete with numbers.

Ben's point is a very cogent one, and requires careful consideration. If, for example, the strong force were too weak for atomic nuclei to hold together, and yet God held them together, how could that be seen by physicists as anything but a natural law - a strong force, or an additional force, strong enough to hold nuclei together? I feel that, in principle, an omnipotent God ought to be able to allow life to exist in a non-law-like way. But as I have nothing other than a law-like universe to refer to for examples, I think it would be hard to argue this point. So, I will (partially) concede Ben's point. Unfortunately for me, this means my FTAN in its generic form can't go through. Still, I think I can save the argument by appealing to particular cases where Ben's complaint can be circumvented.

First let me point out that, although science has revealed a unified and consistent picture of natural laws, that need not have been the case. A  couple decades ago there seemed to be a developing contradiction about the age of the universe. Astrophysicists modeling the evolution of stars were coming up with ages for those stars that were longer than the age of the universe that cosmologists were suggesting. Of course, creationists got very excited about this and began crowing about how the Big Bang model was inconsistent and so forth. In the event, the star ages got revised downwards and the universe age upwards, so that today there is no longer any contradiction. But that need not have happened. It could have happened that astrophysicists, applying their methods, came up with ages that were much larger than the age that cosmologists, using their own distinct methods, allowed for the age of the universe. Thus science would have had a conundrum. Methodological naturalism would prevent scientists from resolving this conundrum by postulating supernatural intervention. But the conundrum would be available for anyone who wanted to argue for a supernatural being or cause.

What does this have to do with Ben's point? Well, in a universe that runs by rigid natural laws, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the laws give consistent answers to questions like "How old is the universe?" But in a universe created by an omnipotent being, such consistency is surprising - because there are so many other ways God could have created the universe. For instance, by injecting stars that are already in an advanced stage into an already-expanding universe. In this, the young earth creationists are logically correct: God could have created a universe that was only 6000 years old, but which had the "appearance of age." And there is no particular reason that the ages, as deduced from different sources using the (incorrect) naturalistic assumption, would agree with each other. So, in addition to Ben's suggestion that miraculous intervention appears as natural law, there is another possibility:  that a miraculous intervention would show up as a conundrum, i.e., an apparent contradiction between natural laws. I will give some other examples below.

The second general point to make is that there is nothing in our known natural laws - apart from the supposed fine tuning of the parameters of those laws - that seems to prefer life to non-life. Given an omnipotent God, it is possible that there would be either special natural laws for life that differ from those for non-living things, or special exceptions to otherwise uniform natural laws that permit life in places where it would otherwise be impossible. The latter would (per Ben) appear as natural laws - but laws of a very particular type (see below) and of a type we do not see in our actual universe.

OK, now on to three specific examples to show what I mean, and to give some numerical values to answer Tyler.

In discussing these examples, I will use the term de-tuning to describe the amount of parameter space that is opened up by the God hypothesis. Let's call the naturalistically life-permitting range of the parameter the n-range, and the range of the same parameter for which an omnipotent God could allow life (like ours) to arise the g-range. Then define the de-tuning to be the ratio n-range divided by g-range. According to the assumptions of the Fine Tuning Argument, taken over into the FTAN, this ratio represents the probability that the parameter will fall in the naturalistically life-giving range, assuming theism to be true, and all other things being equal.

(Of course, God could presumably allow life unlike life on Earth to arise in a much wider range of parameters, so this ratio is a conservative estimate of the de-tuning.)

1. Cosmological Constant: The cosmological constant is a favorite target of fine-tuning arguments. It is a constant that appears in Einstein's General Relativity equations. A non-zero cosmological constant acts like a uniform energy density spread throughout space, and therefore is a candidate for the so-called "dark energy" of the universe.

If the cosmological constant is large and negative, the universe will re-collapse on itself too fast for galaxies, and therefore life, to form. If the cosmological constant is large and positive, the early universe will expand too fast for galaxies to form - the primordial hydrogen spread throughout space will not have time to collapse under its own gravity.

