The fine tuning argument

[fls]

I agree absolutely, but I wanted to see if the proponents of the FTA had some sort of argument to get us from "improbability of random occurrence" to "probability of 'tuned' outcome." So far it seems not.

Oops. I was supposed to let them dig themselves even further into their hole?

Linda

 

[Yoink]

It illustrates that the set-up was incorrect. You are essentially creating a set which contains all the possible outcomes and their frequency, in the presence of a fine-tuner. What you really wish to create is a set of all possible causes and their frequency in the presence of a particular sequence of die rolls. Unfortunately, that information is the very information that is in question.

Linda

In what sense is someone rolling die equivalent to a "fine tuner"?

I don't think anybody uses the Fine Tuner argument to assert the possibility of a god who "plays dice with the universe" do they?

 

[Yoink]

Oops. I was supposed to let them dig themselves even further into their hole?

Linda

Yes, but never mind--I think the hole is pretty clearly defined by now.

 

[fls]

In what sense is someone rolling die equivalent to a "fine tuner"?

I don't think anybody uses the Fine Tuner argument to assert the possibility of a god who "plays dice with the universe" do they?

Is this another question I'm not supposed to answer?

Linda

 

[Yoink]

Is this another question I'm not supposed to answer?

Linda

No, go ahead: I don't understand your objection to my debunking of the "Fine Tuner" hypothesis.

 

[Beth]

O.K., So, in the absence of any other explanations, an outcome the odds of which are 1-in-1,000,000 offer .999999 probability of being deliberately 'guided' by some controlling force.

O.K.

So, say I roll a single die. I get a 4. The odds of my getting a 4 were 1-in-6. So from a single die-roll we can infer odds of 5/6 that there is a mystical controlling intelligence that "selected" that rather unlikely outcome. Correct?

Only if you were willing to accept a rather large possibility of that conclusion being in error. Generally, outcomes with probability greater than 0.05 are considered to be due to random chance. Since 1/6 > 0.05, I would keep random chance as the preferred explanation in that scenario.

If I roll it again and get a 6, the odds against that sequence are 35/36! The odds of a mystical controlling intelligence selecting that outcome are now staggeringly high! One more roll of the die--let alone two!--and God has been pretty definitively proven!

That's not how I would interpret your dataset.

But hey--I don't even need die. Let me create a "wheel of fortune" type wheel with very long circumference. Let me then place one million divisions around the circumference and then give the wheel a spin. No matter what the outcome, the odds of getting that particular outcome are one-in-a-million. That means that simply by spinning this wheel once, no matter what result I get, and no matter what random fluctuations influence the outcome, I will have proven that the result was "selected" by a "fine tuner"--and I will have done so to a confidence level of .999999--or, in other words, virtual certainty.

I think this little thought experiment shows the problem with the "Fine tuner" hypothesis pretty clearly, don't you?

No. In your original example, you postulated a result with a 0.000001 probability. In this example, you have postulated a result with 1.0 probability. You've labeled every possible outcome as "Winner" for your hypothesis. If you want to make your wheel example analogous, pick one of the million outcomes and label it "Winner". Label the other 999,999 outcomes "Loser". If you spin the wheel once and come up a winner, I would reject the claim that it was due to random chance and look for other possible causes. In your original example you also postulated that the only two possible causes were random chance and a fine-tuner. I can think of other explanations for why such a wheel might come up "Winner" that don't have anything to do with divine intervention.

 

[Cynic]

I can think of other explanations for why such a wheel might come up "Winner" that don't have anything to do with divine intervention.

For instance, because the winning slot on the wheel represents that which is necessitated by conditions. All this talk about "randomness", IMO, gives far more credence to fine-tuning argument than it deserves. But indulging in it, the impression is made that they've got even that much correct. And they don't.

