fine tuning argument

[BH]

I have read about the fine tuning argument and assume all of you are familiar with its contents.

I have read that the fine tune believers claim that statistically speaking, out of all potential universes, more than likely we would have one where the most advanced particles of matter would be a hydrogen and helium atom, and that these would never be able to merge together to form anything like stars and so forth.

If this is this case, and theoretically speaking the universe had gone that way purely by chance, what would stop the hydrogen and helium atoms from deciding among themselves that the universe had been fine tuned for them and miraculously made by a god for them? Of course it is silly to think helium and hydrogen atoms could think or talk but I think you get my point.

 

[Rhea]

Like Douglas Adams' bit on the puddle?

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”

 

[braces_for_impact]

Fine tuning is such a specious argument. Of course, there's a lot of anthropomorphism going on. If there's anything that nature teaches us, is that we are not at the center of things. If the claim is that the universe is fine tuned for our existence, then surely we created clean rooms specifically for these types of bacteria to evolve, because they fit therein so well!

Instead some claim fine tuning, while they live on a fraction of a dot in a universe that that cannot sustain them directly. Forget the entire universe trying to kill us all, drop a human naked randomly anywhere on the planet and odds are they will die, and die quickly.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I have read that the fine tune believers claim that statistically speaking, out of all potential universes, more than likely we would have one where the most advanced particles of matter would be a hydrogen and helium atom, and that these would never be able to merge together to form anything like stars and so forth.

Well, I don't think THAT is a fine-tuning argument. In that statement, they're saying that the complexity of the universe can only be explained by divine action.
Not sure where they get these statistics, though. How many universes have they observed coming into being to figure out how often we get a H&H universe and nothing greater, without divine assistance?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

No one had a video camera when all this shit came into existence ∴ God did it motherfuckers.

 

[Underseer]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...or-stengers-last-book-god-and-the-multiverse/

- - - Updated - - -

http://www.amazon.com/The-Fallacy-Fine-Tuning-Universe-Designed/dp/1616144432

 

[Atheos]

To me the flaw in the FTA is it assumes life that did not need the universe to exist created life that did need the universe to exist. To say that "life could not be possible without exactly these parameters" is to deny before the argument starts that whatever life created the universe could not have existed.

The other horn of that paradox is that life doesn't need exactly (or anywhere near) these parameters to exist, in which case the universe could have been created in any possible configuration desired and life then created to fit said universe.

Which isn't that far from just admitting that the universe evolved for billions of years before life began to emerge that could survive on at least one tiny dust-speck floating around in it.

But it's a far cry from the universe being created as a home for the likes of us. Statistically it remains 99.999999999999% lethal to our species.

 

[skepticalbip]

The fine tuning argument makes a big unfounded assumption. It assumes that the constants could be different. There is no reason to make such an assumption. Einstein addressed the question from the opposite direction by wondering whether god had any choice.

 

[Kharakov]

Yup. An immortal being with the foresight to fine tune the universe to sustain life, rather than make life interesting. Totally logical.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If Linde, Guth et al are correct, the Universe is infinitely immense and infinitely old. By sheer chance then, a rare bubble universe that can sustain life is not a conceptual problem. It may be rare, rare rare, but with all infinity to play with, it will occur.

Somehow, I am told I must believe in an infinitely old, all powerful being that just exists, that's all. And can instantanously engineer this complex Universe. How? Mumble, mumble, magic.

I do not fint the fine tuniong argument to be a problem in an infinitely old and infinitely large Universe creating new island Universes all the time.

The theists might complain that the multi-Universe is highly theoretical and unproven, possibly unprovable. Well the theists have had several thousand years to prove their God exists and have failed. We now get thousands of years to figure this physics thing out.

God sounds rather unlikely to exist and has other problems such the concept's many internal self-contradictions. With a multi-Universe, the fine tuning problem isn't a problem.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Fine tuning claims are the same as creation or intelligent design or irreducible complexity claims, they all presuppose what they're attempting to demonstrate. They're exercises in question begging.

According to any of these many variations on a theme none of what we call the universe - or a flower - could be here because it's just too complex. So to solve the mysterious problem you just assume the existence of something even more complex that just happens to exist. That's right, IT JUST HAPPENS TO EXIST! The arguments are so asinine and contradictory that you wonder why anyone would hold them.