Now, it turns out that no matter how large the cosmological constant is, the expansion will not tear apart structures that have already formed. So, an omnipotent God could create a universe with a positive cosmological constant, then miraculously collect enough primordial matter into one place for a galaxy to form. Life could then evolve naturalistically without any further intervention. It doesn't matter how large the constant is, this scenario remains possible for any positive value. Thus, the g-range is, in principle, infinite. But if we follow Collins and use the Planck scale as the reference range, then we get a conservative estimate for the de-tuning that is essentially the same as his result for the fine-tuning, which he gives as one part in 10120.

This example shows that the de-tuning is not just a matter of slightly expanding the range of some parameter, as Tyler seems to suggest. The g-range is vastly larger than the n-range, and therefore (by the logic of the Fine Tuning Argument) the probability of finding our universe lying in the n-range is vastly smaller under the theistic assumption.

2. Origin of life on Earth: It is possible that natural laws allow life to exist, but don't allow life to arise from non-life. In this case, God could initiate life on Earth by "seeding" Earth with the original life-form(s), which then could go on to evolve into a variety of different forms in a naturalistic way.  There is obviously an infinite number of ways this could happen: God could start with just a single reproducing cell, or she could seed the earth with a whole range of flora and fauna.

There is no way to capture the infinite possibilities in a single number, but we can get a sort of very conservative limit on the de-tuning by considering the age of the Earth. It seems that naturalistic processes required 3 billion years to produce complex life. The Sun is expected to shine for about 10 billion years before becoming a red giant. Naturalistically, then, we should expect the age of the Earth to be between 3 and 10 billion years at the time intelligent life arises. But under theism, it could be anything from nearly zero to 10 billion years. This gives a not-very-impressive detuning of 0.7.

3. Distance of the Earth from the Sun: The earth-sun distance doesn't make a good candidate for a fine-tuning argument: given the large number of planets in the galaxy it is highly likely that some of them will be at the "right" distance from their star for life to arise: the region called the "habitable zone."  (Nonetheless, some folks still cite it.) However, we can turn it into a de-tuning parameter as follows.

A planet too close to its star for life could be miraculously protected from the excess radiation by a sort of blanket surrounding the planet. At this blanket, energy disappears from the universe. Elsewhere, I assume, the laws of physics are the same as in our universe, so energy is conserved everywhere except at this blanket. Thus, the planet could be much closer to the star than the habitable zone, and still contain life. Moreover, the blanket could instead provide energy to the planet, and so life could exist on a planet farther from the star than the habitable zone, too. Indeed, such a planet would not need a star at all, so it could be wandering through interstellar space.

To estimate the de-tuning in this case, note that the Wikipedia page cites the habitable zone as about 1.4 AU wide, providing the n-range. The g-range extends from the surface of the star out into interstellar space; we can take it be half the average distance between stars, or about 2 light-years. So the de-tuning is about 10-5. (Again, I am making a very conservative estimate. There is no reason such a planet couldn't wander about in inter-galactic space. Allowing that scenario would give a much more impressive de-tuning factor.)

4. Chemistry for life:  Lastly, consider the possibility that the laws of chemistry are not (fine) tuned for life, but God changes the rules so that atoms and molecules behave differently when in living things than in non-living things. Per Ben's dictum, this would appear to us as a natural law: the chemistry of living things is fundamentally different from that of non-living things. (It would give rise to conundrums, too. Molecules are constantly passing from inside the body to outside via respiration, perspiration, etc., and we would have no naturalistic way of explaining the chemical change when they do.)

I don't know how to put a de-tuning value on this possibility, but obviously there are many more ways life could exist under this scenario than in a world with a single unified set of chemical laws.