There's no such thing as random. Wave functions exist for one reason and one reason only -- because we can't know enough to work without them. They are not -- not! -- a replacement for actual knowledge. For chemistry, presuming that an electron can have a definate location at all, the purpose of a wave function is to calculate the probability of where it might be because we cannot determine it for certain. Nevertheless, the position of said electron is not dependent on that function. It's a tool -- limited tool, whose very existence is owed to that limitation.

(I'm not arguing against anything you said, Beth. Just using your statement above as a segway to my point.)

 

[fls]

No, go ahead: I don't understand your objection to my debunking of the "Fine Tuner" hypothesis.

If the probability of one is meant to be the complement of the other, then you need both to be part of a complete set of possible outcomes. That is, if you roll the die two times for a total of 36 trials, and get a 4 and a 6 each time, one of those outcomes is due to chance (c) and the other 35 are due to x, y, z, a, b, d, e, f...*

The question you asked is, what can we say about g given what we know about c? Since we don't know what the set contains besides c (i.e. that is the very information we are looking for), obviously we can't say anything.

Linda

*Please note that the assumption that one of the die rolls would be due to chance because the probability of obtaining that die roll is 1/36 is erroneous, but I'm willing to go along with it in order to not complicate matters.

 

[yy2bggggs]

For chemistry, presuming that an electron can have a definate location at all, the purpose of a wave function is to calculate the probability of where it might be because we cannot determine it for certain.

Actually, the electron does not have a definite location at all--the waveform is entirely distinct from any of the possible places the electron can be. This is demonstrated by the fact that "exclusive" possibilities nevertheless affect each other--something that would be impossible if the electron actually had a location at all (canonically, the crests in the waveforms shown in the pattern produced by the double slit experiment, where no electrons (or whatever particle you're using) hit even when sent through one at a time--even though if you cover up either slit, the electrons suddenly appear there).

The purpose of the wave function is to model this, and how these "exclusive" possibilities as a whole effect each other. The wave function represents something more fundamental than the possibilities in this regards.

I'm not really sure what this has to do with the FT... perhaps I'm missing some context.

 

[fls]

I changed my mind.

Now that I think about it, it is this error which is getting people mixed up, so there's no point in letting it slide. It is erroneous to assume that if the chance of a particular pair of die rolls is 1 in 36, that a set containing those particular die rolls will be due to chance only 1 time in 36 and will be due to something else all of the other times.

Let me provide an illustrative example. Let's take the infamous HIV screening test. Let's say that the possibility of getting a positive HIV test due to chance is 1% - that is, some of you would try to say that out of a set of 100 positive HIV tests, one of those would be due to chance. But if you screen a general population with a one in a thousand incidence of HIV with a test with a 95% sensitivity, the set of 100 positive HIV tests will contain 91 people who are there due to chance. It simply doesn't work that way.

Linda

 

[Yoink]

If the probability of one is meant to be the complement of the other, then you need both to be part of a complete set of possible outcomes. That is, if you roll the die two times for a total of 36 trials, and get a 4 and a 6 each time, one of those outcomes is due to chance (c) and the other 35 are due to x, y, z, a, b, d, e, f...*

The question you asked is, what can we say about g given what we know about c? Since we don't know what the set contains besides c (i.e. that is the very information we are looking for), obviously we can't say anything.

Linda

*Please note that the assumption that one of the die rolls would be due to chance because the probability of obtaining that die roll is 1/36 is erroneous, but I'm willing to go along with it in order to not complicate matters.

Linda, aren't you just trying to make explicit the very error in FTA theory that I'm trying to expose? I mean, you do realize that my point is that this is erroneous, right?

Or are you saying that my model doesn't accurately reflect what the basis of FTA-theory is?

 

[fls]

Linda, aren't you just trying to make explicit the very error in FTA theory that I'm trying to expose? I mean, you do realize that my point is that this is erroneous, right?

Or are you saying that my model doesn't accurately reflect what the basis of FTA-theory is?

I realize that your point is that this is erroneous. It is my point as well.

