A fined tuned argument.....Heywood style.

[Heywood]

If the universe were designed for life, we would precisely not be living on the edge in so many ways. You unwittingly killed your proposition A with the fine-tuning argument

I gotta digest the rest of your post and that will take me some time.

I do want to point out that I am talking about the universe being fine-tuned for emergent complexity....not life specifically.

[Alex K]

If the universe were designed for life, we would precisely not be living on the edge in so many ways. You unwittingly killed your proposition A with the fine-tuning argument

I gotta digest the rest of your post and that will take me some time.

I do want to point out that I am talking about the universe being fine-tuned for emergent complexity....not life specifically.

I'm fine with that, I think my point remains valid then, except that one observation, the fact that large portions of space are uninhabitable and deadly, would not count as evidence against your proposition.

[Esquilax]

The fine tuning problem is this: There are about couple of dozen physical constants of the universe teetering on a knife edge....which if you changed anyone just a little bit we would not have an emergent universe(or at the very least a much less emergent universe). For instance if gravity were a little stronger the universe would exist as simple black hole. If gravity were a little weaker matter would not clump to form more complex structures.

Now demonstrate that the universe was designed to be as it is now; if you can't demonstrate a designer in the first place than the idea that it arose even out of random chance isn't a problem for anyone. It's like demanding that there must be a designer for a rockslide because the chances of all those rocks just landing in those exact spatial positions is very low; you're technically correct about the odds, but you've not shown why the rocks being in those particular positions is the "success" state for them.

Right now, all you're doing is asserting that, of all the possible universes we could have had, this one was the preferred state; the only sense in which low probabilities could ever be a problem is if you're looking at it like a "million to one" chance where something is hoping for a specific outcome against the odds. That's the only scenario in which the low probability outcome is at all remarkable. I mean, all the other potential universes have the same probability of happening, if you're willing to go specific enough.

The observance of this fact of reality cries out for an explanation. There really are just 4 possible explanations that I can see.

And way to beg the question by adding the term "fine tuning" to three of the four possible answers, even the natural possibility, which would in no way be considered fine tuned.

The extreme fine tuning of the cosmological constant allows me to dismiss D. If it was different by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion complex structures would not be able to form. It is unreasonable to think we hit a jackpot with those kind of odds. As Leonard Susskind put it, "Its too much of a stretch".

Sorry, but I'm not going to accept this equivocation between the improbable and the impossible; the chances of something happening being low is not the same as being zero. As I pointed out earlier, the chances of all other potential universes eventuating is exactly the same as this one, given the level of detail you're willing to go to. Improbable things happen all the time, and the only way you could characterize this one as particularly impressive is by indulging in anthropocentric thinking, as though this were somehow the preferred state that something was hoping to get.

Incidentally, it's interesting that you brought up Susskind here, because last I checked he was an atheist; evidently, whatever he sees in the universe isn't the same thing as what you see.

I dimiss C on the grounds as there is no reason to believe this since many coherent models of the universe can be made given our current understanding of physics. Further cutting edge physics...like string theory continue to suggest the possibility the universe could have been different.

Argument from ignorance: I can't conceive of it and neither can current science, therefore it's definitely not true.

That leaves me with A and B as being the only credible explanations. If I assume the principle of indifference applies here, that means I should give A 50% likelihood of being true and B 50% likelihood of being true.

No, because you've got to modulate those possibilities in accordance with the evidence. The only way they'd have exactly equal chances of being true is in an information vacuum.

[max-greece]

The fine tuning problem is this: There are about couple of dozen physical constants of the universe teetering on a knife edge....which if you changed anyone just a little bit we would not have an emergent universe(or at the very least a much less emergent universe). For instance if gravity were a little stronger the universe would exist as simple black hole. If gravity were a little weaker matter would not clump to form more complex structures.

The observance of this fact of reality cries out for an explanation. There really are just 4 possible explanations that I can see.