I think I have shown that divine interventions vastly expand the possibilities for life to exist in the universe. These interventions could show up either as conundrums - apparent contradictions in the laws of nature, as in the first two cases above - or as natural laws that single out living things in a special way. Strictly speaking, only the former count as expanding the parameter ranges that allow for life to exist, since the latter may be considered as "naturalistic" scenarios. But special natural laws for life is just what we don't see in our universe: we don't see planets wrapped in energy-destroying bubbles, or see molecules that behave differently inside a living thing than outside.

Put the point the other way around (and more in the spirit of the FTA), and ask what would we expect to see under the theistic hypothesis? Other things being equal, we would expect to see lots of conundrums and lots of special-exception type laws that allow life to exist, because there are many more ways to make a life-containing universe that include those than there are ways that exclude them. The fact that we don't see such laws and conundrums, then, is evidence against the theistic hypothesis.

21 comments:

  1. Very nice post. I look forward to Ben and the Templar's responses. Meanwhile your readers may find this post interesting, "God, Time and Creation: More Problems for William Lane Craig":

    http://www.atheismandthecity.com/2013/03/god-time-and-creation-more-problems-for.html

    I hope, Professor, you might address Time in a future post. It seems to me that the 'beginning' of time is a Fine-Tuning issue on its own.

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  2. Thanks for the link. I've been thinking a lot about time lately, since I'm teaching relativity for the first time, and I have to explain all the time "paradoxes" to my students. So maybe I'll have something to say soon.

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  3. Trying to woo me back are you because I was justly cheezed at you for the embarrassing way you treat Prof Feser eh?

    Well I will think about it since I am feeling more positive with the election of Pope Francis thought I am still bumbed out because my GodFather died on the day Pope Benedict formally resigned.

    But my Father is still ok.

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  4. I figure this weekend I'll point out the two or three major flaws in this whole argument.

    I have been busy getting ready for Easter and Passover & watch MST3k & Riftraxs till it's been coming out of my ears.

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  5. Conundrums abound. Isn't the wave-particle problem yet such a conundrum? The very complexity of energy-matter relations and reactions mitigates against modern theism, unless a modern theist can begin to explain why a simple deity would employ such complexity, layer upon layer, merely to produce intelligent awareness.

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  6. >The very complexity of energy-matter relations and reactions mitigates against modern theism,

    How so? You are just making an assertion not an argument.

    >unless a modern theist can begin to explain why a simple deity would employ such complexity, layer upon layer, merely to produce intelligent awareness.

    So your claim is Theists have to explain "why" God created the world He created because for some unstated reason "complexity of energy-matter relations and reactions mitigates against modern theism"?

    Are you just writing any old shit for the heck of it?

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    1. >How so? You are just making an assertion not an argument.

      Ditto.

      Theism fails to avoid dichotomies in its teachings. Examples are defined as being mutually contradictory beliefs, that must be whole-heartily accepted together.

      When civilization stopped consolidating all responsibility for a single ruler to redistribute, we suddenly began dominating our environments like never before.

      You must accept this man as your LORD and OBEY every word, if you want to live! Then they forced them to fight to the death.

      The physical memories that are considered our soul, are not passed on to our offspring, unless we rigorously remind them.
      Immortality is a reference to being an old survivor, but doesn't actually have any evidence.

      Just to remind people: no prisoner to be executed was buried in a rock covered tomb; These were only for people who were sickly, but if they recover, they would be able to move the stone and get out.

      The simple example of carrying a (representation of a) carcass around your neck should be repulsive, because you also do not accept the wildlife that naturally consumes the dead, into your sanitary home.

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  7. Quote: According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. End quote.

    ... From: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

    Quote: A master principle which informs Aquinas' analysis of creation is that the truths of science cannot contradict the truths of faith. God is the author of all truth and whatever reason discovers to be true about reality ought not to be challenged by an appeal to sacred texts. End quote.

    ... From: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sc0035.html

    Quote: When combined with the doctrine of divine simplicity, divine conservation entails a very different conception of God’s relationship to the world than is entailed by theistic personalism ... He is not like a machinist who is the keenest possible observer of the operations of a machine he has built. End quote.

