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The fine tuning argument

Excuse me, you are the one who made the claim, and you want ME to back it up. On the Jref ?

What claim, precisely, did I make? I've been referring to hypothetical situations throughout. I am not a cosmologist, and I rely on those who are to provide the information.

If it's the case that models of the universe with different values for the fundamental constants give rise to equally complex and long lasting arrangements, then I'd be very interested to hear about it.
 
That is, just because the only intelligent life you know of is humans, and neither humans nor anything remotely similar could evolve never mind exist in such a universe, does not imply that nothing in such a universe will wonder about itself. It doesn't even imply that it is unlikely for something in such a universe to wonder about itself.

Then let's consider a universe that consists entirely of diffuse hydrogen clouds. Is it impossible that something would evolve in such a universe capable of "wondering about itself"? No, of course not. But the point is that such a thing could also come to exist in our own universe, which is amply supplied with diffuse hydrogen.

However, beings such as ourselves - which are the only conscious beings we know to exist - require suns, galaxies, heavy elements, etc. Which seem to require a particular set of parameters in order to exist.

Could the universes that exist for a tiny fraction of time produce conscious beings? Why not? Time scales are relative. Perhaps some arrangement of matter would treat a second as an eon. But such beings could exist in the early stages of our own universe as well.
 
Then let's consider a universe that consists entirely of diffuse hydrogen clouds. Is it impossible that something would evolve in such a universe capable of "wondering about itself"? No, of course not. But the point is that such a thing could also come to exist in our own universe, which is amply supplied with diffuse hydrogen.

However, beings such as ourselves - which are the only conscious beings we know to exist - require suns, galaxies, heavy elements, etc. Which seem to require a particular set of parameters in order to exist.

Could the universes that exist for a tiny fraction of time produce conscious beings? Why not? Time scales are relative. Perhaps some arrangement of matter would treat a second as an eon. But such beings could exist in the early stages of our own universe as well.

Um, not if they require different values of the universal constants...
 
Um, not if they require different values of the universal constants...

However, AFAIAA, the hypothetical behaviour of the U2/U3/U4... hydrogen clouds would be pretty much the same as in the U1. We don't really know.
 
What claim, precisely, did I make? I've been referring to hypothetical situations throughout. I am not a cosmologist, and I rely on those who are to provide the information.

If it's the case that models of the universe with different values for the fundamental constants give rise to equally complex and long lasting arrangements, then I'd be very interested to hear about it.

from post 299
When modelling the universe, cosmologists have found that if the values of the constants are not expressed to an astonishing degree of precision, the model doesn't work as a representation of what actually happens.
What cosmologist where said what?
 
Then let's consider a universe that consists entirely of diffuse hydrogen clouds. Is it impossible that something would evolve in such a universe capable of "wondering about itself"? No, of course not. But the point is that such a thing could also come to exist in our own universe, which is amply supplied with diffuse hydrogen.

However, beings such as ourselves - which are the only conscious beings we know to exist - require suns, galaxies, heavy elements, etc. Which seem to require a particular set of parameters in order to exist.

Could the universes that exist for a tiny fraction of time produce conscious beings? Why not? Time scales are relative. Perhaps some arrangement of matter would treat a second as an eon. But such beings could exist in the early stages of our own universe as well.


Amd again you are consdering extremes as some sort of argument, what is the expansion rate was so high that there was no coallesing, what if gravity was so low, what if it collapsed so fast.

Sure if you alter things by the billions that sort of stuff would happen. But to quote Carter "if we change this one variable and the others don't change", well if you change one variable by factors of ten , how reasonable is it that the other factors remain the same.

Really read this
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/FineTune.pdf

Especially the stuff around page 12.
 
Not mine, I have it from an earlier thread, I wonder how many people who discuss the FTA have ignored those earlier threads, I know Malerin does.

Malerin does not "discuss."

He vomits the same flawed arguments over and over ... and over ... while purposefully avoiding discussion.
 
Malerin does not "discuss."

He vomits the same flawed arguments over and over ... and over ... while purposefully avoiding discussion.

Oh well - that sounds a bit rough.

But I would like to hear know from him whether he considers that the Big Bang ever happened.
 
No, it's based on the fact that you maxed out at 3, and that you only had 3 runs of 3 or more.

