Crushing The Fine-Tuned Argument

I thought this was going to be a how-to thread

Tired of arguing with people LOL

:troll:

 

Obviously no matter how improbable we are here, and alive. The sequence of events leading up to now couldn't possibly contain any event where the favorable outcome has P(E) = 0, i.e an impossible event; otherwise we wouldn't be alive to talk about this.

See post #50 on the probability of your life as a sequence. Is your life fine tuned?

 

And that is ONE empirically known universe VS ZERO empirically known Gods. IMO infinite universes are far more probable than one single God that decides to create a miserable planet of creatures eating creatures.

 

Post #50 is a tautology. What happened happened. Some people win the lottery more than once. Some are struck by lightning more than once. How far do you want to run with it though? Are you prepared to argue that probabilities are of no value in deciding whether or not an event like getting ebola or the zika virus was the product of chance or exposure to a virus? Much of science, especially social science, is built on statistical probabilities: correlations, analysis of variance, regressions from the mean,etc. As I understand it, quantum mechanics assumes these in explaining how we can have a predictable universe when the particles that make it up are unpredictable. Yes, seemingly improbable things happen all the time because so many events are happening that coincidences should be expected. However, scientific polling has been relatively accurate by using large enough samples randomly selected and subjected to experimental controls. In the case of "fine tuning" the observed regularities have been affirmed in some 200 scientific papers. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012PASA...29..529B For a scientific defense of fine tuning see http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf On this basis, I submit that fine tuning is not a fluke.

One argument that's often used against fine tuning is the anthropic principle: if the universe weren't conducive to life, we wouldn't be here talking about it. But that still doesn't fully capture the perplexity. If we didn't have this universe, we probably wouldn't have another one almost as cool. Mathematical physicist Paul Davies comments: "If you picked up any old rag bag of laws, the chances are you would either be led to a universe that was totally chaotic...or something that would be so boring and repetitive that it wouldn't lead to anything very interesting at all." Instead, the laws of our universe "seem to be remarkably felicitous in the way they encourage matter and energy to be ever more complex..." I'm particularly grateful to my ancestor Pikia for surviving the Burgess decimation. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here having this conversation. Evolutionists like Stephen Jay Gould say No big deal. Something else would have evolved. But the something else might not have been intelligent, and to me that's an important difference. While we congratulate ourselves for winning the Cosmic Jackpot, we, like Astronomer Fred Hoyle, might wonder whether or not it's a "put up job".

 

For the fine tuning junkies, here is a five-part lecture on the subject by astrophysicist Luke Barnes. Not a chair gripper, but good info.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8697

 

It's not meant to capture the complexity; it's meant to direct attention at the error of the question. Us being bewildered at why the universe appears fine tuned for our existence is exactly the same as a puddle of water being bewildered that the hole it fills fits it perfectly. We arose -out of- this universe, we did not get plopped down in it as an afterthought. We are the very universe we are studying. If you are amazed that the gravitational constant is fine tuned for your life right now, are you also amazed that your heart is fine tuned to pump your blood at this moment?

The last sentence is a definite assumption and I see no reason for thinking why it should be true. In fact it is trivially easy to imagine a countless series of universes which are arbitrarily more cool than this one.

 

So the answer to the question why everything is so finely tuned is: it just is?

 

My initial post that the fine tuning argument was not crushed, scratched or dented by arguments presented in the videos still stands, because neither video really addressed the substance of fine tuning. It's true that the extraordinary events can happen, but if we are trying to guess whether or not they happened by chance I think it's reasonable to bet that they didn't--unless we know that there were an extraordinarily large number of chances, as in a multiverse. Theoretically, extraordinary outcomes can happen on the first throw, in which case it's possible that the finely tuned universe is a remarkable fluke. Is that what we want to bet on? Based on quantum mechanics there is a finite probability I could walk through a wall, but it's not something I'd be inclined to try out.The "weak anthropic" explanation, that if the universe weren't finely tuned we wouldn't be here to notice, works best when there is reason to suspect there an enormous number of chances--once again bringing us to the multiverse, if it exists.

 

Let me turn this around again; how would you answer the puddle of water who insisted to you that it's particular depression had been finely tuned for the puddles existence? What would you say to that sentient water which thought that the universe had been constructed with that particular hole in the ground at the top of the list for its existence?

You are using a dualistic narrative to try and understand a non-dual universe. You are coming with the idea that where there is creation, there must be creator. This is an axiom you are employing, whether known to you or not. What is really the case, is that there is creation. Period. To then turn around and say, "Well which artificer created it? In which furnace was this forged?" is to import a style of thinking that does not translate at all past every day human macroscopic actions. It is a feature of language that we have an "artist" and his "art"; in reality both are arising from the same Creation, at the same time, in the present moment. We already know that investigating the limits of Self produces a great state of vertigo as we realize that our understanding of Self is completely fabricated and there are no limits. The perplexity you feel is not to be dulled down by invoking a third party arbitrer of order, for that simply then begs the question of the existence of the third party.

If this universe is so fine tuned, and that requires a Creator, then isn't it a marvel that we had a Creator so fine tuned as to create our creation in the first place? How convenient that this Creator be so fine tuned that He should wish and indeed does create us; isn't it a little implausible that we have Him by chance? Isn't it so much more logical that our Creator was obviously fine tuned by some Proto-Creator?

And what of the Creator? Is He a council? 2 gods? 3 gods? An evil god? An indifferent god? 4 indifferent gods and 1 benevolent one? A cosmic mother? A heavenly father? Lord? Lady? Personal? Impersonal? We face only the breadth of human imagination and striving.