    ... From: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/09/classical-theism.html

    If divine simplicity is central to classic theism, and I think it is, and if God is not like a machinist who is keenly observing a machine he built (anti-Paley), then how exactly does a theist explain the obvious layer upon layer of physical complexity we see, other than to say God moves in mysterious ways? If humans are like God in their ability to be aware of God, why do humans have (or need) bodies in the first place, with all their mechanical (and teleological parts) - like hearts, cells, feet, and brains?

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    1. Ok so you are good at copy/paste so am I.

      >then how exactly does a theist explain the obvious layer upon layer of physical complexity we see, other than to say God moves in mysterious ways?

      I'm still not getting how this layer of physical complexity we see mitigates against modern theism other then we might not know why God chooses to create what He created the way He created it? Or what it is about it that requires explaining from a Classic Theist?


      >If humans are like God in their ability to be aware of God, why do humans have (or need) bodies in the first place, with all their mechanical (and teleological parts) - like hearts, cells, feet, and brains?

      So you are asking me a child's question like "Why did God create a Yellow Sun vs oh a Pink One?"

      Seriously are you just writing any old shit for the heck of it?

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  8. I really don't see how FTA even can count as evidence for theism given that the probability of God creating this universe is inscrutable. Skeptical theism completely undermines any probability assignment.

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  9. Science relies on research, which is expensive. Churches are also expensive, but what happens when we compare the number of patent-able inventions that have been mass-produced between these theoretical approaches to existence?

    Earth's human civilizations ARE CREDITED with many scientific advancements, that we recognize as being primarily developed in the last 4 centuries.

    If the question: "Why can't I talk to my friends in distant places?" is answered by the fact that the battery of the ELECTRONic device on which I rely is depleted, or by the fact that my physical location does not have access to internet bandwidth or a lack of RADIOACTIVE wireless reception; Then I must assume that remedying these situations will work.

    What is the purpose of believing a theory about how the universe was created?

    Would you pay someone to lecture you about theoretical physics or someone that offers candy? Eye candy and ear candy, is drama and a.k.a. entertainment.

    Let me summarize my disgust for arguing...above!

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  10. Ben said, "I'm still not getting how this layer of physical complexity we see mitigates against modern theism other then we might not know why God chooses to create what He created the way He created it?"

    Theism, as argued today (modern defense of classical positions), depend on rational arguments not revelatory ones. Therefore, it does not seem reasonable for a theist to plead ignorance as to why God would create such a physically complicated universe: DNA, neural networks, quantum particles, four fundamental physical forces, all subject to a deliticate bakance of a variety of complicated mathematical constants. Instead, a rational theist should be able to provide a reason for that act of God.

    Further, a rational theist argument cannot stop with an explanation of that physical complexity, because the theist is already rationally committed to the position that the soul and some part of the intellect is in itself immaterial. That goes to my point about God not needing to create bodies at all: Occam's Razor and all that.

    This is why I referred to a Feser post. If God or God's character is not like a keen observer of a machine he created, then what is the rationally defendable reason that the universe, and the living beings in it, are so physically complicated, machine-like, and, on top of that, vulnerable to de-tuning?


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    1. I'm afraid I still can't find any coherent objection in your post.

      >Theism, as argued today (modern defense of classical positions), depend on rational arguments not revelatory ones.

      Actually the Classic view(vs the Theistic Personalist) is dependent more specifically on rational philosophical arguments then let us say evidentalist empirical arguments like we might have in genetics for an ID Paley Theistic Personalist so called deity.

      >Therefore, it does not seem reasonable for a theist to plead ignorance as to why God would create such a physically complicated universe:

      This claim makes neither scientfic sense nor philosophical sense. It's just a bald assertion. For example Materialists can plead ignorance as to the why of the brute fact of the physical universe and a matter only really. But it solves nothing and at some point one must bow to mystery.

