The fine tuning argument

[Malerin]

Why are you limiting yourself to only 2 possibilities? Why just chance and design. It could be neither. A long time ago we assumed fairy rings were made by fairies because they were perfectly round and came up over night. But they weren't designed. And they didn't happen by chance. They happened by a natural phenomenon that was guided by a natural process. And there's always "I don't know".

ID tries so hard to set up a scenario where they can say it's either chance, or they can insert whatever they want. And this is why they can't get a peer reviewed paper. Because you can only -pull off such arguments on an internet forum. Just ask Dembski.

In the scenario I described (the Martian rock), do you think anyone would be content to say, "Beats the Hell out of me.", step over the rock, and be on their merry way? Personally, I would want to investigate it a little bit further. "I don't know" sounds an awful lot like a cop out, like "God works in mysterious ways", which I think is a theistic cop out a lot of theists take, esp. for the Problem of Evil. The FT argument got going because physicists began noticing that small deviations in the physical constant values resulted in universes very inhospitable to life. Nobody said "to hell with it".


As far as a third hypothesis, can you think of one? I can only think of two: chance or design. Where I agree with you on "I don't know" is in choosing either a multiverse or God to explain the existence of life, at this stage in the game.

 

[yy2bggggs]

In the scenario I described (the Martian rock), do you think anyone would be content to say, "Beats the Hell out of me.", step over the rock, and be on their merry way?

So make it less hypothetical, Malerin. What would you say? That God must have designed Mars that way?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

It's not knowing the mind of God. It's what is the probability of the existence of some supernatural life-preferring being capable of creating the universe? This would cover most definitions of God: that God is powerful enough to create the universe, and generally likes to have living things around, for whatever reason. As long as I don't think the odds of this type of being existing are very very small,

Sorry, to cut your sentence in half. But the odds of this type of being existing ARE very small.

There is a probably infinite range of preferences a "[...]-preferring being capable of creating the universe" could have. Aside from biological life.

In addition there is a probably infinite range of objects that a "[...]-preferring being capable of creating [...]" could be capable of creating. Aside from (pathetic) universes reliant on (miserable) 'fine-tuning constants.'

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

This seems to me to be complicating the heck out of a simple concept, especially by conflating it with the concept that improbability equals impossibility. A full house is improbable but they happen. Winning the lottery is improbable, but it happens. I don't even see probability having a place in the argument. This is like a pathetic magic trick where you turn over a card, look at it, and announce what it is. It would be improbable to announce it BEFORE turning it over, but after you've observed it it's a sure thing.

Here's how I see it, more or less. This is pretty much off the cuff.

The universe has a set of properties. If those properties were different in some way then the universe would (very hypothetically) be unable to support life.

No universe with properties unable to support life will contain life.

Life of some sort is required to support consciousness, and consciousness is required to support the act of observation.

No universe, inhabited or otherwise, can be observed from outside, so only universes that can support life can have observers.

We observe our universe to exist, therefore our universe is among the set that can support life.

I think this is at least as sound as some of the theological mumbo jumbo I've seen thrown around.

A.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

In the scenario I described (the Martian rock), do you think anyone would be content to say, "Beats the Hell out of me.", step over the rock, and be on their merry way? Personally, I would want to investigate it a little bit further. "I don't know" sounds an awful lot like a cop out, like "God works in mysterious ways", which I think is a theistic cop out a lot of theists take, esp. for the Problem of Evil. The FT argument got going because physicists began noticing that small deviations in the physical constant values resulted in universes very inhospitable to life. Nobody said "to hell with it".


As far as a third hypothesis, can you think of one? I can only think of two: chance or design. Where I agree with you on "I don't know" is in choosing either a multiverse or God to explain the existence of life, at this stage in the game.

Well for one thing, the rock you point out isn't something that would really leave one wondering very much.

"I don't Know" is absolutely not a cop out. And it doesn't mean we don't look for explanations. It simply means we don't make **** up when we don't have one. you seem think that it's not a cop out when you can't find an explanation and simply inject "god did it", than to be honest in a situation where one actually does not know.

Nobody said to hell with the universe, but they DO say "we don't know exactly the reasons they are the way they are". As opposed to the cop out of "well god then did it" (also referred to as 'design'.

Yes, YOU can only think of 2. That's the problem. I gave you an example of fairy circles. They did not come about by chance OR design. And your model of limiting yourself to only 2 choices would have gotten you in trouble. And "unknown" works in all situations when something is unknown. Unknown or "i don't know" is NOT "I am not going to bother to find out". "I don't know" Isn't "I am going to move on and forget about it". If anything, that's what I would say about limiting one to only 2 possibilities.

 

[Malerin]

This seems to me to be complicating the heck out of a simple concept, especially by conflating it with the concept that improbability equals impossibility.