A)The Universe is intelligently designed to be emergent.
B)Our Universe is part of a Multiverse of which sheer numbers guarantees the existence of at least one daughter universe that is fine-tuned for emergence.
C)Our Universe is the way it is because of some brute fact of physics about which we don't have any knowledge.
D)It was simply blind luck the Universe turned out to be fine-tuned for emergence.

The extreme fine tuning of the cosmological constant allows me to dismiss D. If it was different by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion complex structures would not be able to form. It is unreasonable to think we hit a jackpot with those kind of odds. As Leonard Susskind put it, "Its too much of a stretch".

I dimiss C on the grounds as there is no reason to believe this since many coherent models of the universe can be made given our current understanding of physics. Further cutting edge physics...like string theory continue to suggest the possibility the universe could have been different.

That leaves me with A and B as being the only credible explanations. If I assume the principle of indifference applies here, that means I should give A 50% likelihood of being true and B 50% likelihood of being true.

I can think of many more possibilities than you appear to have. Things like:

The universe misfired many times in failed big bangs before it emerged as a stable entity (gravitation too strong - collapses back into its origin point and fires off again, gravitation too weak - universe expands instantaneously into nothingness and a new one forms in the nothingness as before...)

Parameters that vary could be counter-acted by other parameters so that stronger gravitation might be accompanied by simply less mass, or a delay in the expansion of the Higgs field that gives particles gravity so that by the time gravity comes into effect the distances are greater.

There are probably a massive number of other possibilities about which we know precisely nothing at the moment.

Its also possible that the laws of physics in an emergent universe are consistent for other reasons we do not know.

Too many unknowns to really draw any conclusions IMHO.

[jesus_wept]

When most people think of an intelligent designer they mean god, but what I dont get is why does god need to fine tune the universe and have it work in a way which is indistinguishable from naturalistic means? Surely god could have made life exist in any kind of universe he wanted? Otherwise why call him god and what is the point in a god that has to play by the rules of nature?

The argument seems self defeating to me .

[Jacob(smooth)]

What a nice, sensible, rational debate! I like this Heywood. He reminds me of someone...

OK, here's my issue from logic, rather than cosmology.

You offered 4 options. Fair shout, you included some viable ones.

However your argument seems to be what we in medicine call a diagnosis of exclusion. That if it's not B C or D then it must be A.

But this does not follow, because it assumes that there is no E. It ignores the vastly likely possibility that there is stuff we don't know!

Imagine you are a norseman, a thousand years ago, applying this logic to lightning. You'd settle on A (thor) because you could not justify B or C (whatever they might be).

Doesn't work .

[tor]

What a nice, sensible, rational debate! I like this Heywood. He reminds me of someone...

OK, here's my issue from logic, rather than cosmology.

You offered 4 options. Fair shout, you included some viable ones.

However your argument seems to be what we in medicine call a diagnosis of exclusion. That if it's not B C or D then it must be A.

But this does not follow, because it assumes that there is no E. It ignores the vastly likely possibility that there is stuff we don't know!

Imagine you are a norseman, a thousand years ago, applying this logic to lightning. You'd settle on A (thor) because you could not justify B or C (whatever they might be).

Doesn't work .

Nice you're making progress!

[Jacob(smooth)]

What a nice, sensible, rational debate! I like this Heywood. He reminds me of someone...

OK, here's my issue from logic, rather than cosmology.

You offered 4 options. Fair shout, you included some viable ones.

However your argument seems to be what we in medicine call a diagnosis of exclusion. That if it's not B C or D then it must be A.

But this does not follow, because it assumes that there is no E. It ignores the vastly likely possibility that there is stuff we don't know!

Imagine you are a norseman, a thousand years ago, applying this logic to lightning. You'd settle on A (thor) because you could not justify B or C (whatever they might be).

Doesn't work .

Nice you're making progress!

Phew. Thought you were going to sound condescending there for a minute!

[John V]

Gigantic fail.
Here cosmologist Sean Carroll OBLITERATES argument of fine tuning.

So type up his arguments.

[tor]

Gigantic fail.
Here cosmologist Sean Carroll OBLITERATES argument of fine tuning.

So type up his arguments.

There.
http://preposterousuniverse.com/writings/dtung/