Fine Tuning argument / The best argument for the existence of God

[LegionOnomaMoi]

. If the laws of physics can vary (A. Linde a cosmologist has a model about this) then life could be rare.

A principle point behind such models is to obtain universes in which indeed life is rare, at least in the sense that the parameter space of said models entails that most universes lack the capacity for large-scale structures necessary for the basic "building blocks" of organic chemistry.

You don't need many-worlds or naturalism to save you from the conclusion that the universe was designed. There is no evidence it was designed.

And yet, that is a principle factor motivating multiverse cosmologies and other solutions to the find-tuning problem(s). You like popular physics literature, so here is a quote from some:
"Most of the individual fine-tunings needed for life are not so very precise that they couldn’t just be lucky accidents. Perhaps, as physicists have always believed, a mathematical principle will be discovered that explains the list of particles and constants of nature and a lot of lucky accidents will prove to be just that: a lot of lucky accidents. But there is one fine-tuning of nature that I will explain in chapter 2 that is incredibly unlikely. Its occurrence has been a stupendous puzzle to physicists for more than half a century. The only explanation, if it can be called that, is the Anthropic Principle.
A paradox then: how can we ever hope to explain the extraordinarily benevolent properties of the Laws of Physics, and our own world, without appeal to a supernatural intelligence? The Anthropic Principle, with its placement of intelligent life at the center of the explanation for our universe, would seem to suggest that someone, some Agent, is looking out for humankind. This book is about the emerging physical paradigm that does make use of the Anthropic Principle but in a way that offers a wholly scientific explanation of the apparent benevolence of the universe."
Susskind, L. (2006). The cosmic landscape: String theory and the illusion of intelligent design.

The competing theories in cosmology that have some levels of evidence are inflation, types of multiverse or different patches of an infinite or much larger universe.

I don't suppose you are actually aware of the "levels of evidence" or how they qualify as such?

Cosmologists now know the universe started as a "ball of light" or super compressed energy which was likely unified.

You're conflating unified field theories and a plethora of differing kinds of reasonably speculative extensions of QFT here. Cosmologists know nothing of the sort like this, and it makes no physical sense even as a tentative extrapolation combining what we know of QFT and its structure and gravitation in GR.

Some change in state caused the spacetime to begin expanding

In the state of...? Are you going to supply us with the ket and explain how the operator acting on it is coherent in the context of GR?

Do you study cosmology at all?

Do you? Or do you spout half-understood mixes of simplified terms with pseudo-jargon you obtained from various popular physics media and those select physicists you "listen to"? If you can't do the actual research and work required to understand the theories and models in question, castigating another for not doing so seems rather hypocritical.

 

[leroy]

Not this "atheist method" stuff again.
I think either your understanding of atheism or your usage of logic -- likely both -- is a little off.
Atheists reject christian apologetics not by default, but because the facts are wrong or the reasoning faulty. We explain why we reject what we do, but apparently you've missed that.

Ok so considering the sources in the OP, please explain which facts are wrong and/or quote any usage of faulty reasoning.

Please quote the actual text and explain what’s wrong with it......expalin clearly and unabigously why you reject the source

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

As a theist I would reject #3 because I would argue that consciousness and self awareness is more than just "chemical reactions" (you need a soul)

Regardless, you do believe in a "super-intelligent alien": God.

Do you think that God is incapable of creating a simulated universe?

And BTW: what relevance do simulated universes have to fine tuning? Unless you have some way to conclusively prove that we aren't in a simulated universe, it sure seems to me that you're making an appeal to consequences (which would be just yoyr latest in a long string of logical fallacies in this thread).

 

[Valjean]

Ok so considering the sources in the OP, please explain which facts are wrong and/or quote any usage of faulty reasoning.

Please quote the actual text and explain what’s wrong with it......expalin clearly and unabigously why you reject the source

That's been done a hundred times already, in posts all over RF, by multiple posters. Obviously it goes in one ear and out the other, so why bother?
You know what they say about people who keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

You've said only today that you ignore any facts or reasoning that doesn't agree with you already

 

[leroy]

Do you think that God is incapable of creating a simulated universe?