But the people who hold these beliefs like to believe in magic and mystery, like to pretend, and enjoy their emotional response to a pretty flower same as the next person. And these are all behaviors that have quite naturally been selected for. So in the end there's no mysteries to solve. How utterly disappointing it must be to some folks.

 

[Underseer]

Fine tuning claims are the same as creation or intelligent design or irreducible complexity claims, they all presuppose what they're attempting to demonstrate. They're exercises in question begging.

According to any of these many variations on a theme none of what we call the universe - or a flower - could be here because it's just too complex. So to solve the mysterious problem you just assume the existence of something even more complex that just happens to exist. That's right, IT JUST HAPPENS TO EXIST! The arguments are so asinine and contradictory that you wonder why anyone would hold them.

But the people who hold these beliefs like to believe in magic and mystery, like to pretend, and enjoy their emotional response to a pretty flower same as the next person. And these are all behaviors that have quite naturally been selected for. So in the end there's no mysteries to solve. How utterly disappointing it must be to some folks.

I prefer to think of them as argument from ignorance fallacies.

Teleological arguments: I don't understand where life comes from, therefore magic.
Transcendental arguments: I don't understand why stuff is true, therefore magic.
Cosmological arguments: I don't understand where stuff came from, therefore magic.

 

[angelo]

But doesn't the problem of the "fine tuner's" origin bother them?

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[Keith&Co.]

But doesn't the problem of the "fine tuner's" origin bother them?

No, of course not. 'Fine Tuner' is the conclusion they want to achieve.











And their starting assumption.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But doesn't the problem of the "fine tuner's" origin bother them?

I think there's a lot of Dunning Kruger and anosognosia operating.

 

[sdelsolray]

But doesn't the problem of the "fine tuner's" origin bother them?

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No, because they'll just employ a special pleading fallacy to justify their sky fairy creator.

Does that bother them? No, because they'll claim their sky fairy creator is not subject to special pleading. Checkmate, according to them.

 

[sdelsolray]

Fine tuning claims are the same as creation or intelligent design or irreducible complexity claims, they all presuppose what they're attempting to demonstrate. They're exercises in question begging.

According to any of these many variations on a theme none of what we call the universe - or a flower - could be here because it's just too complex. So to solve the mysterious problem you just assume the existence of something even more complex that just happens to exist. That's right, IT JUST HAPPENS TO EXIST! The arguments are so asinine and contradictory that you wonder why anyone would hold them.

But the people who hold these beliefs like to believe in magic and mystery, like to pretend, and enjoy their emotional response to a pretty flower same as the next person. And these are all behaviors that have quite naturally been selected for. So in the end there's no mysteries to solve. How utterly disappointing it must be to some folks.

Humans have many ways to trigger endorphin rushes.

 

[Underseer]

But doesn't the problem of the "fine tuner's" origin bother them?

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No, because they'll just employ a special pleading fallacy to justify their sky fairy creator.

Does that bother them? No, because they'll claim their sky fairy creator is not subject to special pleading. Checkmate, according to them.

And that's exactly it, isn't it?

Religion is for people who want the satisfaction of having answers, but without all the hard work of figuring out if their answers are actually correct. So no matter what, the answer is "god did it!" and they can feel really smart for having all the answers.

When you challenge their truth claims by pointing out that their arguments are weak, you are threatening their certainty.

 

[angelo]

Yet they draw the line in believing in the god and religion of Zoroastrian.

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[Underseer]

Fine tuning claims are the same as creation or intelligent design or irreducible complexity claims, they all presuppose what they're attempting to demonstrate. They're exercises in question begging.

According to any of these many variations on a theme none of what we call the universe - or a flower - could be here because it's just too complex. So to solve the mysterious problem you just assume the existence of something even more complex that just happens to exist. That's right, IT JUST HAPPENS TO EXIST! The arguments are so asinine and contradictory that you wonder why anyone would hold them.

But the people who hold these beliefs like to believe in magic and mystery, like to pretend, and enjoy their emotional response to a pretty flower same as the next person. And these are all behaviors that have quite naturally been selected for. So in the end there's no mysteries to solve. How utterly disappointing it must be to some folks.

I prefer to think of them as argument from ignorance fallacies.

Teleological arguments: I don't understand where life comes from, therefore magic.
Transcendental arguments: I don't understand why stuff is true, therefore magic.
Cosmological arguments: I don't understand where stuff came from, therefore magic.

Need to add one to the list.

Substance dualism: I don't understand where thoughts come from, therefore magic.