The fine tuning of the universe.

[Athée]

I don't follow this, you are not unaware of what God is as far as Christian theology, so how does this make sense to you?

Well if you don't find it helpful feel free to disregard it Maybe you don't think God is alive and so it doesn't help as an example within your worldview of life not as we know it. In any case my answer to your earlier question about the macromolecules remains the same.

 

[[serious]]

How would you explain then the 120 order of magnitude of the cosmological constant?

Plank units. Thats the explanation. Different units, different exponent.

 

[Picky Picky]

I don't necessarily believe that there is more than one universe, there could be but nothing points to any others. Secular scientists have decided that due to our universe being so fine tuned the only feasible explanation is that there are other universes out there that make ours go from highly unlikely/improbable to not surprising. The kicker is that there has to be infinite universes for ours to have the life permitting parameters that ours does.

No, there do not "have to be", there do not "need to be" infinite universes for ours to be as it is. There does have to be at least one. If there are a hundred balls in a bag and only one is red, the probability is one in a hundred that any particular one of those balls is red. But there do not "have to be" a hundred balls for you to take a red ball out of a bag. If there are fifty balls, the probability is one in fifty. If there is one, the probability is one.

The truth is that if there is only one universe, this one, then the probability that this universe will be like this universe is 1. There is no other possibility. Indeed we can test that probability: every time we check, we find that our universe is just like our universe.

If there are more universes, then we need to know how many before we can start to work out the probabilities of any of them having particular characteristics (we also need to know a lot more about how the laws of physics arise than we do now, but that's a different matter).

One universe? Probability 1. Multiple universes? Depends in part on how many.

The difficulty with your position is that you are taking the complexity of our universe, and its inter connectedness, the reliance of one feature on the characteristics of other features (that's what some people have called — metaphorically — fine tuning, but which you want to use to imply a fine tuner) and you are trying to use that to calculate a probability, when we simply don't have either the data or, frankly, the knowledge to calculate such a probability. There is no direct applicability of the "fine tuning" effect to a probability calculation.

 

[Picky Picky]

I hope I have persuaded you that the number of instances needs to be known if we are to calculate probability. Now let me try to demonstrate that the task is even more complicated.

What we are actually being asked to answer is this question: Here is a bag; we know it contains at least one ball, and that that ball is red. We do not know whether it contains more than one ball or, if it does, how many more, or whether any of those other balls are red, or some other colour or colours, or indeed whether any of such other balls has the characteristic we call "colour" at all. What is the probability that, if we pull a ball out of the bag, it is red?

Such a probability cannot be calculated.

 

[AirPo]

Except I have every reason to assume they can be and are. We call them laws of physics because they hold true every single time we check them. So which is it, are the laws of physics not valid or so fine tuned we can count on them every day? You can't have it both ways, regardless of how much you might wish it to be so.

And they don't change. "They can change because they don't change," is not a sound argument.

 

[[serious]]

Here's a question, can pi be anything but 3.14...?

It seems that that's just what pi is and it can't be anything different. Could the rest of the natural constants likewise simply be the only value they can be?

 

[KCfromNC]

Until there is a reason to show they can't be changed we have no reason to assume they can't be.

Yep, lots of ignorance behind this whole argument. I wish someone would have brought up that fact earlier in the thread, you know, like at post 6 or so to pick a number at random. That would have saved a bunch of time.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Stars dying,novas,supernovas,black holes,quasars...comets and asteroids smashing into other objects...is that orderly?

Dying stars, supernovas and black holes are simply misunderstood events in plasma, since you don't understand plasma physics. Those comets and asteroids follow predictable paths according to the laws of physics that we can calculate years in advance if we are aware of them. That an asteroid might be thrown out of orbit due to influences and crash into a planet is not indicative of a universe not fine tuned. Since if we know that the two objects will be approaching one another we can to a high degree of accuracy plot there courses and their interaction leading to both the disruption of orbits and also calculate its eventual path. Just as if you know the variables in a game of pool, you can calculate with a high degree of accuracy the path the balls will take. For every effect there is a cause. We are quite capable of accurately plotting the courses of comets and asteroids when we know about them. If the universe was not fine tuned - such would be impossible.

 

[KCfromNC]

I have no problem with proposition (B), but if someone wants to claim there is more than one the evidence would be needed to show there could be more than one.

But people who claim that constants could be different can fall back on "we don't know, therefore it is possible"? That doesn't sound particularly consistent.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Here's a question, can pi be anything but 3.14...?

