The Causation Argument

[atrib]

Why should we assume that the universe is fine tuned for anything?
What is this fine tuning intended to achieve, and how can we verify such an intent?

Boiled down to it's most basic elements I think the answer goes as follows:

I have been told a story. The story goes that there is a thing called a god and it is a story that I have come to believe. But lots of people don't believe stories about gods and this makes me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable, perhaps even afraid and angry, because if there is no god then I feel my life is pointless. This fear drives me to find "proof" that my god is something real, not just another spooky, ghost story.

The fine tuning argument that I have been told is a device I use to prove that my god is real, which keeps my life meaningful. Generally speaking, my god is a super powerful, invisible human man living in the sky that dispenses judgement on human souls after we are dead. The story about a finely tuned universe bolsters my belief that this powerful invisible human can be real.

Please understand that I am convinced that if my god is not real, my life has no meaning, no purpose and no value.

End.

Pretty much. But very few religious people I have met would openly state it this way.

 

[Lion IRC]

He's playing coy because he doesn't want to get nailed down. Good luck getting any meaningful responses from him.

That's not a polite way to encourage civil discourse.

 

[skepticalbip]

He's playing coy because he doesn't want to get nailed down. Good luck getting any meaningful responses from him.

That's not a polite way to encourage civil discourse.

But making insinuations and refusing to clarify what you mean isn't civil discourse.

 

[bilby]

He's playing coy because he doesn't want to get nailed down. Good luck getting any meaningful responses from him.

That's not a polite way to encourage civil discourse.

Facts are better than polite lies. Polite lies are how crooks get entrenched power.

 

[Learner]

Facts are better than polite lies. Polite lies are how crooks get entrenched power.

I often hear something like this from a wide range of people who talk about their disapointment of politicians or leaders etc..

 

[bilby]

He's playing coy because he doesn't want to get nailed down. Good luck getting any meaningful responses from him.

That's not a polite way to encourage civil discourse.

But making insinuations and refusing to clarify what you mean isn't civil discourse.

And suggesting that atrib is wrong, or that his arguments need not be addressed, because he is impolite is a style over substance fallacy. It's an effective cheap debating trick, used by politicians, lawyers, and the religious, to avoid awkward questions - you fuck everyone around with irrelevancies, non-sequiturs, and/or nitpicking, until they become irritated by your style - and then declare that their rude responses indicate that they have lost the argument.

People who want politeness to substitute for factuality can fuck right the fuck off.

 

[Learner]

Politeness you can have without "substituting" for factuality. But I suppose with impoliteness ...as long as one can take what one dishes out. No hurty-feely-feelings.

 

[Learner]

There's two stages to the argument from fine tuning.

The first stage is to determine if there actually is any fine tuning (laws of physics.) Is fine tuning a mirage, a trompe l'oeil in the mind of pattern-seeking observers. Or is it a fundamental, brute fact aspect of reality.

The second step, upon determining that there is some sort of fine tuning, is to decide whether it is the product of (a) chance, (b) necessity or (c) design/intent.

The red coloured font section indicates the religiously neutral aspects of this question. Atheists can accept that the uni/multi/omni/megaverse is finely tuned, and the explanation of that fine tuning without conceding teleology.

Where the pre-suppositional atheism-of-the-gaps bias gets in the way is when it sees the entire question of fine-tuning in terms of intelligent design.

Your argument is circular. Before we move on to a discussion of the evidence for fine tuning, we have to first establish what this fine tuning is supposed to achieve. So can you answer these questions please:


Why should we assume that the universe is fine tuned for anything?
What is this fine tuning intended to achieve, and how can we verify such an intent?

Even without knowing or establishing THE actual purposeful achievment, it would't really hinder anyone from making the suggestion or hypothesis for the fine-tuning concept (even putting aside religion) studying the Earth and all the things found in nature.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Even without knowing or establishing THE actual purposeful achievment, it would't really hinder anyone from making the suggestion or hypothesis for the fine-tuning concept (even putting aside religion) studying the Earth and all the things found in nature.

so, you feel you can find an odd tool in someone's kitchen junk drawer, and without knowing the purpose of the tool, whether it's a pie-crust trimming tool, a guacamole smoother, or a cruller balancer, you're still prepared to discuss the merits or failures of the designer's efforts to make a useful precision tool, huh?

