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by mdp2021 459 days ago
But not an argument. The content is: some have felt that the laws of Nature look very non-random. It is an interesting view. The article just does a disservice by only mentioning the matter instead of showing it - through examples, bibliography etc.
1 comments
jqpabc123 459 days ago
But not an argument.

Neither is "god did it".

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mdp2021 459 days ago
Anyway, it was apparently Dirac's view that there is an argument around it:

> It could be that it is extremely difficult to start life. It might be that it is so difficult to start a life that it has happened only once among all the planets... Let us consider, just as a conjecture, that the chance of life starting when we have got suitable physical conditions is 10^-100. I don't have any logical reason for proposing this figure, I just want you to consider it as a possibility. Under those conditions ... it is almost certain that life would not have started. And I feel that under those conditions it will be necessary to assume the existence...

This from the Kragh (1990), Dirac: A Scientific Biography. When the Archive will make books in the Library available again, it's there; otherwise, the paragraph is copied on Wikipedia.

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jqpabc123 459 days ago
"It could be ... it might be ... I don't have any logical reason, etc.."

Doesn't sounds like much of an argument to me.

What it does sound like is someone who has already accepted a conclusion and is grasping for some way, any way to justify it.

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mdp2021 459 days ago
Given the quote, and given your interpretation of the quote, it seems that you are feeling instead of thinking (you have no hook there to suggest a conclusion is taken). Look at it rationally and it is just that: "If phenomenon P inclines to non-autonomous than adjutant A suggested". Dirac was hardly a feeler - definitely a thinker.
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mdp2021 459 days ago
That we did not touch, and given the very broad vague suggestion about the specifics of such non-randomness, and the very broad vague (ungiven) definition of said "Author", to speak about it without details would be like building with concrete over water.

"Hypoteses non fingo" ( ~~ Isaac Newton)

...especially true of lacking, non-analytical speech.

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