Fine tuning of the Universe

[durangodawood]

In what way are the observation and the conclusion different? The observation is the conclusion.

You mean the observation that we are in a universe well suited to us?

 

[Nithavela]

People think that the entire universe is fine-tuned for their existence, and then they stub their pinkie toe on the table leg.

 

[Vaccine]

I think you're reading too much intensity into this 'horror'. The homogeneity of space is a reasonable assumption -- that if you do an experiment in Botswana, you will get the same answer if you do it in Belize. Or on Betelgeuse, or anywhere else in the universe. A naive look at the redshift data seemed to show that we were in a special location where everything was moving away from us. And that other galaxies would see something quite different. This conflict between measurement and theory caused some unease... until a better theory was devised.



One wouldn't think so.

'Unease' because of a measurement? Not buying it. He was horrified because it conflicted with his worldview. He proposed the cosmological principle to save his worldview. A principle that is no longer supported by the facts.

 

[TBDude65]

In what way are the observation and the conclusion different? The observation is the conclusion.

Observation =/= conclusion

The observation that we live in the universe is not the same as the conclusion that the universe is "fine tuned."

Fine tuning is an ASSUMPTION about our universe with no corroborating evidence.

 

[Chesterton]

You mean the observation that we are in a universe well suited to us?

Okay, well suited. You're trying to tone down the language to make it more palatable? Yes, like a man who sits down to a poker game and gets dealt royal flushes on a million hands in a row, you could say the game is well suited to him. A rational man would say the game is fixed.

 

[essentialsaltes]

'Unease' because of a measurement? Not buying it. He was horrified because it conflicted with his worldview.

No, as I explained, it conflicted with theory.

He proposed the cosmological principle to save his worldview.

He changed the theory to fit the new facts. That's how science works.

 

[durangodawood]

Okay, well suited. You're trying to tone down the language to make it more palatable? Yes, like a man who sits down to a poker game and gets dealt royal flushes on a million hands in a row, you could say the game is well suited to him. A rational man would say the game is fixed.

I suspected thats what you meant by fine tuning.

Now you are back to assuming the conclusion.

 

[Vaccine]

No, as I explained, it conflicted with theory.

He said it plain enough, he was horrified by "a unique position". Why are you asserting it was something else?

He changed the theory to fit the new facts. That's how science works.

He obviously proposed ideas to fit his worldview. The facts are structures like the Sloan great wall, the Hercules-Corona Borealis great wall, and the dipole/quadrupole anisotropy falsify Hubble's cosmological principle.

 

[Chesterton]

I suspected thats what you meant by fine tuning.

Now you are back to assuming the conclusion.

I didn't go "back" to anything. You just substituted "suited" for "tuned". If tuned implies a Tuner, suited implies a Tailor. You can't get around it.

 

[Nithavela]

If the universe was in any way different, we would either be different and suited for that universe, or we wouldn't exist.

Just because there is a current state doesn't mean that someone made it so.

By the way, this universe is far from perfect. There are millions of problems, even on earth, but those usually get handwaved by mentioning "the fall".

It's an argument you can't win. If something is good, it implies god. if something is not good, it happened because of the fall, which implies god.

I propose that there may be an infinite number of possible universes, but there is none where there are no religious people who don't believe it has been fine tuned for them (yes, them specifically).

 

[durangodawood]

I didn't go "back" to anything. You just substituted "suited" for "tuned". If tuned implies a Tuner, suited implies a Tailor. You can't get around it.

Yeah, the language of the question contains the answer.

We should rephrase it if we're asking an honest question, dont you think?

More like: was the universe designed for human life?
Or: did human life arise according to strictly natural conditions of the universe?

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” -Charles Darwin

... looking in the mirror, reciting...

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

Funny how some facts are controversial while others aren't. The Earth is roughly 70% water, no problem. The universe is fine tuned for life, problem. It's only controversial to those who don't believe there's a God. They don't like the implications that come with the fine tuning. The only tactic left it to write it off as coincidence, even though common sense says otherwise. Another example of not liking the implications:
"Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial curvature."
-Hubble The Observational Approach to Cosmology
I wonder if Hubble was horrified because he was an athesit or by some qualitative measurement of the redshift.

For example, the sun is roughly 400 times larger than the moon and roughly 400 times farther away. It may be significant but that fact alone could hardly it horrifying to anyone.

Speaking about Hubble, the Bubble?

 

[HitchSlap]

... looking in the mirror, reciting...

Good on ya'.

 

[HitchSlap]

2 cents

If FT is actually a thing... so what?!

A "tuner" who has gone to incredible lengths to remain hidden, obviously doesn't want us to find him. So we're left to our own devices to unlock the mysteries of the the universe, which we have done incredibly well for ourselves. If this "tuner" wants to make an appearance, swell. Until then, if theists need to believe in "fine tuners," so be it.

As a tool of science, FT means nothing as it has no explanatory value; i.e. it's useless.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

You guys are at odds with the greatest minds in science over the last 100 years. How does it feel to be the equivalent of a creationist, ha ha?

What's so funny? It's the guy smiling in his corner I bet on to loose the fight.

 

[HitchSlap]

What's so funny? It's the guy smiling in his corner I bet on to loose the fight.

Have you been drinking?

 

[Subduction Zone]

What's so funny? It's the guy smiling in his corner I bet on to loose the fight.

That's right, always bet on the guy that is getting the bleep beat out of him.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

In what way are the observation and the conclusion different? The observation is the conclusion.

If a=b, then b=a ... Correct?
Correct!

So, if o=c (the observation is the conclusion), then c=o (the conclusion is the observation).
Therefore,
arithmetically if o=c then c=o.
But when the conclusion is the observation, then the conclusion is precluded and no longer is observed.
Therefore c≠o, but c=p, conclusion is precluded.
Which arithmetically is correct but scientifically is incorrect, viz., above Darwinian gibberish.

 

[Chesterton]

Yeah, the language of the question contains the answer.

We should rephrase it if we're asking an honest question, dont you think?

More like: was the universe designed for human life?
Or: did human life arise according to strictly natural conditions of the universe?

You can ask whatever you like, however you like, but no I don't think we need to rephrase it, it seems honest enough.