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The fine tuning argument

Malerin said:
HHTHTTHTHT
HHHTTHHTHT
HHTTHTHTTT
HTHHHTTHTH
THHTTHTHTH
THHTT

And you toss coin B and get:

HHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHH
HHHHH

Both results are equally likely. But one of the coins is almost certainly biased. Care to guess which? ;)
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Actually, both of them look biased to me. Using successive tosses, the former gives P(H|T) of 60.2%, and P(T|H) of 30.8%. Hopefully I'm not making an error when I calculate the probability of a coin doing such a thing by chance at about 0.0002.

Mind you, doing the same analysis on the other, P(H|T) is undefined and P(T|H) zero, giving a much smaller probability, which I think was part of the point. However, of the two, ironically, the former one looks more like it implies intent than the latter, though I think I was supposed to come to the opposite conclusion.
 
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Singularitarian said:
In the case of the universe, and the wave function which governed the initial beginning, the probability is 1 in an infinity.

This is a big difference in understanding, than merely saying the probability is 1.
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Hiya, and really, you know about the wave function at the beginning. Okay dokay.

Tell me what you can really say about that.
 
Malerin said:
Oddly enough, this is the hardest thing for some people to grasp. All results are equally likely, but not all results are best explained by chance. For example, suppose you toss coin A a bunch of times and get:
HHTHTTHTHTHHHTTHHTHTHHTTHTHTTTHTHHHTTHTHTHHTTHTHTHTHHTT

And you toss coin B and get:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Both results are equally likely. But one of the coins is almost certainly biased. Care to guess which? ;)
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Um really?

The chance that a single outcome of the set occurs is exactly teh same in both cases.

(1/2)55
Just because you have that one run of 55 that comes up all heads does not mean that the coin is biased. While it seems likely, you have to do what?

You have to have another trial. If over numerous trials you ascertain that the coin always lands H up then you have a probability argument. You can not determine a frequency distribution of single trial.

So you toss a coin 55 times and say that randomly (unbiased coin) you get all HHHHHH, what is the probability for the unbiased coin that the 56th toss will be an H?

Is it (1/2)56 or is it 1/2?
 
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Singularitarian said:
David, you over-estimate these calculations. For instance, there is something ''like'' 10^80 particles in this universe. The conditions and boundaries we are allowed to work with comes from the experimental soil of physics and measurement. The statistics of life are obviously not accurate, but if the standard model is correct, we are sure we cannot be far off.
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Show me the equation and then we can talk, they always leave out the billions and billions of particles over billions and billions of years.

Say you have a set of two partcles, they meet once a year and there is a 1/1,000,000 chance that they will combine. What is the chance they will combine over a billion years?

What if they are more likely to combine, they bump more often and there are more of them?

Seriously there are molecular clouds just full of the precursors to amino acids, what is the likelyhood that some of those molecules will make amino acids?
Fred Hoyle and others forget that.
 
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Dancing David said:
penrose sattes that the possible outcomes og the universe was something like 10^10^123 and then concludes that this means the universe is improbable. And so is a single atom of hydrogen, out of ~10^80 partciles what are the odds of a single atom of hydrogen. If you randomly get one 1/10^80, but if it is already the one you have in a jar, then it is 1/1.

The universe may have had 10^10^123 possible states, but we know nothing about them or what properties they have had, so you can say NOTHING about the probability of life arising in one of them.
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Actually, Penrose's argument is a bit better than that. He calculates that, if certain assumptions about the formation and curvature of the Universe, and of the modelling of universal entropy are correct, then the Universe as it exists is extremely improbable.

However, his assumptions include the Universe being closed and cyclic, which as far as we can tell is not correct, so his calculations simply don't apply.
 
yy2bggggs said:
Actually, both of them look biased to me. Using successive tosses, the former gives P(H|T) of 60.2%, and P(T|H) of 30.8%. Hopefully I'm not making an error when I calculate the probability of a coin doing such a thing by chance at about 0.0002.

Mind you, doing the same analysis on the other, P(H|T) is undefined and P(T|H) zero, giving a much smaller probability, which I think was part of the point. However, of the two, ironically, the former one looks more like it implies intent than the latter, though I think I was supposed to come to the opposite conclusion.
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Ahh, that looks like a much more elegant way to put what I was getting at.

yy2bggggs, am I correct in thinking that the distribution of the two conditionals you mention above will look something like a standard curve, given enough strings of 55 tosses of a fair coin?

