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Fine-tuning - chance vs design? (including a designed simulation)

excreationist

excreationist

Married mouth-breather
Joined
Aug 28, 2000
Messages
2,641
Location
Australia
Basic Beliefs
Probably in a simulation
Apparently there seems to be fine-tuning in the universe's physics in order for life to be possible....

The following site might be dodgy but it involves an impressive list:
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/

Gravitational constant: 1 part in 10^34
Electromagnetic force versus force of gravity: 1 part in 10^37
Cosmological constant: 1 part in 10^120
Mass density of universe: 1 part in 10^59
Expansion rate of universe: 1 part in 10^55
Initial entropy: 1 part in 10^ (10^123)
Click to expand...

Let me know if any of those are incorrect...

What are people's explanations?

1. A multiverse (parallel histories)

2. Many unrelated universes

3. Design - a simulation

4. Design - some other explanation

5. There's just one universe and somehow it led to the right constants (perhaps using retrocausality)
 
I'm definitely in the many-universes camp. We see the one where the numbers are right because only such a universe could produce observers.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm definitely in the many-universes camp. We see the one where the numbers are right because only such a universe could produce observers.
Click to expand...
Yeah I used to think that.... though I didn't believe it very strongly.
 
Lion IRC said:
Clothes are intelligently designed to fit the size of the wearer.
https://biblehub.com/genesis/3-21.htm
Click to expand...


If God is all-powerful, couldn't it design life to exist under any and all conditions? Isn't this an argument against God's omnipotence, that it is forced to design a universe within very tight tolerances? I would be much more impressed if this god had created us to exist on the surface of the Sun, or within black holes. Must be one of the lesser, puny gods you are talking about.
 
atrib said:
....If God is all-powerful, couldn't it design life to exist under any and all conditions? Isn't this an argument against God's omnipotence, that it is forced to design a universe within very tight tolerances? I would be much more impressed if this god had created us to exist on the surface of the Sun, or within black holes. Must be one of the lesser, puny gods you are talking about.
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It is less CPU intensive if life only exists around the earth. Note that regular stars don't need to constantly simulated on a subatomic scale. Even in most video games life can't exist long in lava etc.
 
Life adapted to fit existing conditions. There's no reason to think conditions were intentionally designed to meet the needs of a yet nonexistent biota.
 
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647v1.pdf
There are a great many scientists, of varying religious persuasions, who accept that the universe is fine-tuned for life, e.g. Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, Wilczek. They differ, of course, on what conclusion we should draw from this fact. Stenger, on the other hand, claims that the universe is not fine-tuned.
Click to expand...
 
seyorni said:
Life adapted to fit existing conditions. There's no reason to think conditions were intentionally designed to meet the needs of a yet nonexistent biota.
Click to expand...

The stuff he's talking about are things that have to be right in order to have a situation that could possibly support life. If everything's hydrogen you don't have life. If you can't have stable stars you don't have life. If the universe dies quickly you don't have life. If you don't have a reasonable ratio between the electromagnetic force and gravity you won't have planetary chemistry and thus won't have life.
 
excreationist said:
Apparently there seems to be fine-tuning in the universe's physics in order for life to be possible....

The following site might be dodgy but it involves an impressive list: ... Gravitational constant: 1 part in 10^34 <snip>

Let me know if any of those are incorrect...

What are people's explanations?
Click to expand...
There's nothing to be explained. The list is not impressive. The entire argument rests on an unstated false premise.

Here is the logical structure of the argument:

1. Current understanding of physics + different (say) gravitational constant -> consistent
2. Current understanding of physics + different (say) gravitational constant + life -> inconsistent
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore life is inconsistent with a different gravitational constant.

Premise 1 is false. You can't have a different gravitational constant and have modern physics be consistent. Same goes for all the other constants in the list. Turns out you can't even have the actual constants and have modern physics be consistent. Modern physics is inconsistent, full-stop. So blaming the inconsistency you get when you assume there could still be life with a changed gravitational constant on life is illogical. The physics theory the fine-tuning argument relies on in order to derive the life/gravity inconsistency is wrong. So the whole argument amounts to "There must be fine-tuning because an incorrect theory implies it."

Come back when we've figured out quantum gravity. Then we'll see if it still looks like there's fine-tuning.

