Quote from: Broken

But let's take the assumption that universes can spawn other universes. On rare occassion, one of these spawned universes may support life, and even more rarely, intelligent life. Going further, let's assume these intelligences can purposely design universes with laws which make intelligent life highly probable.

Sounds a bit farfetched, but let's go with it.  At what rate do universes spawn other universes, and what is the ratio of spawned universes with intelligent life to those without it?  You need to establish just how rare or common the "uncreated" universes with intelligent life are.

It does not matter what the random rates are if sufficiently intelligent life can act as a catalyst in the formation of universes optimal for intelligent life. The analogy would be how proteins are catalysts for chemical reactions. The reactions will occur without the proteins, but the biological proteins drastically speed up reaction rates, sometimes by factors of trillions to one.

 And there is also the question of how to define "intelligent life".  

All life is intelligent. I think what we are really talking about is life which is "self-aware" or purpose-driven. Such intelligent life may be purpose-driven to design universes which are optimal for life. Life is driven to reproduce. Vastly intelligent life may be driven to reproduce new universes.

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That is three pretty big assumptions, but if true, it means we are more likely to be in a purposefully created universe than in one which occurred by random.

I see where you are coming from, but I think that you are building in hidden assumptions about the rate of intelligence-guided spawning.  Intelligence-guided spawning might not actually grow faster than unguided spawning.  That is, created universes may themselves spawn "uncreated" universes with intelligent life.  And uncreated universes may spawn intelligent life at a faster rate than created ones.  

Again, think of the catalyst analogy. A random universe may indeed support life, but a purposefully built, fine-tuned universe would be much better at generating life.

Also, a created universe might not look much different from an uncreated one, since life has to arise in it by un-aided evolutionary processes.  What we do know is that at least one universe that contained intelligent life had to arise without the aid of intelligent agency.  That universe might very well be ours.

Most randomly created universes might not support life at all. If the laws are randomly created, most laws wouldn't work. Take, for example, a two dimensional universe, or one with only two forces instead of our four. Or life might be supported poorly, never rising above bacteria in complexity. A universe which self-organizes with sufficient complexity to support intelligent life might be a very rare phenomemon.

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If some time in the distant future we humans discover a means to design universes, then it makes it highly probable that our own universe was designed.

In other words, Gods evolve.

That's the assumption, but it entails at least one universe that wasn't created by a god.  Frankly, it seems a lot less complicated to leave gods out of the process.  Universes evolve spontaneously out of the stuff that is and always has been.  Gods are unnecessary to explain any of it.

Actually, if it is possible for universes to spawn others, and for intelligences to catalyze the spawning of life-supporting universes, then it is much more likely for us to be in a universe produced by such a catalyst, since such intelligences would produce intelligent-life-supporting universes much more efficiently.

I understand your point that a guiding intelligence is not necessary and I do not argue with that. However, it may be more likely that an intelligence was involved, even if it is not necessary.

However, if we humans ever discover a way to design universes, ours is most likely the result of such design because of the catalyst effect I described above.