Or, upon being served a casserole you've never encountered, a recipe you have no experience with, from a cooking culture you've never eaten before, you feel cofident in gauging the cook's use of saffron, as too much or not enough, and knowing if it's original to the recipe or a substitution he was forced to use?

Without knowing the end goal, talk about the steps necessary to achieve that end goal just make no sense.

 

[atrib]

There's two stages to the argument from fine tuning.

The first stage is to determine if there actually is any fine tuning (laws of physics.) Is fine tuning a mirage, a trompe l'oeil in the mind of pattern-seeking observers. Or is it a fundamental, brute fact aspect of reality.

The second step, upon determining that there is some sort of fine tuning, is to decide whether it is the product of (a) chance, (b) necessity or (c) design/intent.

The red coloured font section indicates the religiously neutral aspects of this question. Atheists can accept that the uni/multi/omni/megaverse is finely tuned, and the explanation of that fine tuning without conceding teleology.

Where the pre-suppositional atheism-of-the-gaps bias gets in the way is when it sees the entire question of fine-tuning in terms of intelligent design.

Your argument is circular. Before we move on to a discussion of the evidence for fine tuning, we have to first establish what this fine tuning is supposed to achieve. So can you answer these questions please:


Why should we assume that the universe is fine tuned for anything?
What is this fine tuning intended to achieve, and how can we verify such an intent?

Even without knowing or establishing THE actual purposeful achievment, it would't really hinder anyone from making the suggestion or hypothesis for the fine-tuning concept (even putting aside religion) studying the Earth and all the things found in nature.

How the fuck can you debate whether the universe is fine tuned for something unless you first define what you think it is fine tuned for? Is it fine tuned to make black holes, because it is really, really good at that?

Two weekends ago, while flying IFR from Norfolk ORF to White Plains HPN, I was given a direct to HPN about 40 minutes after takeoff. Anyone who has flown through the northern NJ/NYC Class B airspace knows what kind of clusterfuck traffic can be at most times. And yet there I was, setting up my Garmin to go HPN direct. Given that such a scenario is impossible in all practical terms, should I infer that the universe was fine tuned to allow me to save about 25 minutes on this particular flight?

 

[DBT]

It seems improbable that anything exists. Improbable that there is something rather than nothing. Because there is something rather than nothing, that which exists must have features and properties. By the mere token that we are here experiencing a world/universe, these properties have allowed life to emerge on at least one planet.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It seems improbable that anything exists. Improbable that there is something rather than nothing. Because there is something rather than nothing, that which exists must have features and properties. By the mere token that we are here experiencing a world/universe, these properties have allowed life to emerge on at least one planet.

I've always found this a strange opinion, the question of why there is 'something instead of nothing.' Clearly there is no such condition as "nothing". It just strikes me as odd that a person looks at something and then immediately claims that it shouldn't be that way like cosmologists used to opine that the universe should be smooth and uniform and not all globby with stars and galaxies.

Maybe that's just evidence of basic human insecurity when we're confronted with our own ignorance. We want to know and be in control so we cast blame and say the problem is with something else, not us, even inventing strange answers like invisible people living in the sky or spirit creatures. We just don't like to hold ourselves responsible.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I've always found this a strange opinion, the question of why there is 'something instead of nothing.' Clearly there is no such condition as "nothing". It just strikes me as odd that a person looks at something and then immediately claims that it shouldn't be that way like cosmologists used to opine that the universe should be smooth and uniform and not all globby with stars and galaxies.

Doesn't the causation argument stem from a similar human intuition? Our finiteness makes the concept of eternal matter and energy in endless flux to be utterly strange. Turns out "So where did it all come from?" may be a meaningless question. "Everything must have a beginning" contains its own contradiction.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've always found this a strange opinion, the question of why there is 'something instead of nothing.' Clearly there is no such condition as "nothing". It just strikes me as odd that a person looks at something and then immediately claims that it shouldn't be that way like cosmologists used to opine that the universe should be smooth and uniform and not all globby with stars and galaxies.

Doesn't the causation argument stem from a similar human intuition? Our finiteness makes the concept of eternal matter and energy in endless flux to be utterly strange. Turns out "So where did it all come from?" may be a meaningless question. "Everything must have a beginning" contains its own contradiction.