It seems that that's just what pi is and it can't be anything different. Could the rest of the natural constants likewise simply be the only value they can be?

But let me ask you a question. If you are on a planet with a higher gravity, or on a spaceship accelerating at relativistic speeds - which means your ruler is now shorter, is pi the same pi as it is on earth????? Yes, it is still 3.14..... but both rulers measure a different distance. So are those constants really constants - or just proportional values depending on energy content and frame of reference????

 

[Justatruthseeker]

But people who claim that constants could be different can fall back on "we don't know, therefore it is possible"? That doesn't sound particularly consistent.

Yet claim we can accurately date things because the constants are always constant, then choose to argue the exact opposite.

 

[KCfromNC]

There is no evidence that shows that.

Just like there's no evidence showing that these "finely tuned" constants could be anything other than what we currently observe them to be. Obviously a complete lack of evidence isn't really the deciding factor in what you're willing to accept.

 

[KCfromNC]

But we know many requirements that are absolutely necessary and that is what has been shown to be a very rare occurrence.

Citation needed.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Actually it looks very designed and I don't know of any scientists that don't agree.

Meet mr Stephen Hawking: "Because there is such a thing as gravity, the universe doesn't require a creator".

 

[KCfromNC]

Back to that paper,

4.6 Cosmological constant

Ok, I've got to be honest, everytime this value comes up in a "fine tuning" argument, the author loses a good deal of credibility in my mind. Not so much because of relevance, but because they can't ever seem to restrain themselves from talking about quantum field theory predictions. It's an interesting subject, but not one that's relevant. First off, quantum field theory doesn't predict the measurable vacuum energy, but rather zero point energy. Second, we again only know it's order of magnitude experimentally. Lastly, if it were arbitrarily set to maximize the potential for life, it should be very slightly negative instead of very slightly positive.

Come on, you're going to let actual science get in the way of rationalizations for believing in the god that just randomly happened to be most popular in the area you were born in?

 

[KCfromNC]

Yet claim we can accurately date things because the constants are always constant, then choose to argue the exact opposite.

Huh? No one is discussing the constants changing here once they are initially set. At least I hope no one is, because there's tons of evidence that doesn't happen.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Get a deck of well shuffled cards. Lay them out, face up, one by one. When you're done, you'll have a sequence of cards, the probability of which is 1/8.07E+67. That's basically 8 followed 67 0s. I'm not sure there's even a word for a number that big. Excel can only calculate it to 15 digits precision. But it only took one try. So to claim something "needs" trillioin and trillions of trials just because of it's extreamly low probability is just plain wrong.

Hey, come on now.... you know you're making waaaaaay to much sense here.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Right, I know this is what you are all saying but it is not accurately portraying fine tuning. Lets take your scenario here, the cards are shuffled and you start to lay them out and the first one is an ace of spades, the next one is the two of spades, the next is the third of spades, then comes all the next cards in sequence and all spades... four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, Jack, Queen and then the king. You continue and the next card is the ace of clubs, all the next cards are the following clubs accordingly, and then diamonds, and finally all the hearts in sequence as well ending with the jokers. You would certainly understand that this would not happen by chance, at least it would be amazingly improbable that the cards just fell in that order.

The probability of the cards falling in that particular order is exactly the same as the cards falling in any other particular order.

Which is exactly the point that he is making, which went straight over your head.

Now add to this in regard to the universe that not only were all these cards coming in sequence in their appropriate place but they were not even known all at once. They were discovered as physicists did their work in their fields. This is just the tip of the ice berg.

No. It IS the iceberg, the problem rather seems to be that the iceberg is so big and so in-your-face, that you're not even noticing it.

Any particular outcome is equally probable to any other particular outcome.
Your post hoc assigning of special value to the already obtained particular outcome isn't going to change that.

 

[DogmaHunter]

We KNOW that it is special because of it wasn't we wouldn't be here and the unvierse wouldn't be either.

So, are you saying that only a universe like this one could actually exist?
If that is the case, then why are you surprised that the universe is the way it is, considering that it exists???
If that is not the case, please explain what you then meant by the bolded part.

Right. However, scientists are not ones to sit on their hands or put them in the air and say oh well if we were not here to observe the fine tuning that allows us to exist we wouldn't know it was. How does that explain anything?

You haven't shown that there even is something "special" to be explained in the first place. You just asserted it.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Meet mr Stephen Hawking: "Because there is such a thing as gravity, the universe doesn't require a creator".

Stephen Hawking is a proponent of Fine tuning.


“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life”. “For example,” Hawking writes, “if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.” "A Brief History of Time".