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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 22, 2013 at 3:20 pm
(This post was last modified: July 22, 2013 at 3:21 pm by ManMachine.)
(July 15, 2013 at 10:24 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: I presume you've all heard the Fine-tuning argument for God's existence before. If not, eh, go to YouTube.
Anyhow, what do you think are good objections to the argument?
The fine-tuning argument is a fallacy, it's akin to saying if a duck wasn't a duck then it wouldn't be a duck, therefore god exists.
It just doesn't stack up when you really think about it.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 7:09 am
I think the gist of the fine-tuning claim is that the universe would be a very boring place, devoid of any sort of complexity, if any of the many fundamental constants are only slightly changed. I have to see yet a clear and straight-forward rebuttal to this claim. Most of the responses thus far in the line of:
1. This is how the universe is.
2. There could be multiverse, each with different constants, and we happen to live in one that supports complexity.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 7:17 am
(July 23, 2013 at 7:09 am)Kim Wrote: I think the gist of the fine-tuning claim is that the universe would be a very boring place, devoid of any sort of complexity, if any of the many fundamental constants are only slightly changed. I have to see yet a clear and straight-forward rebuttal to this claim. Most of the responses thus far in the line of:
1. This is how the universe is.
2. There could be multiverse, each with different constants, and we happen to live in one that supports complexity.
The first rebuttal is that it is incorrect to assume that those fundamental constants could be changed at all.
The second rebuttal is that there is no evidence to support the assumption that the universe would be a very boring place, devoid of any sort of complexity, if those constants were to be changed. The only thing we could say is that this sort of complexity would be missing.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 8:51 am
(July 15, 2013 at 10:24 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: I presume you've all heard the Fine-tuning argument for God's existence before. If not, eh, go to YouTube.
Anyhow, what do you think are good objections to the argument?
I think that it's another "gaps" argument. It presumes that the "settings" of the universe are the only ones that could sustain life, and therefore the universe was balanced specifically for our benefit, because if you adjust any of them even slightly, life is not possible. But we don't know if there is any other combination of settings that would also work.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 9:48 am
The universe is fine-tuned for life unless we forget that 99.9999999% of the universe is hostile to life.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 9:54 am
(July 23, 2013 at 9:48 am)little_monkey Wrote: The universe is fine-tuned for life unless we forget that 99.9999999% of the universe is hostile to life.
As fine-tuning goes - that's an extremely poor track record.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Small argument: We do not adapt to the bacteria inside our bodies, the bacteria adapts to us. As such, the universe does not alter itself to accommodate humans: humans altered over time to accommodate to earth under the sun under the Milky Way under the universe... all in a balance thanks to gravity. And many of these clusters are thanks to black holes.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 1:05 pm
(July 23, 2013 at 9:48 am)little_monkey Wrote: The universe is fine-tuned for life unless we forget that 99.9999999% of the universe is hostile to life.
Not only is 99.9999999% of the universe hostile to life, the 0.0000001% that isn't was also hostile to life for 99.9999999% of its history, and will likely be hostile to life for 99.9999999% of its future. Even on this tiny 0.0000001% speck of dust that does support life, a good percentage of its mass is also hostile to life.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 1:05 pm
Unfortunately, we did adapt extensively to the bacteria and viruses that are inside us, to the point where it is hypothesized that without such adaptation along the path of our evolution, we could not have attained anywhere near the biological complexity we represent.
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RE: The Fine-Tuning Argument
July 23, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Immune system yes, I apologize for that.
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