The problem is that the probability that the occurrence of an event was due to chance is not the probability of an event due to chance. This is a critical point and your original question was designed to discover whether some of the people supporting the fine-tuning argument are able to grasp this. You had your answer.

The rest was just me being an argumentative bastard.

Linda

 

[Yoink]

Only if you were willing to accept a rather large possibility of that conclusion being in error. Generally, outcomes with probability greater than 0.05 are considered to be due to random chance. Since 1/6 > 0.05, I would keep random chance as the preferred explanation in that scenario.

Then all you need to do is keep rolling the die until we're lower than .05 probability and suddenly God pops into existence?

That's not how I would interpret your dataset.

But why not? What's the difference? Why is a one-in-a-million outcome on the wheel of fortune different from a one-in-a-million outcome in the wheel-o-universes?

No. In your original example, you postulated a result with a 0.000001 probability. In this example, you have postulated a result with 1.0 probability.

No, I'm doing exactly what you're doing. You're coming along after the universe is already created in this form and saying "wow, what were the odds of the universe being like this!" I'm coming along after I've spun the wheel of fortune" and finding that it ended up on 10,0045 (say) and saying "wow, what were the odds of the wheel ending up on this number.

Where's the difference?

You've labeled every possible outcome as "Winner" for your hypothesis.

No, I labelled the outcome that it happened to end up on as "winner." Which is exactly what you're doing with our universe.

If you want to make your wheel example analogous, pick one of the million outcomes and label it "Winner". Label the other 999,999 outcomes "Loser". If you spin the wheel once and come up a winner, I would reject the claim that it was due to random chance and look for other possible causes.

Oh, so you were around before this universe was created? You postulated before the universe's creation that it would lead to the evolution of sentient life? No, of course you didn't.

In your original example you also postulated that the only two possible causes were random chance and a fine-tuner. I can think of other explanations for why such a wheel might come up "Winner" that don't have anything to do with divine intervention.

Yeah, but that's trivial. It's easy for the sake of analogy to say that ex hypothesi the wheel is a fair wheel and that its results are genuinely random. If it's not a fair wheel then that's the same thing as saying that the universe's parameters are not arbitrarily defined--in which case out goes both chance and "fine tuning" for the universe.

 

[Robin]

An alternate reality is not the same thing as a different physical reality.

I never for a moment suggested otherwise.

I was replying to the claim that the doctrinal Hell was defined as the centre of the Earth and asking for cites to this.

 

[Robin]

Ian Hacking rather famously argued that a multiverse would make no difference to the argument (he called it the "inverse gambler's fallacy"). I think that on this point he's cuckoo for coconuts, but I just want to point out that the argument won't go away even if a multiverse is confirmed.

I have pointed out a couple of times that the Discovery Institute are already rehearsing arguments about how a multiverse would be fine tuned for life.

 

[westprog]

I wonder if those who think that there's something to this "fine tuning" argument would answer a question for me: let us assume that we discover that our universe's parameters are in one possible configuration out of exactly one million equally possible configurations (I know this is unlikely, but for the sake of clarity, let's just assume it).

Let us further assume that we discover that this universe is the only universe that ever was or will be created. And, finally, let us also assume that we discover that in only one of these million possible sets of parameters could something like human life have evolved. So, we're the one-in-a-million shot.

Now, would such discoveries, in your view, strongly support the "fine tuning" hypothesis? And (and this is the really important part, for me, of my question): to what extent? In other words: if the odds against a universe in which anything like human life could emerge are 999,999-to-1, does that make the odds of there being a "Fine Tuner" also 999,000-to-1? How, exactly, do we derive the "probability" of a "tuner" from the "improbability" of the event?

If each of the other 999,999 universes are all equally different and "interesting" then we can conclude that this universe is just as likely.

For example - take U2, U3 and U4, where U1 is this universe. The difference between them is that g2 = 100 * g1, g3 = 1000 * g1, and g4 = 100,000 * g1 (the g's being the gravitational constant in each case). Do U2/3/4 look as different from each other as they do from U1?

