What is so improbable about a fine-tuned universe for life

[ryan]

I am having a problem wrapping my head around why our universe is so improbable.

For simplicity, if there were, say, a billion possible universes that could have existed and each one is different in some way, then of course the one universe that appears had the one in a billion chance of existing.

I believe that I am wrong because after hours or research, I find my argument aligning with the general public while the scientists all seem to be in agreement and are publicly stating that this universe is too unlikely to exist. The odds are something like 1 in 10^125 or something wild like that.

They claim that it is so unlikely that it warrants an explanation like a multiverse where all the other universes exist too making ours not so improbable (response to the anthropic principle).

 

[skepticalbip]

Such a question assumes that the universe could be different than it is. What evidence is there that the electron charge could be different than it is, that the mass of the neutron could be different, that the universal gravitational constant could be different, etc.? Why would the fact that we don't know why the universal constants are what they are would mean that they could be different?

 

[rousseau]

Your thread title says 'finely tuned universe for life', then your post doesn't address the life aspect of the thread title.

Is your question, why is a universe where life exists improbable?

 

[ryan]

Such a question assumes that the universe could be different than it is. What evidence is there that the electron charge could be different than it is, that the mass of the neutron could be different, that the universal gravitational constant could be different, etc.? Why would the fact that we don't know why the universal constants are what they are would mean that they could be different?

From what I have been reading, it assumes a purely probabilistic beginning of the universe from QM and the 2nd law of thermodynamics to be true.

 

[ryan]

Your thread title says 'finely tuned universe for life', then your post doesn't address the life aspect of the thread title.

Is your question, why is a universe where life exists improbable?

Yes.

 

[skepticalbip]

Such a question assumes that the universe could be different than it is. What evidence is there that the electron charge could be different than it is, that the mass of the neutron could be different, that the universal gravitational constant could be different, etc.? Why would the fact that we don't know why the universal constants are what they are would mean that they could be different?

From what I have been reading, it assumes a purely probabilistic beginning of the universe from QM and the 2nd law of thermodynamics to be true.

Indeed, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants could have any value then our universe as it currently is would have been highly improbable. But, since it does exist, it is. Sorta like the chance of being dealt any specific poker hand is highly improbable but, once dealt, whatever hand you were dealt is, regardless of the odds of it happening.

OTOH, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants can only have the value that they do have then our current universe is a certainty. Sorta like the chance of being dealt five aces in a poker game if all 52 cards in the deck are ace of spades.

 

[rousseau]

Your thread title says 'finely tuned universe for life', then your post doesn't address the life aspect of the thread title.

Is your question, why is a universe where life exists improbable?

Yes.

The way I see it, at it's most basic the universe is composed of a finite set of elements, which can configure themselves into a (very large), but also finite set of arrangements. Life is just a particularly exotic arrangement of elements, and so it follows that if matter consistently has the same properties (which I assume is true) then it is always possible for life to exist in any given universe.

That may or may not mean that it does exist at any given time, just that it is possible.

To say it is 'improbable' kind of implies a bit of a value judgement. Whatever it's probability is, is exactly as it should be, mathematically. Not common, depending on your definition of common, but never impossible.

 

[ryan]

Such a question assumes that the universe could be different than it is. What evidence is there that the electron charge could be different than it is, that the mass of the neutron could be different, that the universal gravitational constant could be different, etc.? Why would the fact that we don't know why the universal constants are what they are would mean that they could be different?

From what I have been reading, it assumes a purely probabilistic beginning of the universe from QM and the 2nd law of thermodynamics to be true.

Indeed, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants could have any value then our universe as it currently is would have been highly improbable. But, since it does exist, it is. Sorta like the chance of being dealt any specific poker hand is highly improbable but, once dealt, whatever hand you were dealt is, regardless of the odds of it happening.

OTOH, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants can only have the value that they do have then our current universe is a certainty. Sorta like the chance of being dealt five aces in a poker game if all 52 cards in the deck are ace of spades.

But isn't any outcome ultimately an extremely improbable outcome? They would all be unlikely. I am missing something here.

 

[ryan]

Your thread title says 'finely tuned universe for life', then your post doesn't address the life aspect of the thread title.