And that still doesn't address the important point that the only reason we think of coin B as being biased is that we know what the behavior of a fair coin tends to look like but we have no idea what the behavior of a fair universe generator tends to look like.

In other words -- as I said before -- the coin toss example illustrates literally nothing about the universe.
 
Robin said:
But the usual answer to that is to consider the man who is anaesthetised, but first told that he will not be revived unless he wins every lottery in the USA over the coming month.

He wakes up and finds he is alive and people say "aren't you amazed that you won every lottery in the USA over a month?" and he answers "No, if I didn't win them I wouldn't be here to discuss it".
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I really don't see that that is an answer at all. :confused:
 
Malerin said:
That only moves the problem up a level: if the constants are "set" at certain values, we still know that the vast vast majority of these values result in inhospitable universes. Why should the values be set at the precise amounts needed to make life possible? Also, if the constants are set, than that would mean it was impossible for the universe to be anything other than life-permitting. A strange result, wouldn't you say? If there is a multiverse with the same set values that we observe, and you surveyed all the universes in it, they would all be life-permitting. That would be stronger evidence for a universe-designer than anything the FT argument can manage.





Oddly enough, this is the hardest thing for some people to grasp. All results are equally likely, but not all results are best explained by chance. For example, suppose you toss coin A a bunch of times and get:
HHTHTTHTHTHHHTTHHTHTHHTTHTHTTTHTHHHTTHTHTHHTTHTHTHTHHTT

And you toss coin B and get:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Both results are equally likely. But one of the coins is almost certainly biased. Care to guess which? ;)
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but you fail Probability 101.
 
Malerin said:
Oddly enough, this is the hardest thing for some people to grasp. All results are equally likely, but not all results are best explained by chance. For example, suppose you toss coin A a bunch of times and get:
HHTHTTHTHTHHHTTHHTHTHHTTHTHTTTHTHHHTTHTHTHHTTHTHTHTHHTT

And you toss coin B and get:

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Both results are equally likely. But one of the coins is almost certainly biased. Care to guess which? ;)
Click to expand...

The latter sequence suggests that there is a constraint on the result - this is similar to noting that any settings for the parameter values result in life or that there is a recognizable constraint to the values those parameters can hold. So the latter sequence would suggest no fine-tuning - it's fairly obviously a two-headed coin or strongly biased and wouldn't raise any questions in our mind.

Which leaves us with the former sequence. It superficially looks like chance. To get that same sequence (which is what is meant by fine-tuning) looks like it would require intent as there's no obvious explanation for the pattern, so I'm willing to pretend that it looks like a fine-tuned universe.

Now, one can, of course, make an algorithm which generates that exact sequence. The first question is whether that algorithm can be shorter than the sequence it specifies. The next question is whether the characteristic which allows it to be shorter corresponds to a characteristic which would be necessary and sufficient to specify a designer. I think we'd all agree that the algorithm 'print H 55 times' doesn't have any characteristic that would even suggest a designer (let alone in a necessary and sufficient manner). Looking at the fine-tuned sequence above it, I am curious as to how you'd make the algorithm to generate the first sequence shorter than the sequence itself and then how that method specifies a designer. What did you have in mind for that?

Linda
 
Dancing David said:
Hiya, and really, you know about the wave function at the beginning. Okay dokay.

Tell me what you can really say about that.
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Don't attempt patronize me son.

I tell you, that scientists became very aware a long time ago that when applying the mechanics to the beginning of time would need to involve fields, probabilistic and physical.

For reference to applying the wave function, read

F. A. Wolf, Parallel Universes, 1985

He states that in the beginning, the universe needed to have chosen from an infinite amount of states which is defined by the wave function.

okey dokey?
 
Dancing David said:
Show me the equation and then we can talk, they always leave out the billions and billions of particles over billions and billions of years.

Say you have a set of two partcles, they meet once a year and there is a 1/1,000,000 chance that they will combine. What is the chance they will combine over a billion years?

What if they are more likely to combine, they bump more often and there are more of them?

Seriously there are molecular clouds just full of the precursors to amino acids, what is the likelyhood that some of those molecules will make amino acids?
Fred Hoyle and others forget that.
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Fred Hoyle never missed anything; its just that the work needed far exceedes valuable time sometimes... suffice to say, a man can only do so much work. He is dead now afterall.

