If the universe was fine tuned for our life...

[Jenny A]

---

Sorry but that is an absurd prediction. We have one universe which appears to be governed by rules many of which we have discovered. But our "rules" are really just descriptions of how things in the universe behave. There is no evidence that the rules "created" the universe by describing it. The rules are merely us humans describing things.

The sub-realities you have defined really are created by the rules, to the extent that they exist at all. But they really do not exist except as a set of rules. We cannot create real space merely by making up rules for how that space should work, no matter how complex or internally consistent the rules are.

To induce anything about the the construction of the real world based upon these sub-realities you have to assume that the the real world is a great deal more like a sub-reality than we have any reason to believe it is. Or you have to believe that sub-realities described by an intellect, cause those sub-realities to exist in any way other than as a thought experiment.

---

What is exactly absurd about the prediction? One of the two conjectures must be true.

A)Sub realities always require intelligence to come into existence.
B)Sub realities do not always require intelligence to come into existence.

There is nothing absurd about thinking about these two conjectures and looking for reasons to favor one over the other. Can you think of a good reason to favor B over A. The only reason I can think of to favor B is that it might be more consistent with your world view.....but this is not a good reason. There is good objective reason, however, to favor A over B. That good reason is that we always observe sub realities requiring intelligence to come into existence. We never observe sub realities not requiring intelligence to come into existence.

The problem is much more fundamental than that. I will try to be clearer. At this point there are no sub-realites whatsoever that include real space. Rules do not create reality. The sub-realities you discuss are really just organized bits of imagination. They don't create a reality. Therefore, how they are created doesn't have any relevance to how actual reality was created.

It's like comparing how an orange grows to how one is painted. The processes have nothing to do with each other.

When you say, "We have one universe which appears to be governed by rules many of which we have discovered. But our "rules" are really just descriptions of how things in the universe behave. There is no evidence that the rules "created" the universe by describing it. The rules are merely us humans describing things." I interpret this to mean you think the concept of a sub-reality is nonsensical. Is that a fair interpretation?

Yes and no. I so think the concept of sub-realities is currently a null set if we are talking about realities that are in any sense real inside the sub-reality. We don't have any examples of real sub-realities.

But that's not what I was saying about the laws of the universe. I was saying that the fact that the universe has constants which we can discover does not mean the constants created universe. Not surprisingly the constants we create by rules when we create imaginary space don't actually create real space and things either.

One assumption made by my argument is that the real world is a sub reality. If you don't accept this assumption....you're not going to accept the argument.

That is indeed an assumption I don't accept. It's an interesting idea, and certainly possible. But we have no way of knowing. Nor do we have any idea how a sub-reality such as our world might be created. We do know that just making up rules for an imagined space won't work, because our computer simulations don't create real spaces.

It seems to me that you do not accept this assumption. Right now I don't really care to go into detail why I believe this assumption. I have covered it in other threads. It has to do with causality, the nature of randomness, quantum mechanics, and what Bells theorem tells us. I'm going to ask you to accept this assumption as true for the sake of the argument we are having....just to see if by accepting it you reach the same conclusion I have.

I'm not sure you really understand Bell's Theorem--in fairness I don't really understand it either, but what you are saying does not seem to follow from it. But, sure, for the sake of argument I'll assume for the moment that we are in a sub-reality.

Last, you claim sub realities are not really real....well I have argued why from certain perspectives they are real. You don't do anything to refute my argument on this point. You don't even say my argument on this point is wrong. You simply re-iterate your claim that sub realities provided as examples by me, you, and others....are simply are not real. I am asking you here to address the argument I made on this point and show why it is wrong.

No I think the burden of proof is the other way around. You imagine a space and give it rules. Now you say it is a real space. I ask in what way? You say it is real if viewed from the inside. But there is nothing inside to do the viewing. The burden of proof that it is more than just imagination is yours. Your sub-realities are nothing more than rules and descriptions of outcomes of those rules. They don't create anything real.

If we could actually create real sub-realites (which we can't) and we knew we were in a sub-reality (which we don't), your induction would be highly suggestive. But like all inductive conclusion it would not necessarily be true.

Leonard Susskind talks about the apparent fine tuning. Leonard is a well known and very well respected in the physics world. He is considered one of the fathers of string theory. He agrees the universe appears to be fine tuned for our existence....I disagree and claim it is fine tuned for emergent complexity....but non the less we both agree it is fine tuned. When he talks about the cosmological constant being precisely fine tuned....it is to one part in a trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion..trillion. Change it that much and there is no sustained emergent complexity.

Susskind favors the multiverse explanation for the apparent fine tuning BTW. Watch the vid...its good stuff.

I watched. He says that if one of about a dozen constants of the universe were changed between 1% and 30% depending on the constant the universe as we know it would not exist and life would not exist. No argument there. I'm mere surprised there are things we can change by as much as 30%.

He suggests three possibilities: 1) intelligent design just for us; 2) highly improbable hitting the jackpot in this one universe; 3) many universe and we are in one of the ones that can sustain life. He likes number three. Must admit, I like number three too.

But I'm not bothered by number two either. As far as we know all possible universes are equally improbable. If this is the only one, than it is the only one in which we could ask the question, how did we get here? We know our lottery number came up because here we are.

Number one bothers me because it presumes an over arching universe containing all the others that was not created but does manage to house a universe creating being (how many constants do you think that might take hitting the jackpot on?). That strikes me as extremely improbable, much more improbable than choice number 2.