Is your question, why is a universe where life exists improbable?

Yes.

The way I see it, at it's most basic the universe is composed of a finite set of elements, which can configure themselves into a (very large), but also finite set of arrangements. Life is just a particularly exotic arrangement of elements, and so it follows that if matter consistently has the same properties (which I assume is true) then it is always possible for life to exist in any given universe.

That may or may not mean that it does exist at any given time, just that it is possible.

To say it is 'improbable' kind of implies a bit of a value judgement. Whatever it's probability is, is exactly as it should be, mathematically. Not common, depending on your definition of common, but never impossible.

Apparently the overwhelmingly vast majority of possible universes would not have life in it.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Apparently the overwhelmingly vast majority of possible universes would not have life in it.

No life AT ALL or just not containing life as we know it under the current local conditions?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

And if you're going with a mutli-verse theory, most (that I have seen at least) posit an infinite number of them, which means that there would be an infinite number of universes with life and an infinite number without. Or something to that effect. The point being, that life is not improbable at all in such theories.

 

[skepticalbip]

Indeed, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants could have any value then our universe as it currently is would have been highly improbable. But, since it does exist, it is. Sorta like the chance of being dealt any specific poker hand is highly improbable but, once dealt, whatever hand you were dealt is, regardless of the odds of it happening.

OTOH, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants can only have the value that they do have then our current universe is a certainty. Sorta like the chance of being dealt five aces in a poker game if all 52 cards in the deck are ace of spades.

But isn't any outcome ultimately an extremely improbable outcome? They would all be unlikely. I am missing something here.

I don't follow. Assuming variable possible universal constants, then before a final outcome any specific outcome would be unlikely but some outcome would be a certainty. Just as in a poker game the hand you are dealt would be highly uncertain before it is dealt but, after delt, you will hold some specific hand regardless of how unlikely that hand was.

OTOH, if the universal constants can only be what they are then the universe we have is the only possibility. Sorta like that deck of 52 ace of spades will guarantee you will be dealt five aces in a poker game.

 

[skepticalbip]

The way I see it, at it's most basic the universe is composed of a finite set of elements, which can configure themselves into a (very large), but also finite set of arrangements. Life is just a particularly exotic arrangement of elements, and so it follows that if matter consistently has the same properties (which I assume is true) then it is always possible for life to exist in any given universe.

That may or may not mean that it does exist at any given time, just that it is possible.

To say it is 'improbable' kind of implies a bit of a value judgement. Whatever it's probability is, is exactly as it should be, mathematically. Not common, depending on your definition of common, but never impossible.

Apparently the overwhelmingly vast majority of possible universes would not have life in it.

That is because the assumption is that the universal constants can have widely variable values. In such a case there would be an infinity of universes where atoms could not form. Hard to imagine life could begin in a universe with no atoms or even a universe where G was so weak that stars or planets wouldn't form.

 

[ryan]

Apparently the overwhelmingly vast majority of possible universes would not have life in it.

No life AT ALL or just not containing life as we know it under the current local conditions?

There is so much to answer. Please look into the fine-tuning problem if you are not familiar with it. Then we will all be on the same page. Look into Boltzmann brain too.

- - - Updated - - -

And if you're going with a mutli-verse theory, most (that I have seen at least) posit an infinite number of them, which means that there would be an infinite number of universes with life and an infinite number without. Or something to that effect. The point being, that life is not improbable at all in such theories.

Yes, I mentioned that in the OP.

 

[ryan]

Indeed, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants could have any value then our universe as it currently is would have been highly improbable. But, since it does exist, it is. Sorta like the chance of being dealt any specific poker hand is highly improbable but, once dealt, whatever hand you were dealt is, regardless of the odds of it happening.

OTOH, if the starting assumption is that the universal constants can only have the value that they do have then our current universe is a certainty. Sorta like the chance of being dealt five aces in a poker game if all 52 cards in the deck are ace of spades.

But isn't any outcome ultimately an extremely improbable outcome? They would all be unlikely. I am missing something here.

I don't follow. Assuming variable possible universal constants, then before a final outcome any specific outcome would be unlikely but some outcome would be a certainty. Just as in a poker game the hand you are dealt would be highly uncertain before it is dealt but, after delt, you will hold some specific hand regardless of how unlikely that hand was.