I cannot show you desisive euations (i am missing a letter, the board doesn't work, guess which one? ;) - i never done statistical math of that magnitude. I can assure you however that there are many factors, and the more you raise including any others only serve the Anthropic Principle even more.
 
Singularitarian said:
Don't attempt patronize me son.
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Nope that is your job.
I tell you, that scientists became very aware a long time ago that when applying the mechanics to the beginning of time would need to involve fields, probabilistic and physical.
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Uh huh, tell me another story Grandpa, please tell me what you know about the wave function prior to t=~1/10^40 sec. Please in detail.

Don't refer me to vague speculation, show me where you know the value was infinity.
For reference to applying the wave function, read

F. A. Wolf, Parallel Universes, 1985

He states that in the beginning, the universe needed to have chosen from an infinite amount of states which is defined by the wave function.
Click to expand...
Uh huh, so a guy in a book says it and you repeat it. Must be true everywhere except a sceptics forums.

he does not know that it was infinite, nor do you.
okey dokey?
Click to expand...

Fine by me, you don't know and you claim knowledge you do not have.
 
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Singularitarian said:
Fred Hoyle never missed anything; its just that the work needed far exceedes valuable time sometimes... suffice to say, a man can only do so much work. He is dead now afterall.

I cannot show you desisive euations (i am missing a letter, the board doesn't work, guess which one? ;) - i never done statistical math of that magnitude. I can assure you however that there are many factors, and the more you raise including any others only serve the Anthropic Principle even more.
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Nope, I know what my thoery is and why the anthropic principle is irrelevant to the probability of life arising.

Maybe you don't.

My theory is that many players over long periods of time equals self organizing sets.

Hoyle may have been smart but he can also be every wrong.
 
Dancing David said:
Nope that is your job.

Uh huh, tell me another story Grandpa, please tell me what you know about the wave function prior to t=~1/10^40 sec. Please in detail.

Don't refer me to vague speculation, show me where you know the value was infinity.

Uh huh, so a guy in a book says it and you repeat it. Must be true everywhere except a sceptics forums.

he does not know that it was infinite, nor do you.


Fine by me, you don't know and you claim knowledge you do not have.
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David i do not need you to entice enigma and his derogatory nature. You can believe all you want about my knowledge of physics, but if you are going to refute everything i say without little thought into the matter, it's yourself only you are not being fair too.

Also, two more things. I take it that you are asking me to define the wave function before Planck Scales? Cannot be done so far. And the man i recited is in fact A PhD, so i am quite assured i am not taking things ''willy nilly.''

ps. keep all personal attacks to yourself. Reported.
 
Also, David, assuming the wave function did not have control over the initial beginnings, means we are ultimately being biased, that somehow the laws of quantum mechanics do not apply to the very initial beginning, which is ridiculous.
 
Singularitarian said:
Also, David, assuming the wave function did not have control over the initial beginnings, means we are ultimately being biased, that somehow the laws of quantum mechanics do not apply to the very initial beginning, which is ridiculous.
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Quantum mechanics does not, in fact, apply to a lot of things -- it's incomplete. Ridiculous is making assumptions and trying to force theories to do things they aren't qualified to do. For instance, assuming that time (and the universe!) began at the start of the big bang. Not only can that not be shown, it can't be shown that time or the universe had a beginning. Too many people make the assumption that what we see is all there is. "Universe" might be a fine word for all we can see, but it has a deeper meaning as "all there is". Conflating one with the other is illogical.

And time is very poorly understood.

This whole conversation is of the angels on the head of a pin variety, and the fact that so many physicists and cosmologists and otherwise genuine scientists choose to operate beyond the ability of the tools they're using doesn't help matters one bit.

The most inane (and relevant) piece here is this weird assumption that the rules of the universe are somehow "randomly" determined at the "start". First, nothing is random, ever. Causation doesn't allow it. Second, causation also doesn't allow for a beginning. If ever there was a need to invoke Ockham's Razor, it's in cosmology. There has never been a documented case of an uncaused event, nor has a need for one ever been demonstrated.

All the probability business in QM stems from the need to make intelligent guesses in the absence of concrete data due to the impossibility of obtaining that data. It was never intended to be interpreted in the ways that most people seem to want to. The words "I don't know" are very difficult for those of faith and science alike to say.
 
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