Fine tuning argument assessed

[max-greece]

I think that's a fallacious understanding of probability, because in the case of the event that has already taken place (e.g. you won the lottery), you are not taking into account all the other possibilities of what could have happened (which probability requires you to do) but instead you have assigned a probability value simply based on your knowledge of the past event and not the probability itself.

I can see that ultimately we are going to have to agree to disagree but I'll give this another go.

Lets go back to the pack of cards example:

Imagine you have just examined the order of your pack of cards and decide to repeat the order on the very next shuffle.

So you shuffle the cards and examine the order only to discover that the new order of the pack of cards is completely different from the orginal (not surprising).

You had a one in 10^67 chance of success.

However, if you calculate the probabilty of the order you now have you will find, amazingly enough, that the probability of that new order is identical to the probability of the order you were looking for, namely, 1 in 10^67.

What is the validity of the probability of your new shuffle?
Have you witnessed a miracle?
If you had managed to repeat the original order - which has the exact same probability for a discreet event as did the order you actually came out with wouldn't that be rather more miraculous? Wny?

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The real problem with the fine tuning argument is that it seeks to slip its conclusion, "the universe was made," into the justification for that conclusion, "the universe was made for life, and the probability...etc etc."

A fine tuned thing requires a goal to be fine tuned toward, and without demonstrating that there's a goal for the universe in which life constitutes a success state, then you can't go on to state that the multitude of possible failure states makes directed creation the most probable solution to the success state.

Basically, the fine tuning argument is that since the universe was made, the probability of the universe not being made is so low, it has to have been made.

I'm not sure this is a valid repudiation of the argument - although it is itself a valid point.

The theist might turn around and say to you:

"No - I am not arguing from the POV of a creator. I am arguing from random chance. I am also not arguing from the POV that there is a point to the universe, nor that we are the point. What I am saying is that the universe exists and we are a product of it (even a by-product) but the chances of that happening are 1 in 10^500. That is such an unlikely outcome that I believe the creator argument is the least unlikely answer."

As it happens I am also not a fan of the mutli-verse argument, which, although perfectly valid works on the acceptance of the theist probabilities and these are genuinely invalid.