Boy, you are drowning in statistical white noise. Almost any suffiently large sample of random numbers will yield low-probability statistically insignificant patterns or groupings. Consider:

122221222222222112221222122112

This obviously came from a non-random process (e.g., a person hitting 1's and 2's on a keyboard), as I will clearly demonstrate:

- In the first fifteen digits, there are thirteen 2's! The odds of that happening are very low. Clearly, someone had their finger on the "2" key a little long, then decided to throw a couple 1's in there to not make it too obvious.
- In the next fifteen numbers, there are three times as many 1's as in the first fifteen numbers. Again, not too likely for that to happen. Looks like someone was trying to even out the set by adding three times as many 1's in the 2nd half.
- The runs, in order, are four 2's, nine 2's, two 1's, three 2's, three 2's,
two 2's, and two 1's. A very improbable set of runs! Also, you can see the runs dramatically decrease in size after the nine 2's. This is obviously a sign that the person was afraid another long run would make the sequence appear deliberate.
- The distribution is twenty-two 2's and eight 1's. A fairly improbable distribution. But a skewed distribution is just the sort of thing someone would pull because large random sequences often don't appear random.

When you multiply all these improbabilities together, it is clearly the work of someone just hitting one's and two's on their keyboard. What will they pull next? A max three groupings of three numbers on a 55 number sequence?

In other words, you're taking statistical white noise and making huge extrapolations based on arbitrary patterns/groupings you've picked out. A max of three runs of three numbers is improbable, but not significant, just as a max of two and three number runs following a large nine number run (as in the above example) is improbable but not significant. Maybe it's a person not wanting the sequence to look too deliberate after a large run, or maybe it's just chance.

Contrast that with patterns that are statistically significant (Nothing but HTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTH... all heads, all tails, etc.). But you don't have that in the first sequence of numbers I gave many posts ago. You have a piece of improbable white noise you've convinced yourself is statistically relevant. Well, I think thirteen 2's out of the first fifteen numbers is even more improbable and just as indicative of intent. Esp. the number of small sets right after that large group of 2's! So clearly, I created the above set of numbers.





Oops!


Edit: To tie this all in to the FT argument:

You're arguing that a universe that collapses in on itself after .00012879 seconds is extremely improbable and stastically significant. True, the specific amount of time is improbable, but it is not significant because it is easily explained by chance alone. There is no reason to invoke a multiverse to explain that particular amount of time, nor a fine-tuner.

However, if there are trillions of ways the universe could have gone, and only a few are life-permitting, then that is both extremely improbable and statiscally significant. Chance alone fails to explain it, unless combined with a multiverse or oscillating universe. Some examples of the precise values needed:

"The anthropic constraints associated with the formation of galaxies involve various cosmological parameters, such as the density of the matter in the universe, the amplitude of the initial density fluctuations, the photon-to-baryon ratio and the cosmological constant (an extra term Einstein introduced into his field equations for cosmological reasons and which may cause the universe to accelerate). Some of these parameters might be determined by processes in the early universe rather than being prescribed freely as part of the initial conditions. However, as Martin Rees discussed, even small deviations from the observed values of such parameters would exclude the formation of structures like galaxies and their subsequent fragmentation into stars."

"Heinz Oberhummer, who has studied this resonance in more detail, reported some beautiful work showing how the amount of oxygen and carbon produced in red giant stars varies with the strength and range of the nucleon interactions. His work indicates that the nuclear interaction must be tuned to at least 0.5% if one is to produce both these elements to the extent required for life."

"It seems that aG must be roughly a20 for both "convective" and "radiative" stars to exist (prerequisites for planets and supernovae, respectively) and roughly aW4 for neutrinos to eject the envelope of a star in a supernova explosion (necessary for the dissemination of heavy elements). These "coincidences" might be regarded as examples of the strong anthropic principle."

And the introduction to the article was very interesting:

"Cosmologists who study the link between life in the universe and the values of the physical constants were once viewed with suspicion by other scientists. But a recent high-profile conference at Cambridge showed that the subject is fast becoming academically respectable."

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/3
 
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Oh well - that sounds a bit rough.

But I would like to hear know from him whether he considers that the Big Bang ever happened.

I'm not a strict idealist. I think it has less metaphysical problems than materialism. I would catgorize myself a theist more than anything else, and I have no problem with dualism (an immaterial God interacting with a material universe). So I don't view the Big Bang as impossible or even improbable.

Regarding the FT argument, I don't believe it succeeds at this point. While there is a general consensus that life can only exist along a narrow stretch of physical constant values, that means nothing if we're part of a much larger multiverse (which is also popular with physicists). The jury is still out on whether a multiverse actually exists or not, but as long as it's a live possibility, it provides a credible alternative to the "God did it" explanation.
 
However, if there are trillions of ways the universe could have gone, and only a few are life-permitting, then that is both extremely improbable and statiscally significant. Chance alone fails to explain it, unless combined with a multiverse or oscillating universe. Some examples of the precise values needed:

OOPS -- there it is again.

