The not-so-fine tuning argument.

[Alex K]

@Rhythm,
but isn't that simply the anthropic principle rather than the lottery fallacy? How exactly does the latter play a role here?

[Jehanne]

@Jehanne

But isn't the point of those advancing the fine tuning argument precisely that they can say a priori that (simply speaking) only one of those outcomes is compatible with life, e.g. that life = 100 times heads? Then it is irrelevant that all possibilities add up to a probability of 1. I'm not saying I buy the ft argument, just that the lotto fallacy alone doesn't appear to be sufficient to refute it unless you also argue that all outcomes are compatible with some form of observer

Has been pointed out, physicists do not know that the constants of nature are free to vary.  Just because one can construct a mathematical model does not mean that Nature confirms itself to such a model; alternative models of gravitation exist to General Relativity that do not predict the anomalous precession of Mercury's orbit.  And, of course, Newtonian mechanics is mathematically complete yet fundamental flawed.  Ultimately, GR will likely give way to something more deeper, as a "singularity" (infinite curvature) just does not make sense, physically.

And, even if the constants can vary, we still do not know the sample space that we are dealing with, and so, cannot possibly compute any objective probabilities.  As Mark Twain said, "There are lies, damned lies, and then there's statistics."  Christian theism was wrong about the orbits of the planets ("perfect circles") and it took Kepler nearly a decade and hundreds of pages of manuscripts to overcome that bias.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Rhythm,
but isn't that simply the anthropic principle rather than the lottery fallacy? How exactly does the latter play a role here?

The lotto fallacy responds to the argument from probability by reference to ft - in itself it's enough to handle that argument.  The anthropic principle demonstrates, further, that the question -itself- is malformed and so, uninformative. That life exists, that we exist, that our environment supports us, is not some great profundity to be answered by improbability or by magic. Its a brute observation, and one that;s required for there to even -be- such an observation. You don't need to know anything about the cosmological constants, or ft, to know that. A "no shit, and?" kind of question leading nowhere else or to any other conclusion which bares no relevance to those other things discussed in and of itself.

Essentially, chasing our tales by inconsistently applying logic or reason against the advice of it's own standards in the absence of any valid means of inference. We could plug true or sound propositions into that all day long and we'd still have no reason to trust our conclusions. It's the very definition of inanity.

[ignoramus]

Guys, dumb question again.

Do you guys think that what happens entirely at a subatomic level is fixed? Or is it entirely feasible that these particles could act in a completely different manner in another universe?

Eg, leading to a different periodic table? (If matter forms as we know it in the first place.)

[comet]

as soon as you say "other universes" you can make up anything you want.

[Alex K]

as soon as you say "other universes" you can make up anything you want.

If you just say "other universes" without any theoretical framework, maybe. If you start from a scenario that is motivated by and comes out of a theoretical construction like the string landscape, it's not *anything goes*.

[Alex K]

Guys, dumb question again.

Do you guys think that what happens entirely at a subatomic level is fixed? Or is it entirely feasible that these particles could act in a completely different manner in another universe?

Eg, leading to a different periodic table? (If matter forms as we know it in the first place.)

If something like string theory is at the bottom of everything (nobody knows of course...) then the physical constants such as particle properties and masses, and also which particles exist, are an environmental fact similar to the orbits of the planets, except more stable. In such cosmological scenarios, after and during cosmic inflation, different patches of the universe can settle with very different "physics". So it is at least conceivable, if far from proven.

[Alex K]

@Jehanne

But isn't the point of those advancing the fine tuning argument precisely that they can say a priori that (simply speaking) only one of those outcomes is compatible with life, e.g. that life = 100 times heads? Then it is irrelevant that all possibilities add up to a probability of 1. I'm not saying I buy the ft argument, just that the lotto fallacy alone doesn't appear to be sufficient to refute it unless you also argue that all outcomes are compatible with some form of observer

Has been pointed out, physicists do not know that the constants of nature are free to vary.  Just because one can construct a mathematical model does not mean that Nature confirms itself to such a model; alternative models of gravitation exist to General Relativity that do not predict the anomalous precession of Mercury's orbit.  And, of course, Newtonian mechanics is mathematically complete yet fundamental flawed.  Ultimately, GR will likely give way to something more deeper, as a "singularity" (infinite curvature) just does not make sense, physically.

And, even if the constants can vary, we still do not know the sample space that we are dealing with, and so, cannot possibly compute any objective probabilities.  As Mark Twain said, "There are lies, damned lies, and then there's statistics."  Christian theism was wrong about the orbits of the planets ("perfect circles") and it took Kepler nearly a decade and hundreds of pages of manuscripts to overcome that bias.

What you say is all true. Still, the alternative to having the possibility that the constants might in principle vary would be that they can only be one way exactly, and that this one and only way the universe can be happens to support life. Is that any less astonishing, nay, wouldn't that be even more astonishing than having different possibilities and being able to say - of course we live in one where life can exist - how it came about, who knows!


The first ones to think the orbits should be neat geometrical shapes were the old Greek philosophers, can't blame the Christians for inventing that one, they just stole the idea.

[Jehanne]

Has been pointed out, physicists do not know that the constants of nature are free to vary.  Just because one can construct a mathematical model does not mean that Nature confirms itself to such a model; alternative models of gravitation exist to General Relativity that do not predict the anomalous precession of Mercury's orbit.  And, of course, Newtonian mechanics is mathematically complete yet fundamental flawed.  Ultimately, GR will likely give way to something more deeper, as a "singularity" (infinite curvature) just does not make sense, physically.

And, even if the constants can vary, we still do not know the sample space that we are dealing with, and so, cannot possibly compute any objective probabilities.  As Mark Twain said, "There are lies, damned lies, and then there's statistics."  Christian theism was wrong about the orbits of the planets ("perfect circles") and it took Kepler nearly a decade and hundreds of pages of manuscripts to overcome that bias.

What you say is all true. Still, the alternative to having the possibility that the constants might in principle vary would be that they can only be one way exactly, and that this one and only way the universe can be happens to support life. Is that any less astonishing, nay, wouldn't that be even more astonishing than having different possibilities and being able to say - of course we live in one where life can exist - how it came about, who knows!


The first ones to think the orbits should be neat geometrical shapes were the old Greek philosophers, can't blame the Christians for inventing that one, they just stole the idea.

They defended it also; it was completely compatible with scholastic theology.  Yes, the multiverse probably exists; it is, IMO, an error of physicists, such as Paul Davies, to say that just because you can't observe or test something that somehow means that "something" is outside the realm of Science.  Plenty of phenomenon were predicted by GR and QM, which, only later on, were verified experimentally, and it stands to reason that ideas such as eternal inflation are likely true, as they are simply extensions of existing theory.  In this respect, it is sufficient to calculate something as opposed to experimentally verifying it.