      >DNA, neural networks, quantum particles, four fundamental physical forces, all subject to a deliticate bakance of a variety of complicated mathematical constants. Instead, a rational theist should be able to provide a reason for that act of God.

      Then logically a scientist should be able to provide a scientific explaination as to the "why" there is something rather then nothing. Of course given the premises of science such a question is a catagory mistake.

      Anyway you are just making a bald assertion with no logical, philosophical or scientific argument.

      >Further, a rational theist argument cannot stop with an explanation of that physical complexity, because the theist is already rationally committed to the position that the soul and some part of the intellect is in itself immaterial.

      What about Christian materialists like the 7th Day Aventists who believe man is a soul & doesn't have one? One can believe everything except God is material.

      Anyway as interesting as that tangent is none of this has anything to do with your bald assertion that Theists must explain why God created as he did vs creating in another way or theism is somehow invalid.

      >That goes to my point about God not needing to create bodies at all: Occam's Razor and all that.

      Strictly speaking God doesn't need to anything create at all. God is omnipotent so in principle no act of creation on His part is difficult for him so appeals to "Well he could/should have been more efficent creating x then he did" are not coherent objections given God's Nature in the classic sense.

      God can create in 6 literal days or over 13 billion years. Neither is more easy or difficult then the other & thus it is incoherent to claim one way is more "practical" then another or he should have done it one way or anther. Or that He should prefer one over the other.

      >This is why I referred to a Feser post. If God or God's character is not like a keen observer of a machine he created, then what is the rationally defendable reason that the universe, and the living beings in it, are so physically complicated, machine-like, and, on top of that, vulnerable to de-tuning?

      You could have saved me time by simply admiting you where polemicing a Paley style theistic personalist deity(whom you are equivocating with the Classic) whose existence I am a strong Atheist toward in the first place.

      God creates in general because it is one way He has chosen from all eternity to manesfest His Goodness. He could have done something else to manefest His goodness.

      You are just giving me arguments that presupose a BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLD model like Paley. A view that teaches that this world had to be the way it is by neccesity.

      I reject that view and so do most if not all Classic Theists.

      You really should read more closely what Feser says about Classic Theism. These "objections" just look like you skimmed.

      Anyway why the BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE worlds is false.
      see here:
      http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/boapw.html

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  11. I'll call the above, for convenience, the 'argument from complexity'. In honor of Oerter's posts, Feynman's QED, and the conundrum of the wave particle dichotomy, I located a Feynman diagram on Wikipedia in the article on 'Spontaneous symmetry breaking, which image is under the CC-2.5 license below, to try out as a profile picture:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Feynmann_Diagram_Gluon_Radiation.svg

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_symmetry_breaking

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    1. Accept you don't seem to understand the difference between Paley's teleology vs the Fifth Way or a Classic View of God vs the Theistic Personalist.

      You are equivocating between the two.

      http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/thomism-versus-design-argument.html

      http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/11/trouble-with-william-paley.html

      God in the Classic Sense can't coherently be described as having needs & given His Omnipotence no potential universe is "easier" or "harder" then any other & thus not to be prefered more then another.

      QUOTE"For the divine will has a necessary relation to the divine goodness, since that is its proper object. Hence God wills His own goodness, necessarily.... Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things since no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. (S.T. Ia 19, 4)"-Aquinas

      Divine freedom is such that no possible world needs to be chosen to exist, and none are so bad that they are not a participation of the divine goodness. The answer to the question of whether this is the best of all possible worlds is that there is no best, even though some are better than others.

      Really argue against my God or don't waste my time.

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  12. Describing the wave-particle theory as a consolidation of opposing theories, as BTH did, is a misnomer.

    Realizing what such tiny particles are is only attainable by shooting other particles at it, and measuring the ricochets.

    The detection of waves instead of particles proves that they altered the controlled experiment with other physical MATTER, that we call photons, or light.

    The idiosyncrasies involved with conducting experiments improperly, is only apparent to me when undernourishment of the scientists/lab techs is a factor.