Nobody's claiming that. Given enough chances, the most improbable events can happen, which is why the possibility of a multiverse is a competing hypothesis (though, if we find out the constants are set in some fundamental way, a multiverse might cease to be a viable competing hypothesis).

A full house is improbable but they happen.

Sure, and ten royal flushes in a row can happen, but I doubt you'd want to play with the guy who just dealt them to himself All poker card combinations are equally probable (2d, 2c, 6d, 8s, 9s has the same chance as 10h, Jh, Kh, Qh, Ah), but some are statisically significant, because they are more probable on the theory of cheating than random chance. Hence our unwillingness to play with someone who keeps dealing themselves great hands.

Winning the lottery is improbable, but it happens.

If the same person won, say, 5 times in a row, would you think maybe they're rigging the game? At what point would you become suspicious?

I don't even see probability having a place in the argument. This is like a pathetic magic trick where you turn over a card, look at it, and announce what it is. It would be improbable to announce it BEFORE turning it over, but after you've observed it it's a sure thing.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that since life exists, we can't claim it's improbable life exists?

Here's how I see it, more or less. This is pretty much off the cuff.

The universe has a set of properties. If those properties were different in some way then the universe would (very hypothetically) be unable to support life.

No universe with properties unable to support life will contain life.

Life of some sort is required to support consciousness, and consciousness is required to support the act of observation.

No universe, inhabited or otherwise, can be observed from outside, so only universes that can support life can have observers.

We observe our universe to exist, therefore our universe is among the set that can support life.

Sure, this sounds like the "if the universe had happened any other way, we wouldn't be here to talk about it, so what's the big deal?". I don't think it works as an objection, personally. I like the Sharpshooter Analogy (here, with a critique: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning.html)

 

[Malerin]

Well for one thing, the rock you point out isn't something that would really leave one wondering very much.

Really? A rock on Mars with markings corresponding to all the primes to 101 wouldn't make you wonder at all? Don't you think that would be big news? Hell, a little robot crawling around on Mars shooting pictures of rocks was big news for awhile.

"I don't Know" is absolutely not a cop out. And it doesn't mean we don't look for explanations. It simply means we don't make **** up when we don't have one. you seem think that it's not a cop out when you can't find an explanation and simply inject "god did it", than to be honest in a situation where one actually does not know.

Not at all. I'm at the "I don't know" stage right now. I think it's either God or a multiverse. I don't know. We need to investigate more.

Nobody said to hell with the universe, but they DO say "we don't know exactly the reasons they are the way they are". As opposed to the cop out of "well god then did it" (also referred to as 'design')

Why is that a cop out? If it's possible "God did it", shouldn't that be explored too? In anycase, fine-tuning been kicking around for decades and voluminous amounts of research and speculation has been done on it.

Yes, YOU can only think of 2. That's the problem. I gave you an example of fairy circles. They did not come about by chance OR design.

Aren't fairy rings fungal growths in grass? That sounds like chance to me. When I say chance, I mean a natural process, like the weathering example I gave for the Martian rock: erosion just happened to wear away spots on the rock that corresponded to prime numbers. Fairy rings happen to be circular fungal growths. I'm sure people attached significance to it before they understood the natural causes. In the same way, if we discover life can exist no matter what the values of the constants, then the natural explanation would win out.

And your model of limiting yourself to only 2 choices would have gotten you in trouble. And "unknown" works in all situations when something is unknown. Unknown or "i don't know" is NOT "I am not going to bother to find out". "I don't know" Isn't "I am going to move on and forget about it". If anything, that's what I would say about limiting one to only 2 possibilities.

Again, I agree with you. The FT argument doesn't work because we can legitimally say we don't know whether a multiverse exists or not. But we DO know, at the moment, that life can only exist in a very narrow range of physical constant values. That sets up the improbablity of life, which leads to the multiverse/God dichotomy.

 

[westprog]

This seems to me to be complicating the heck out of a simple concept, especially by conflating it with the concept that improbability equals impossibility. A full house is improbable but they happen. Winning the lottery is improbable, but it happens. I don't even see probability having a place in the argument. This is like a pathetic magic trick where you turn over a card, look at it, and announce what it is. It would be improbable to announce it BEFORE turning it over, but after you've observed it it's a sure thing.

Here's how I see it, more or less. This is pretty much off the cuff.

The universe has a set of properties. If those properties were different in some way then the universe would (very hypothetically) be unable to support life.

No universe with properties unable to support life will contain life.

Life of some sort is required to support consciousness, and consciousness is required to support the act of observation.

No universe, inhabited or otherwise, can be observed from outside, so only universes that can support life can have observers.

We observe our universe to exist, therefore our universe is among the set that can support life.

I think this is at least as sound as some of the theological mumbo jumbo I've seen thrown around.

A.

The question still remains - why does the universe need to have observers?