That darn assumption that has zero evidence to support it...
 
Boy, you are drowning in statistical white noise.
Boy, you're whining a lot!

Here's an off the wall question. How did you generate that first sequence?
Almost any suffiently large sample of random numbers will yield low-probability statistically insignificant patterns or groupings.
That's correct. But coins, weighted or no, still do not produce GF patterns any higher than chance, and the chances get smaller with more flips.

There would otherwise be no need to go over your points demonstrating this, except for this old-hat you drag out, which by now should definitely be considered ultimate fail:
Consider:

122221222222222112221222122112
[Okay, but first off, this is a smaller set. 55 was already right on the border of getting significant results with GF patterns, but you felt the need to go down to 30 flips?]
This obviously came from a non-random process (e.g., a person hitting 1's and 2's on a keyboard), as I will clearly demonstrate:
[It looks okay to me. How about this sequence... is it random or not?:
HHH​
]

Okay... so here comes the fail... I'm just going to label these...
[1] In the first fifteen digits, there are thirteen 2's! The odds of that happening are very low. Clearly, someone had their finger on the "2" key a little long, then decided to throw a couple 1's in there to not make it too obvious.
[2] In the next fifteen numbers, there are three times as many 1's as in the first fifteen numbers. Again, not too likely for that to happen. Looks like someone was trying to even out the set by adding three times as many 1's in the 2nd half.
[3] The runs, in order, are four 2's, nine 2's, two 1's, three 2's, three 2's,
two 2's, and two 1's. A very improbable set of runs! Also, you can see the runs dramatically decrease in size after the nine 2's. This is obviously a sign that the person was afraid another long run would make the sequence appear deliberate.
[4] The distribution is twenty-two 2's and eight 1's. A fairly improbable distribution. But a skewed distribution is just the sort of thing someone would pull because large random sequences often don't appear random.
...and here it is...
When you multiply all these improbabilities together, it is clearly the work of someone just hitting one's and two's on their keyboard. What will they pull next? A max three groupings of three numbers on a 55 number sequence?
So, Malerin... what on "Bob"'s soiled planet do you think you're calculating by multiplying the probability of events [1] through [4] listed above? What would such a product mean?
 
Amd again you are consdering extremes as some sort of argument, what is the expansion rate was so high that there was no coallesing, what if gravity was so low, what if it collapsed so fast.

Sure if you alter things by the billions that sort of stuff would happen. But to quote Carter "if we change this one variable and the others don't change", well if you change one variable by factors of ten , how reasonable is it that the other factors remain the same.

Really read this
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/FineTune.pdf

Especially the stuff around page 12.

Yes, I've read it, and it's certainly interesting - but the fact that some of the paremeters are less critical than others is not really earth-shaking stuff. But this paper is the kind of research I think should be occurring.
 
If N had a few less zeros,
Now that is what I call precise, first off you compare two different forces that have different strengths at different scales (why does gravity the weaker force dominate large scale interactions ?) and then you throw out the word few, that is not 'precise'.
10^36 is a big number and a few zeros could mean a factor of ten to 10,000.

:)

If Є were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist.

Funny they don't state what that number is, i will have to look it up, is it the ratio of the weak and the strong force?

The we have omega and lamda, two cosmological factots, um what ios the variance of the universe and how do you define precision in the universe. Still not 'fine tuning'.

:)

A factor of what equals what percetage change in this factor, it is not given.

They are wrong about the dimensions for sure. There are four dimensions.
 
I'm not a strict idealist. I think it has less metaphysical problems than materialism. I would catgorize myself a theist more than anything else, and I have no problem with dualism (an immaterial God interacting with a material universe). So I don't view the Big Bang as impossible or even improbable.

Regarding the FT argument, I don't believe it succeeds at this point. While there is a general consensus that life can only exist along a narrow stretch of physical constant values, that means nothing if we're part of a much larger multiverse (which is also popular with physicists). The jury is still out on whether a multiverse actually exists or not, but as long as it's a live possibility, it provides a credible alternative to the "God did it" explanation.

But even without a multiverse, you still have the burden of proving that the constants even could be different. The universe may be the way it is because it could not possibly exist any other way. Many of these constants as mentioned are dependent on each other and cannot simply be tweaked individually. And there is no evidence to suggest they could be tweaked period.

And of course this only covers life as we know it in our tiny view of the universe. So even if we were to overlook this problem of not being able to show that the universe could even exist with different parameters, we then would have to show that life of any kind, not just what we know could not exist.
 

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