"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World." -- Einstein
 
excreationist said:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647v1.pdf
There are a great many scientists, of varying religious persuasions, who accept that the universe is fine-tuned for life, e.g. Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, Wilczek. They differ, of course, on what conclusion we should draw from this fact. Stenger, on the other hand, claims that the universe is not fine-tuned.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I would ask if this quote is from someone who doesn't understand English, is intentionally "lying for Jesus", or so twisted by their belief that they only hear what they want to hear.

That list of scientists "who accept that the universe is fine-tuned for life", did they really? Or did they say something like if the universal constants were sufficiently different then life as we know it couldn't have evolved? There is a gigantic difference between those two positions. The first case is a claim that there was an intelligence that intentionally designed (tuned) the universe to produce exactly what it did. The second case is simply a recognition that there are universal constants and physics. Anyone who claims to not see the difference is either lying or dumb as a stick.
 
Bomb#20 said:
excreationist said:
Apparently there seems to be fine-tuning in the universe's physics in order for life to be possible....

The following site might be dodgy but it involves an impressive list: ... Gravitational constant: 1 part in 10^34 <snip>

Let me know if any of those are incorrect...

What are people's explanations?
Click to expand...
There's nothing to be explained. The list is not impressive. The entire argument rests on an unstated false premise.

Here is the logical structure of the argument:

1. Current understanding of physics + different (say) gravitational constant -> consistent
2. Current understanding of physics + different (say) gravitational constant + life -> inconsistent
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore life is inconsistent with a different gravitational constant.

Premise 1 is false. You can't have a different gravitational constant and have modern physics be consistent. Same goes for all the other constants in the list. Turns out you can't even have the actual constants and have modern physics be consistent. Modern physics is inconsistent, full-stop. So blaming the inconsistency you get when you assume there could still be life with a changed gravitational constant on life is illogical. The physics theory the fine-tuning argument relies on in order to derive the life/gravity inconsistency is wrong. So the whole argument amounts to "There must be fine-tuning because an incorrect theory implies it."

Come back when we've figured out quantum gravity. Then we'll see if it still looks like there's fine-tuning.

"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World." -- Einstein
Click to expand...

The biggest premise that remains unstated in the fine tuning argument is that the universe has a purpose, and that purpose is to support the existence of life. The fine tuning argument assumes the very premise the argument is being used to demonstrate, and is therefore circular.
 
seyorni said:
Life adapted to fit existing conditions.
There's no reason to think conditions were intentionally designed to meet the needs of a yet nonexistent biota.
Click to expand...

Horse/Cart.

Its more a question of whether the existing conditions - which existed - were needed to exist in order for any particular thing to happen.

But I agree, intent versus chance does seem to be the central question.

bz_MONKEYS_05-07-10.jpg
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm definitely in the many-universes camp. We see the one where the numbers are right because only such a universe could produce observers.
Click to expand...

Doesn't that suggest that somewhere there's a universe where Jesus was able to turn water into wine?
 
Lion IRC said:
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm definitely in the many-universes camp. We see the one where the numbers are right because only such a universe could produce observers.
Click to expand...

Doesn't that suggest that somewhere there's a universe where Jesus was able to turn water into wine?
Click to expand...

But, if so, then it wouldn't be miraculous because everyone (within that particular alternate universe) would be able to turn water into wine. If there are multiverses then, within each of the other universes, there would still be consistent physical laws pertaining to that universe.
 
BTW: We can basically discard the simulation case. A simulation means a simulator--and thus a universe capable of supporting life that built the simulator.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
BTW: We can basically discard the simulation case. A simulation means a simulator--and thus a universe capable of supporting life that built the simulator.
Click to expand...
I think ultimately outside of all of the simulations there is a naturalistic universe. What is illogical about that?
 
skepticalbip said:
excreationist said:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647v1.pdf
There are a great many scientists, of varying religious persuasions, who accept that the universe is fine-tuned for life, e.g. Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, Wilczek. They differ, of course, on what conclusion we should draw from this fact. Stenger, on the other hand, claims that the universe is not fine-tuned.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I would ask if this quote is from someone who doesn't understand English, is intentionally "lying for Jesus", or so twisted by their belief that they only hear what they want to hear.....
Click to expand...
It seems to be from a journal - perhaps a peer-reviewed one:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...lligent-life/222321D5D4B5A4D68A3A97BBE46AEE45
 
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