Yes that's my point. If there are say a million different possible poker hands, then the one hand that was dealt had a one in a million chance.

It's like we are looking at the hand and marveling at the one in a million chance of it being dealt. But any hand shares that same probability.

 

[steve_bank]

We are here. The preceding hi.tory at any point may or may not have had probabilistic alternatives. There is no way to know or assign a numerical probability.

It is all conjecture.

 

[James Brown]

What would a universe that's hostile to life look like?

 

[PyramidHead]

I don't follow. Assuming variable possible universal constants, then before a final outcome any specific outcome would be unlikely but some outcome would be a certainty. Just as in a poker game the hand you are dealt would be highly uncertain before it is dealt but, after delt, you will hold some specific hand regardless of how unlikely that hand was.

Yes that's my point. If there are say a million different possible poker hands, then the one hand that was dealt had a one in a million chance.

It's like we are looking at the hand and marveling at the one in a million chance of it being dealt. But any hand shares that same probability.

Improbability is not a matter of picking one sample out of a bucket of many possible samples, as you rightly indicate with your example here. Improbability is when there is a coincidence between a random selection like that and another, independently designated thing. For example, there is nothing improbable about a random 6-digit number generator producing the number 360958. As you say, it has to produce some number, and 360958 is no less likely than any other. But if you had been given a slip of paper with the number 360958 written on it, and then watched as the generator randomly produced exactly that number, you would have witnessed something staggeringly improbable: not the generation of the number per se, but the generation of the same number that had just been independently designated as THIS number. This is why it's improbable that my lottery number will be the winner, but not improbable at all that SOME lottery number will be the winner. The improbability is at the intersection between specific and random selection.

Applying this reasoning to the universe, your take about life is correct. In a population of randomly and arbitrarily varying universes, if there is a chance that one combination of variables will yield conditions appropriate for life, such a universe will eventually emerge from the "random universe generator". So, the existence of life per se is thus not improbable. But a problem remains. There is something about this universe that, from your perspective, is independently designated: your presence in it. Even if SOME universe capable of supporting life were statistically inevitable, it's still staggeringly improbable that it should be THIS one, the universe YOU currently inhabit.

If you think there is nothing improbable about your existence in a universe capable of supporting life because you wouldn't be here to notice if you didn't exist, consider the analogy of Russian roulette. If you were given a revolver and a bullet and told to play Russian roulette, you would probably have serious doubts about your survival. If somebody told you that in all the adjacent rooms of this building, there are hundreds of other people playing the same game of Russian roulette, you wouldn't feel any better about YOUR odds. That is, just because the odds of SOME person surviving the game are good because there are many players, that fact doesn't make YOUR survival any more likely. Of course, the only way you'd exist to notice the outcome would be if you beat the odds and survived. But that doesn't make it any better for you, since there is still the same uncomfortable chance that you would in fact be one of those unlucky dead people.

Essentially, you must accept that your presence in a universe capable of supporting luck is explained by a happenstance convergence between (a) what the "random number generator" of this universe's initial conditions happens to produce in the way of intelligent life and (b) the specific conditions that needed to be met so that you would exist. There was never any guarantee that those conditions, which you might represent as a string of numbers like 360958, would ever be produced by the universe at the right time and place to bring you into being. Moreover, there is no justification for why your existence should even be possible at all, that it should be conditional on ANY "number" the universe might spit out. Yet, here you are, and the hypothesis that your existence depended on a specific set of biological specifications being satisfied at a specific place and time says you're basically luckier than a person who has won the lottery thousands of times in a row.

The alternative hypothesis, which resolves this improbability, is that the conditions for your existence are not so strict. You would have been one of the organisms produced by ANY universe capable of supporting life, even if its history went differently from this one. It's not improbable that you were the thousand-times lottery winner, because you have all the tickets. Any winner is you by definition.

 

[bilby]

The odds of winning the Gold Lotto division one jackpot are about 45,000,000:1

Therefore there's almost no chance at all that this week's winner actually chose the correct numbers. We must therefore conclude that he cheated, and throw him in jail for fraud.