 

[westprog]

All I have to demonstrate is that we can produce models of universes where 1 + 1 != 2. We can do this. Even small changes in the value of the successor to 1 result in universes that are completely whacky. Once you establish a narrow range of non-whacky universes, it doesn't matter if the successor to 1 is set or not, because the same question arises: A) if it is "fixed," why is it set at the precise value necessary for mathematics to make sense? B) if it is not "fixed," why does it have the coherent formal system permitting value it does?

You do this trick a lot, but changing a few words to make a nonsensical post doesn't make the original post nonsensical. It isn't possible to make 1+1 = 2 - we know this and can prove it.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

Really? A rock on Mars with markings corresponding to all the primes to 101 wouldn't make you wonder at all? Don't you think that would be big news? Hell, a little robot crawling around on Mars shooting pictures of rocks was big news for awhile.

I see no sch thing in your picture. But in the spirit of the conversation, a McDonalds on mars would also possibly perk my curiosity. So would a 1 eyes one horned flying purple people eater.

Not at all. I'm at the "I don't know" stage right now. I think it's either God or a multiverse. I don't know. We need to investigate more.

Well it's one thing to think. We all have our opinions. I think there's live out there in the universe, but there's nothing to support it. I just wouldn't want to limit myself to only 2 possibilities when it's all unknown.

Why is that a cop out? If it's possible "God did it", shouldn't that be explored too? In anycase, fine-tuning been kicking around for decades and voluminous amounts of research and speculation has been done on it.

What makes it a possible 'god did it'? No it shouldn't be explored. What should be explored is the evidence, not a conclusion. In order to get to the god conclusion, one is required to make some big assumptions first. Not making those assumptions and not including a conclusion as evidence does not mean you are ruling out a god. If there is a god behind it, then the evidence will show that. So there's no point in trying to start with a conclusion. That just sets one up for errors. But I hope you at least agree that if for the sake of argument a god were behind it, then the evidence would show that at some point if not now. No need to look specifically for a god.

Aren't fairy rings fungal growths in grass? That sounds like chance to me. When I say chance, I mean a natural process, like the weathering example I gave for the Martian rock: erosion just happened to wear away spots on the rock that corresponded to prime numbers. Fairy rings happen to be circular fungal growths. I'm sure people attached significance to it before they understood the natural causes. In the same way, if we discover life can exist no matter what the values of the constants, then the natural explanation would win out.

Chance is certainly not an appropriate word for natural causes. Chance means it could go either way or implies it was a random coincidence. It's like saying evolution is dictated by chance. that would be outright incorrect because there's no real chance involved (generally speaking only). Natural selection isn't chance. It's a natural process. So using the word chance if you just mean natural process is misleading, and bordering dishonest.

For example with your rock. It could be that it's placed in a spot where there is wind blowing from 3 directions that meet in that spot. And being that there are rocks everywhere, there would almost have to be one in that meeting area. And so it gets worn by wind and sand from 3 sides and creates a pyramid shape. That's not chance. That's just the expected outcome of the conditions of the environment. Chance would be you have a bunch of rocks and no such phenomenon, but one rock just happens to by chance get worn evenly in that way. That WOULD be chance.

We would also win out if we found the universe couldn't exist without the constants being the way they are. Or that life could exist in any number of ways with different constants.

Again, I agree with you. The FT argument doesn't work because we can legitimally say we don't know whether a multiverse exists or not. But we DO know, at the moment, that life can only exist in a very narrow range of physical constant values. That sets up the improbablity of life, which leads to the multiverse/God dichotomy.

I don't think it works regardless of there being a multiverse or not. I think it fails even if we assume there is no multiverse. Because it is based on assumptions. Ones I have presented already. As soon as someone can prove that the universe can exist with different constants, then they can argue that the universe just happened into fall into this combination. It wouldn't prove a god by any stretch, but FT would no longer be a logical fallacy.

 

[Singularitarian]

Here is one for you all. The binding of the fine structure of [latex]\alpha[/latex] is itself an indication of fine-tuning, but there is even more at work.

Electrons themselves have just the correct ratio of charge, which is as we have all learned from High School as being negative to balance the repelling force of the proton. If the electron where any stronger, it would be able to penetrate the once impervious protons repulsive charge and nothing would exist at all because the electron would go spiralling into the proton. This would happen in about one hundred microseconds (a microsecond is a millionth part of one second). This would be a catastrophic depletion in the nucleons structure and all atoms would shrink in size. But this does not happen because the uncertainty forbids the electron to be so well defined to the center of the nuclei of atoms thus being a fine-tuned balance within itself.