Our finiteness makes it strange until we are able to realize we are just as eternal as every other part of the cosmos. We are the cosmos. It's like Earth. We say we live on the planet Earth but we are in fact planet Earth, not the whole thing but certainly we are Earth in every sense of the word.

It must be that duality/magic thing that makes such a concept alien to many people. Just easier and more satisfying to believe in fake magic for some people I guess. The cosmos is its own magic if you can come to appreciate it, and it's real. I don't know why people need their fake magic, their religion. Maybe it's just a fear of death that drives the attitude.

 

[Learner]

Even without knowing or establishing THE actual purposeful achievment, it would't really hinder anyone from making the suggestion or hypothesis for the fine-tuning concept (even putting aside religion) studying the Earth and all the things found in nature.

so, you feel you can find an odd tool in someone's kitchen junk drawer, and without knowing the purpose of the tool, whether it's a pie-crust trimming tool, a guacamole smoother, or a cruller balancer, you're still prepared to discuss the merits or failures of the designer's efforts to make a useful precision tool, huh?

Or, upon being served a casserole you've never encountered, a recipe you have no experience with, from a cooking culture you've never eaten before, you feel cofident in gauging the cook's use of saffron, as too much or not enough, and knowing if it's original to the recipe or a substitution he was forced to use?

Without knowing the end goal, talk about the steps necessary to achieve that end goal just make no sense.

Not sure we're on the same page ....

To clarify... Is it in context that you DO recognise the items found in the kitchen junk drawer as tools, even though you don't know what they're used for?

 

[Learner]

How the fuck can you debate whether the universe is fine tuned for something unless you first define what you think it is fine tuned for? Is it fine tuned to make black holes, because it is really, really good at that?

Two weekends ago, while flying IFR from Norfolk ORF to White Plains HPN, I was given a direct to HPN about 40 minutes after takeoff. Anyone who has flown through the northern NJ/NYC Class B airspace knows what kind of clusterfuck traffic can be at most times. And yet there I was, setting up my Garmin to go HPN direct. Given that such a scenario is impossible in all practical terms, should I infer that the universe was fine tuned to allow me to save about 25 minutes on this particular flight?

You're not going to know or get anywhere doing "top down" (so to speak) investigations . To even start considering a reason and getting to investigate the idea in the first place and find out what it's all for. You would need to be starting investigations from 'bottom up' which you wouldn't yet know the ultimate purpose without a particular method step order.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Even without knowing or establishing THE actual purposeful achievment, it would't really hinder anyone from making the suggestion or hypothesis for the fine-tuning concept (even putting aside religion) studying the Earth and all the things found in nature.

so, you feel you can find an odd tool in someone's kitchen junk drawer, and without knowing the purpose of the tool, whether it's a pie-crust trimming tool, a guacamole smoother, or a cruller balancer, you're still prepared to discuss the merits or failures of the designer's efforts to make a useful precision tool, huh?

Or, upon being served a casserole you've never encountered, a recipe you have no experience with, from a cooking culture you've never eaten before, you feel cofident in gauging the cook's use of saffron, as too much or not enough, and knowing if it's original to the recipe or a substitution he was forced to use?

Without knowing the end goal, talk about the steps necessary to achieve that end goal just make no sense.

Not sure we're on the same page ....

To clarify... Is it in context that you DO recognise the items found in the kitchen junk drawer as tools, even though you don't know what they're used for?

Don't get too bogged down in the examples. They are attempts to simplify the stupidity of your claim.
Obviously, the religious claim of fine-tuning is, and always has been, to show that the universe must have been created specifically for the members of the religion that sees this as a fact. But if that claim is made overtly, the sheer size of the universe we aren't using, thst we aren't able to use, that we haven't been able to use for 13 billion years, makes the claim laughable. That's like saying that international commerce exists so I can have a dime to pry open the battery case on my garage remote.

But, you can't still make the fine-tuned argument by pretending you don't know the unspoken conclusion. Either jimmy up (and support) a different goal that requires fine tuning, or shut up about the universe, all that exists, for 13+by, be fine-tuned for a-goal-to-be-specified-later.

 

[skepticalbip]

How the fuck can you debate whether the universe is fine tuned for something unless you first define what you think it is fine tuned for? Is it fine tuned to make black holes, because it is really, really good at that?