    Due to modern theoretical physics, what we used to consider SPACE, is obsolete. The glass is always FULL of gaseous atmosphere.

    Proof of matter that is smaller than ELECTRONS and very hard to detect, are termed neutrinos or the plural of the Italian "little one". Space between atoms is occupied by other moving parts.

    Light travelling over long distances is not always travelling in a straight line due to other physical masses between the source (stars) and the destination (Earth or our equipment). Radiation doesn't travel in a straight line either, the first unfathomable national security alerts occurred when their equipment detected exponential increases of incoming objects (totaling over 3,000) a.k.a. radiation or light, bouncing off the moon. Re-calibration of equipment solved the issue.

    There is a crustacean with 3 pupils in each of 2 eyes, that can see over 1 Million colors, which also color coordinates their asymmetrical anatomical parts to communicate with their own species.-Kingdom of the Oceans documentary
    http://natgeotv.com/uk/kingdom-of-the-oceans

    What I find to reference, does not say what I have to say, light is only defined as photons; so excuse my rudeness, but the proof is anywhere.

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  13. More! .. like that. It goes down rich and slimy, or is 'rich and slimy' also an incorrectly stated dichotomy? Anyway, I like it, I like it.

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  14. If god is merciful & needs to love, then perfection would not apply to this conscious entity.

    Our consciousness relies on our blood pressure & ability with internal acids (the Greek essence of their element, Fire) to break down food such that we can replicate our dying parts. About 50 BILLION per day, including separate biological entities called bacteria; that out number our own cells ten to one.

    Our conscience, relies on our ability to repeat the information we learn. We inherit our bodies from our parents, the meat that allows us to move. We cannot fight instinctively, despite any perceived success arising from brute force brawling. We do not inherit any of our parents brain matter, technically, until we can vocally repeat it.

    Fighting illustrates equality of power, but not ability. Swords and writing utensils have the same properties as each other, to influence people, and whom uses what in which ways is the essence of history.

    Science is based on finding patterns and deriving tests to determine possible conclusions. There is no inherent good or bad, lest we ignore our local communities.

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  15. The light changed the experiment so much, that it became two experiments. Both show evidence that smaller particles exist. It's like putting liquid food coloring in a garden hose with a spray nozzle, then observing that the color could eventually come out each hole when the trigger is pulled.

    How gas reacts when a particle is shot at a holey board, has evidence of an equal and opposing reaction. Then without light, we just see a wave pattern across the board, which is technically more reactions in the gas, some of which were scattered by the physical nature of light shining.

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  16. 4)Chemistry of Life>(we find it difficult to) see molecules that behave differently inside a living thing than outside.

    Cooking...food

    Plasmatic energy-fire underneath, causes more energy gain relative to the calories we do not need to burn to maintain heat.

    Bread recipes require fine powdered grain, and when this task was performed with stone tools, little pieces broke off and damaged teeth. However, a swallowed tooth will be dissolved by our modern metabolisms, along with the necessary metals in our diet.

    Modern recipes require reproducing bacteria like yeast and even mold for cheese, so there's plenty of evidence that molecules are necessary in both heated mixtures and solutions of fluid.

    Take this wine, it kills bacteria, of which there are more possible bad kinds than good...

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  17. @Karlin,
    > If god is merciful & needs to love, then perfection would not apply to this conscious entity.
    > The light changed the experiment so much, that it became two experiments.
    > There is no inherent good or bad, lest we ignore our local communities.

    As I said in my Random Walk blog post, It's All in the Music, "Philosophy, logic, particle physics, it is all so difficult, yes? Not really, because we do not need words per se (at least not complicated ones). What we seek, what we need, is not words, but communication."

    You, KT, clearly know how to communicate ... or ... you know how to communicate clearly. Take your pick.

    As the Rolling Stones once said, "Ti-i-e-ime is on my side, yes it is. [ ] Go ahead and light up the town ... remember, I'll always be around." Just keep singing those blues, brother.

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