 

[fls]

Think of it this way. Suppose the first astronaught on Mars finds a rock like the picture on the bottom, but with straighter sides and more of a pyramid shape. Each side has similar indentations. The first indentation is by itself. The second is a group of 2, then a group of 3, 5, 7, etc. All the primes up to 101 on every side. There are two ways to explain the existence of such a stone:
1. Chance (weathering or some natural process)
2. Design

What do you make of the examples that we already have of this sort of mathematics writ in stone? Sunflowers have phi on their face. Why don't scientists find that to be proof of God?

Linda

 

[Beth]

Some do.

 

[fls]

"Proof" as in 'testing the truth of something'.

Linda

 

[AdinDraco]

Stupid question: people keep going on about how improbable that the universe is, and that it's too improbable to be natural/chance/whatever. My question is how do we know thats it's too improbable? What's the magic number or are we just assuming that the odds are so huge as to be self evident? Do we have some objective method or do the odds of the universe being the way that it is just obviously too big? Why?

Also, since we don't know if there is a multiverse/something-else or the nature of it or what came before the big bang (if there was a before) how do we know the odds of our universe coming to exist as it does? Can calculating the odds of our universe being the way it is be compared to the tired old creationist argument "look at the giraffe, it's too improbable for evolution to create that". There's an assumption of the giraffe/current universe being some sort of end goal. If evolution was re-run we wouldn't get the giraffe, but we'd get something. If the big bang was re-run, could we end up with a universe with different numbers in many of the constants but still viable in some way?

This may be newbie concerns/questions but to quote a recent example at random, I can see that someone winning the lottery say...6...times would be super extremely suspicious and be cause for an exhaustive investigation. But if no other evidence of cheating is found, surely the act of winning that many times is not, by itself, definite proof of anything? (I mean, if 1 or 2 wins is not proof of cheating, but 6 obviously is...how many wins over how long changes it from luck/obsessive-lottery-playing to proof-of-cheating).

Or have I completely missed the point?

 

[fls]

Stupid question: people keep going on about how improbable that the universe is, and that it's too improbable to be natural/chance/whatever. My question is how do we know thats it's too improbable? What's the magic number or are we just assuming that the odds are so huge as to be self evident? Do we have some objective method or do the odds of the universe being the way that it is just obviously too big? Why?

FT proponents are somehow blind to this...

The probability that the occurrence of an event was due to chance is not the probability of that event due to chance.

They merrily proceed to pretend the two are equivalent and the rest is history.

Linda

 

[westprog]

FT proponents are somehow blind to this...

The probability that the occurrence of an event was due to chance is not the probability of that event due to chance.

They merrily proceed to pretend the two are equivalent and the rest is history.

Linda

Yes, if the alternative universes are all equally differentiated, then the existence of this one, no matter how unlikely, would not be particularly remarkable or in need of explanation. It's only significant if this universe possesses objective properties which the vast majority of the other universes do not. The objective properties need not include the presence of life. It can be the number of different objects, the existence of stars, or elements, or chemistry.

I've noticed that the FT opponents tend to assume that all the alternative universes will have equally relevant properties. If so, they should point them out.

 

[rocketdodger]

You do this trick a lot, but changing a few words to make a nonsensical post doesn't make the original post nonsensical. It isn't possible to make 1+1 = 2 - we know this and can prove it.

ORLY?

How would you go about proving it, might I ask?

Would you, for example, check the consistency of the resulting formal system where 1 + 1 != S(1) ?

Hmmm... isn't that kind of like, for example, the fact that we would not exist the way we do if the constants were much different?

I mean, this is all I am saying. Mathematics describes reality. 1 + 1 == S(1) because that is consistent with reality. Likewise, the values of the constants are what we have measured them to be because that is consistent with reality.

So going and changing the values of constants in equations in models is not guaranteed to be consistent with reality any more than changing the value of the successor to 1.

Reality is what it is, whether you like it or not westprog.

 

[rocketdodger]

I've noticed that the FT opponents tend to assume that all the alternative universes will have equally relevant properties. If so, they should point them out.

I've noticed that FT proponents tend to assume that the alternate universes ... actually can exist. If so, they should point them out.

 

[rocketdodger]

Stupid question: people keep going on about how improbable that the universe is, and that it's too improbable to be natural/chance/whatever. My question is how do we know thats it's too improbable? What's the magic number or are we just assuming that the odds are so huge as to be self evident? Do we have some objective method or do the odds of the universe being the way that it is just obviously too big? Why?

I started another thread for precisely this issue, because as you say, people keep going on about it without giving it any kind of a formal treatment.

But don't expect an answer, because there isn't one. There is no evidence one way or the other about the probability distribution of the values of the universal constants. The distribution could be uniform, it could be a curve, it could be discretized into 1000 values, or a million, or even just 1. We just don't know.

Of course that doesn't stop fine tuning proponents from making claims about that distribution ... but since when have theists payed attention to things like, oh I dunno, mathematical and logical consistency in their arguments?