 

[Robin]

Like hell he isn't! Just because he hasn't explicitly said it yet doesn't mean that isn't his intent -- especially given the fact that he has eventually admitted it in every other thread.

Malerin could be the poster boy for the approach outlined in the Discovery Institute's "wedge" document.

Well perhaps Malerin could clarify.

According to his views the Big Bang never happened so why does he care whether or not the universe is fine tuned for life?

 

[westprog]

O.K., So, in the absence of any other explanations, an outcome the odds of which are 1-in-1,000,000 offer .999999 probability of being deliberately 'guided' by some controlling force.

O.K.

So, say I roll a single die. I get a 4. The odds of my getting a 4 were 1-in-6. So from a single die-roll we can infer odds of 5/6 that there is a mystical controlling intelligence that "selected" that rather unlikely outcome. Correct?

If I roll it again and get a 6, the odds against that sequence are 35/36! The odds of a mystical controlling intelligence selecting that outcome are now staggeringly high! One more roll of the die--let alone two!--and God has been pretty definitively proven!

But hey--I don't even need die. Let me create a "wheel of fortune" type wheel with very long circumference. Let me then place one million divisions around the circumference and then give the wheel a spin. No matter what the outcome, the odds of getting that particular outcome are one-in-a-million. That means that simply by spinning this wheel once, no matter what result I get, and no matter what random fluctuations influence the outcome, I will have proven that the result was "selected" by a "fine tuner"--and I will have done so to a confidence level of .999999--or, in other words, virtual certainty.

I think this little thought experiment shows the problem with the "Fine tuner" hypothesis pretty clearly, don't you?

Say you paint just one division of your wheel red, spin it and it comes up. Would you say "Just as likely as any other" or have a look at the mechanism to see why it happened?

 

[Yoink]

Say you paint just one division of your wheel red, spin it and it comes up. Would you say "Just as likely as any other" or have a look at the mechanism to see why it happened?

And, again, that's not analogous to the case of the universe in the FTA-theory, is it? You found this universe the way it was, then "painted it red" and then asked "gee, what were the odds of it ending up on this red-painted one"?

Again, unless you were around before the creation of the universe and called the shot, all this discussion of "probability" is meaningless.

What the FTA is doing is spinning the wheel without any markers, then when it stops, painting a tiny "winner" sign opposite the pointer, standing back and saying "OMG, what were the odds of that!?"

 

[westprog]

Um, no, that isn't good enough.

You have to generate some kind of distribution for the values of those constants.

And therein lies the problem for FT proponents -- how in the world do you propose to come up with a distribution for an event you know nothing about the cause of?

You can't just say, for example, that the gravitational constant could be any real number without some kind of evidence that it could be any real number.

We know a coin toss is binary. We know a six sided die can take on values 1 - 6. We know a lottery can take on some finite number of values. We know a 32 bit word in computer memory can take on a finite number of values. We know the spatial coordinates of a particle can be any real number, ignoring possible planck discretization, given a coordinate frame.

We do not know which values any universal constant might have been, and even if we did, we wouldn't know the probability it might have been what it might have been.

This seems pretty obvious to me. So obvious, in fact, that I interpret omission of this caveat in any FT argument as deliberate dishonesty. That is why I have about as little respect for Malerin as I did for Kleinman -- it is clear that there is zero evidence that our universal constants could be "any value at all," yet Malerin insists on continuing to rely upon exactly this assumption in all his arguments.

So the question is, are you going to act the same way, or are you going to let reason prevail and admit that the FT argument is currently a dead end because we just don't have enough data?

We shouldn't investigate something because we don't have enough data? What an odd approach to science.

For example, it might turn out that the gravitational constant is tied to the mass of the universe in some unexplained way that ensures that expansion is continuous but just on the balance. We have no way of knowing that now, but in the future we might. And the solution will start, as always, with the statement of the problem. Denying that there is anything to investigate will lead nowhere.