Gravitational fine Tuning

I do not have a book here but I believe that there were some small variations in the time space that allowed matter to condense in certain points and create "point of order" and allow gravity to form galaxies and stars.
Based mostly in caos theory. Irrelevant for discusing creationists.

BrainHertz said:

I've seen a few references to this recently, specifically claims that gravity is fine-tuned to one part in 10^60, absent which either no galaxies would have formed or the universe would have collapsed in on itself.

I haven't seen any actual derivation of this, however, just the claim restated. Can anybody help identify a source for the claim?

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The only thing I've seen are quotes like this from AiGBrandon Carter's work can be found in his, "Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology," Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Symposium No. 63: Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data, ed. M. S. Longair (Boston, MA: Reidel Publishing, 1974), pages 291-298

BrainHertz said:

Thanks! I'll try to find the paper and see what it says...

Of course, it's claiming a different result from the one I've seen claimed, but, what's 20 orders of magnitude between friends?

{Edit} PS: I tried responding to a message from you a couple of days ago, but the system said that your account was set to not accept incoming PMs...

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Yeah, I had mistakenly chosen the wrong option. I think I have it corrected.

Any ways, any creationist dumb enough to use that argument have to acknowledge a evolutionary universe and a evolutionary life that are more than 6000 years old. Is more a TE or deist argument using the anthropic principle to arge the Universe laws were fine tuned for life.

BrainHertz said:

I've seen a few references to this recently, specifically claims that gravity is fine-tuned to one part in 10^60, absent which either no galaxies would have formed or the universe would have collapsed in on itself.

I haven't seen any actual derivation of this, however, just the claim restated. Can anybody help identify a source for the claim?

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Would the "fine tuning" imply that the other constants are not "fine tuned" and must necessaryily be that way?

Is gravity "fine tuned" or is it the mass of an electron?

Why is gravity special?

Maxwell511 said:

Would the "fine tuning" imply that the other constants are not "fine tuned" and must necessaryily be that way?

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It would seem that there has to be a balance between inflation/expansion and gravity. Even then, if gravity were adjusted up or down it would have consequences in star mechanics.

But we are still faced with other options. As Einstein so ellequently said, "Did God have a choice?". Can the constants be different? Secondly, is this universe one of many? Do we conclude that a lottery drawing has to be fine tuned for each winner?

This is the problem with the Anthropic Principle. It is inherently biased (i.e. confirmation bias). Is it any surprise that life exists in a universe that is capable of producing and sustaining life? Is it any surprise that no one observes themselves in a universe incapable of producing and sustaining life?

An the other non liveable universes of course are non observable.

The falacy of the "fine tuning" argument I think is best summed up with the analogy that making such an assertion is just like saying, "isn't it amazing how they got all those rivers to run exactly along state and international boundaries?" It approaches the situation in reverse and makes unfounded assumptions.

The fine tuning argument assumes we HAD to exist, which is where the falacy begins. It is an incredibly self-serving and egotistical premise that is without any support outside of theology.

Life, as we know it, exists because of the conditions of the universe. If the conditions were different, then the results of those conditions would be different. Perhaps those alternate conditions would be more condusive to carbon-based life, or silicon-based life, or plasma-based life. What we do know is that something had to result from the universe, and we are part of that something. But we did not have to exist.

Another flaw is that it assumes philosophical possibility = real possibility, and thus results in people thinking fine tuning exists. What I mean is that, simply because we can imagine that the gravitational could be a different value doesn't mean that value can actually exist in reality. There is no reason for thinking that such could be the case. We only know of one universe, and it's where gravity has a set value. There is no fine-tuning involved if no other option is physically possible — it just has to be that certain way; the probability is 1, 100%, in this case.

Lucretius said:

Another flaw is that it assumes philosophical possibility = real possibility, and thus results in people thinking fine tuning exists. What I mean is that, simply because we can imagine that the gravitational could be a different value doesn't mean that value can actually exist in reality. There is no reason for thinking that such could be the case. We only know of one universe, and it's where gravity has a set value. There is no fine-tuning involved if no other option is physically possible — it just has to be that certain way; the probability is 1, 100%, in this case.

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Or if there are an infinite amount of universes with different constants the probability of having one like ours would also be one.

Maxwell511 said:

Or if there are an infinite amount of universes with different constants the probability of having one like ours would also be one.

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Not neccessarily.

Perhaps this is universe variation number 553,987,601,092,385,429,048,599,721,045. The one that happened to hold together.

necroforest said:

Not neccessarily.

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Not really into probability, are we?

Maxwell511 said:

Not really into probability, are we?

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Consider the countably infinite set N (the natural numbers) N={1,2,3,...}

If X is a randomly chosen element of N, what's Pr{X=1/2}? Zero.

Or, the uncountably infinite set (0,1). What's the probability of picking -5 from there? Zero.

necroforest said:

Consider the countably infinite set N (the natural numbers) N={1,2,3,...}

If X is a randomly chosen element of N, what's Pr{X=1/2}? Zero.

Or, the uncountably infinite set (0,1). What's the probability of picking -5 from there? Zero.

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Touché.

I did not make it clear that I was defining my set as all possible constant configurations. It was meant to be implied though. You're technically right, which is the best kind of right.

Maxwell511 said:

Touché.

I did not make it clear that I was defining my set as all possible constant configurations. It was meant to be implied though. You're technically right, which is the best kind of right.

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Right. But, assuming physical constants are real numbers, what if the set of possible universes is countable (which seems like reasonable speculation, given that the universe is turing-computable as far as anyone can tell)? Then there are values for physical constants that can't be chosen even given infinite amount of trials.

Of course, assuming this stuff is correct/close to being correct, we're here.

necroforest said:

Right. But, assuming physical constants are real numbers, what if the set of possible universes is countable (which seems like reasonable speculation, given that the universe is turing-computable as far as anyone can tell)? Then there are values for physical constants that can't be chosen even given infinite amount of trials.

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Could you elaborate on what you mean by the universe is Turing computable?

I understand what alphabets and Turing machines are and what Turing computable basically means but I am not getting what you are saying. Is the universe a mapping?

Also can the set of real numbers be considered an alphabet? They are not finite.