Two weekends ago, while flying IFR from Norfolk ORF to White Plains HPN, I was given a direct to HPN about 40 minutes after takeoff. Anyone who has flown through the northern NJ/NYC Class B airspace knows what kind of clusterfuck traffic can be at most times. And yet there I was, setting up my Garmin to go HPN direct. Given that such a scenario is impossible in all practical terms, should I infer that the universe was fine tuned to allow me to save about 25 minutes on this particular flight?

You're not going to know or get anywhere doing "top down" (so to speak) investigations . To even start considering a reason and getting to investigate the idea in the first place and find out what it's all for. You would need to be starting investigations from 'bottom up' which you wouldn't yet know the ultimate purpose without a particular method step order.

The known is that there are some physical constants. To suggest this means that the universe was "fine tuned" is a gigantic, unreasoned, and unsupported assumption. The conclusion that religious folks want to reach is that it "proves god" so they call the fact that there are constants "fine tuned" in an attempt to get to a "tuner", their god.

There are several universal constants; c, G, h, e, etc. The fact that c is a constant does not mean therefore god.

The question theoretical physicists ask is what the universe would look like if the constants had different values. What would you be like if you were a three inches taller? Does the fact that you are the height you are rather than taller (or shorter) prove god?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There's two stages to the argument from fine tuning.

The first stage is to determine if there actually is any fine tuning (laws of physics.) Is fine tuning a mirage, a trompe l'oeil in the mind of pattern-seeking observers. Or is it a fundamental, brute fact aspect of reality.

The second step, upon determining that there is some sort of fine tuning, is to decide whether it is the product of (a) chance, (b) necessity or (c) design/intent.

The red coloured font section indicates the religiously neutral aspects of this question. Atheists can accept that the uni/multi/omni/megaverse is finely tuned, and the explanation of that fine tuning without conceding teleology.

Where the pre-suppositional atheism-of-the-gaps bias gets in the way is when it sees the entire question of fine-tuning in terms of intelligent design.

Your argument is circular. Before we move on to a discussion of the evidence for fine tuning, we have to first establish what this fine tuning is supposed to achieve. So can you answer these questions please:


Why should we assume that the universe is fine tuned for anything?
What is this fine tuning intended to achieve, and how can we verify such an intent?

Even without knowing or establishing THE actual purposeful achievment, it would't really hinder anyone from making the suggestion or hypothesis for the fine-tuning concept (even putting aside religion) studying the Earth and all the things found in nature.

I keep forgetting how fine tuned the Earth's needless rotation around a sun is, which also has 7 other planets (sorry Pluto) needlessly orbiting around it. And all the finely tuned space in between these revolving balls of gas or rock/metal is absolutely uninhabitable (in a fine tuned sort of way).

 

[atrib]

How the fuck can you debate whether the universe is fine tuned for something unless you first define what you think it is fine tuned for? Is it fine tuned to make black holes, because it is really, really good at that?

Two weekends ago, while flying IFR from Norfolk ORF to White Plains HPN, I was given a direct to HPN about 40 minutes after takeoff. Anyone who has flown through the northern NJ/NYC Class B airspace knows what kind of clusterfuck traffic can be at most times. And yet there I was, setting up my Garmin to go HPN direct. Given that such a scenario is impossible in all practical terms, should I infer that the universe was fine tuned to allow me to save about 25 minutes on this particular flight?

You're not going to know or get anywhere doing "top down" (so to speak) investigations . To even start considering a reason and getting to investigate the idea in the first place and find out what it's all for. You would need to be starting investigations from 'bottom up' which you wouldn't yet know the ultimate purpose without a particular method step order.

The theistic fine tuning argument is based on the assumption of teleological causation. That the universe was intentionally designed by an intelligent entity (God) with some clear purpose in mind. What I am asking you to do is:

1. Define what the purpose of the universe is presumed to be.
2. Provide evidence and arguments that support this premise that the stated purpose is likely true.

Once you have established that the universe has a purpose, and established what this purpose is, we can then move on to a discussion of the evidence and arguments for fine tuning. Simply assuming teleological causation as a premise in an argument that attempts to prove teleological causation is circular reasoning. Do you understand now?