We don't know how he cheated, and our only evidence of cheating is that he won. But there's just no credible way that he could have won by pure luck, not at odds of forty five million to one against.

-----------

Of course, the above argument is fallacious, and the jackpot is actually claimed every two or three weeks, without any suggestion that cheating is involved.

If you replace 'jackpot winner' with 'universe that supports life', and you replace 'cheated' with 'directed by a creator god', then the above fallacious argument is the same as the 'fine tuning' argument.

The fine tuning argument is therefore also fallacious.

 

[ryan]

I don't follow. Assuming variable possible universal constants, then before a final outcome any specific outcome would be unlikely but some outcome would be a certainty. Just as in a poker game the hand you are dealt would be highly uncertain before it is dealt but, after delt, you will hold some specific hand regardless of how unlikely that hand was.

Yes that's my point. If there are say a million different possible poker hands, then the one hand that was dealt had a one in a million chance.

It's like we are looking at the hand and marveling at the one in a million chance of it being dealt. But any hand shares that same probability.

Improbability is not a matter of picking one sample out of a bucket of many possible samples, as you rightly indicate with your example here. Improbability is when there is a coincidence between a random selection like that and another, independently designated thing. For example, there is nothing improbable about a random 6-digit number generator producing the number 360958. As you say, it has to produce some number, and 360958 is no less likely than any other. But if you had been given a slip of paper with the number 360958 written on it, and then watched as the generator randomly produced exactly that number, you would have witnessed something staggeringly improbable: not the generation of the number per se, but the generation of the same number that had just been independently designated as THIS number. This is why it's improbable that my lottery number will be the winner, but not improbable at all that SOME lottery number will be the winner. The improbability is at the intersection between specific and random selection.

Applying this reasoning to the universe, your take about life is correct. In a population of randomly and arbitrarily varying universes, if there is a chance that one combination of variables will yield conditions appropriate for life, such a universe will eventually emerge from the "random universe generator". So, the existence of life per se is thus not improbable. But a problem remains. There is something about this universe that, from your perspective, is independently designated: your presence in it. Even if SOME universe capable of supporting life were statistically inevitable, it's still staggeringly improbable that it should be THIS one, the universe YOU currently inhabit.

If you think there is nothing improbable about your existence in a universe capable of supporting life because you wouldn't be here to notice if you didn't exist, consider the analogy of Russian roulette. If you were given a revolver and a bullet and told to play Russian roulette, you would probably have serious doubts about your survival. If somebody told you that in all the adjacent rooms of this building, there are hundreds of other people playing the same game of Russian roulette, you wouldn't feel any better about YOUR odds. That is, just because the odds of SOME person surviving the game are good because there are many players, that fact doesn't make YOUR survival any more likely. Of course, the only way you'd exist to notice the outcome would be if you beat the odds and survived. But that doesn't make it any better for you, since there is still the same uncomfortable chance that you would in fact be one of those unlucky dead people.

Essentially, you must accept that your presence in a universe capable of supporting luck is explained by a happenstance convergence between (a) what the "random number generator" of this universe's initial conditions happens to produce in the way of intelligent life and (b) the specific conditions that needed to be met so that you would exist. There was never any guarantee that those conditions, which you might represent as a string of numbers like 360958, would ever be produced by the universe at the right time and place to bring you into being. Moreover, there is no justification for why your existence should even be possible at all, that it should be conditional on ANY "number" the universe might spit out. Yet, here you are, and the hypothesis that your existence depended on a specific set of biological specifications being satisfied at a specific place and time says you're basically luckier than a person who has won the lottery thousands of times in a row.

The alternative hypothesis, which resolves this improbability, is that the conditions for your existence are not so strict. You would have been one of the organisms produced by ANY universe capable of supporting life, even if its history went differently from this one. It's not improbable that you were the thousand-times lottery winner, because you have all the tickets. Any winner is you by definition.

I don't think this is the main issue. I am quite sure that the improbability they speak of stops at life/humans and not any particular human. But I still don't see how my existence is a coincidence if there is only this universe.

In your example, a number was chosen before it was picked. What or who chose me to see if I will exist in the universe? And, anyone who is not me, then, should be amazed by the odds of themselves coming into the universe.