This universe isn't finely tuned for us, anymore than a sunset is finely tuned to invite the night sky to appear. There is simply this wonderful dance we find ourselves in, and the mystery of but why is our mystery to have, but meanwhile, do join the dance!

 

Who said anything about a Creator? We're talking about a phenomenon here--somewhat more complex than a puddle. And this is not a problem invented by Christian apologists or theologians to bamboozle the gullible. It's a phenomenon noted by a number of respected scientists including Robert Dicke, Fred Hoyle, David Deutsch, Paul Davies, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, Leonard Susskind, John Barrow, Martin Rees, etc. It does seem a bit cavalier to dismiss the matter as though some dummy with half a brain overlooked some obvious feature of reality or probability theory. The late atheist "Horseman" Christopher Hitchens, when asked what is the best argument for theism, said it was fine-tuning, because "you have to spend time thinking about it, working on it. It’s not a trivial argument.” And that's my problem with the OP and you and the puddle; you attempt to trivialize the problem.The puddle analogy, to give credit where credit is due, comes from Douglas Adams via Richard Dawkins. The analogy (forgive the pun) doesn't hold water. Any indentation of dirt can contain water, but very few combinations of variables can support life. Improbable events happen all the time, but much of science is predicated on the basis of our ability to make inferences on the basis of probabilities--observed regularities exceeding that which could reasonably be expected on the basis of chance. Geneticist Francis Collins remarks: "The chance that all of these constants would take on the values necessary to result in a stable universe capable of sustaining complex life-forms is almost infinitesimal."

Probably the most ambitious effort to take on the fine tuning argument is Vincent Stenger's The Fallacy of Fine Tuning. He makes the arguments that the ratio of electrons to protons , the mass density of the universe, the expansion rate of the universe, the relative masses of the elementary particles, the relative strengths of the forces and other physical parameters, cosmic paramters and the state of the carbon nucleus are fixed by established physics and cosmology, the ratio of electromagnetic force to gravity is in the range expected by established physics, and that standard calculation of the cosmological constant is grossly wrong and should be ignored, His findings have been savagely critiqued by Barnes http://arxiv.org/PS_...1112.4647v1.pdf As I've previously suggested, fine tuning, if it exists, may have at least three alternative explanations: a designer, the multiverse, or some as yet undiscovered source of ordering.

 

And the matrix. Don't forget the matrix.

 

I'm sure there's something important and significant though for sure about the slightly less than 1/4 extra day (it's not even a very nice fraction to deal with is it), and the occasional leap second we have to add to keep timekeeping consistent. Numerology? Or just something in the future that we can't predict where this is significant and we just don't know it yet? This has to be it right?

I'd be more willing to bet that it's just a fluke; a quirk. Just like everything else in nature.

 

Yes, the matrix needs to be considered. Professor Bostrom at Oxford thinks this might all be a computer simulation, in which case our empirical observations hold no water. So we place our bets and take our chances.

 

Yes, that has always been my thinking......unless we look at most plant life that survive on sunlight and water ....and donot need to eat anything that is alive.....Man is kind of too full of himslef, I think, and should be a little more humble about his existance......to think he is the end all , be all....really annoys me most times.

 

Also, who is to say that planets that would be uninhabitable for much of the life here has not sprung some kind of life that is habitable for them there......Take the case of the toxic algae......life can be born from toxicity to the rest of us, no?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMpWcf4ee0

I've been meaning to address some of these 'fine tune' videos. So my thoughts on this one anyway, I find a glaring deception 50 seconds in...

0:36 "If the rate of expansion of the universe right after the big bang had changed by one part in a Quintilian - The universe would continue to expand."

-Except the universe IS continuing to expand. Are they trying to prove themselves wrong or what?

2:06 "Had those irregularities been much smaller, stars and galaxies wouldn't have formed. Had they been much larger, everything would have collapsed to form black holes".

-How much is MUCH? This is a fine tune argument admittedly setting a vague range of probabilities. What ranges qualify as too much or little? None, this is all extremely loose theory and gross assumptions. There are an infinite amount of numbers between 0.999999999999 and 1. There are, in theory, an infinite amount of universes with irregularity ratios that allow the universe to live for billions of years.

4:30 "Just the tiniest adjustment to the value of gravity - and our universe doesn't emerge at all".

-Same issue with their qualifier "tiniest", what exactly is tiny? Secondly, I don't buy it. Again this is grossly speculative. Their are massive differences in the size of stars in the universe but they all work with the same hydrogen fusion reaction. they all have planets of different types orbiting around them like our sun. If the force of gravity was slightly different I think the universe would be rather similar with slightly different sized solar system orbits, galaxy sizes and Goldilocks zones. Same goes with all the other laws they list.

7:06 "Our universe seems to be defined by a set of number, which in some sense look special. If we had 'different numbers' then we'd end up with a sterile universe".

- WTF? This one is really too nutty to comment on. 'If you can count to 2 then God equals true, since because we say so'. LOL.

9:09 "the cosmological constant needs to be set to 1 part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion.... otherwise the universe would be so drastically different that it would be impossible for us to evolve".

-It's funny how the fine tuner's ignore tons of logic and science but cling to the most obscure, weak, barely scientific theories and speculations. This one referring to a flawed speculation that some call "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics!" or the "Vacuum Catastrophe". There are in theoretical science, more theories that get proven wrong than right. This is one calculation that you can guarantee is WRONG.

 

I watched the video and thought....ummmmmmm.....no, don't try to brainwash me, and then was happy to see your comments afterwards.....

 

convergent geometric series in the limit of infinity; does infinity exist?

yes the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite, but let's not bring math or logic into things ...