No, God can create a simulation if he wants...........your point?

And BTW: what relevance do simulated universes have to fine tuning?

That we live in a simulation should be the conclusion if you take the position of “potentially infinite universes” “infinite possibilities etc.)……………..if you don’t take the multiverse approach , then you don’t have to worry about simulations…..

] long string of logical fallacies in this thread).

quote 1 logical fallacy and explain why is it a logical fallacy

 

[Subduction Zone]

quote 1 logical fallacy and explain why is it a logical fallacy

To what purpose? This has been endlessly done for you. Refusing to learn from does not make one correct.

 

[leroy]

That's been done a hundred times already, in posts all over RF, by multiple posters. Obviously it goes in one ear and out the other, so why bother?
You know what they say about people who keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

You've said only today that you ignore any facts or reasoning that doesn't agree with you already

Ok ok ….The atheist method ….. claim that the source is wrong but don’t support that assertion … Lie about having address that in the past……….just to let you know that I will use the same tacktic in the conversation about radiometric dating

 

[joelr]

My point is that if you adopt multiverses and accept that my premises are probably true then you have to conclude that you live in a simulation (which ironically would be a form of inteligent design)

So ether
1 reject the multiverse aproach

2 reject one of the premises (and explain why would you reject it)

3 accept the conclusion that you live in a simulation

No the multiverse doesn't mean there is intelligent life all over the place at all.
Simulation theory is pointless, it solves nothing and just adds more questions. Mainly where did the original life come from?
But the current multiverse theory by Andre Linde is that our region of the universe looks uniform because we see only a small part but values could be vastly different in different locations. So life might not be common at all.

 

[joelr]

What do you mean “listened to”? Do you just plug your ears at conferences and symposia? Do you get someone else to read through e.g., APS journals in order to make sure you skip papers devoted to solutions and/or implications of known fine-tuning problems (or new fine-tuning problems)?

More likely (given what you’ve written) you are listening to a small number of physicists in a highly selective manner and misunderstanding some of the fundamentals. For example, guys like Susskind, Carroll, Weinberg, Greene, Tegmark, etc., who are popular or at least have written popular books I’ve been asked about or told about sometimes deny that there exists a fine-tuning problem or that the universe is fine-tuned not because they deny that there is evidence for fine-tuning but rather because they believe that they have an approach to it which solves the problem(s) and is satisfactory or even the correct one! But by this definition, theologians like WL Craig don’t believe in fine-tuning problems because they have a solution: God did it.

A central difference is that physicists and cosmologists are also interested in often related problems other than fine-tuning and our evidence for different types of fine-tuning. We are concerned, for example, with naturalness and the hierarchy problem(s), as well as a certain amount of aesthetics and metaphysical issues.

What I mean is the term "fine-tuned" on a religious forum means fine-tuned by a God. When a physicist mentions the "tuning" or values of the universe they are interested in finding a new set of laws that would explain why our universe is the way it is.

Absolutely wrong:

“In order to avoid additional fine-tuned constants of Nature, it is reasonable to assume that the Big Bang started from a totally neutral state where the sum of all additive charge-like quantum numbers was zero, hence from equal amounts of matter and antimatter. A matter–antimatter symmetric universe would, however, have rapidly annihilated to an empty light bubble, while we live today in a matter-dominated Universe. Related to the density of relic photons, the number of matter particles amounts only to about one in several billions. The matter content of our Universe hence originates from a tiny but decisive disbalance characterized by a small number. In a closed universe, a significantly larger matter density (more than one matter particle per one million relic photons) would have caused a rapid recollapse of the Universe without any chance for structure formation and life.”
Naumann, T. (2017). Do we live in the best of all possible worlds? The fine-tuning of the constants of nature. Universe, 3(3), 60.

The model doesn’t predict asymmetry or symmetry, but rather more general principles combined with a lack of any theoretical justification for asymmetry leave the matter-antimatter asymmetry as a problem. It is an outstanding problem in so-called Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics.

Saying "absolutely wrong" is such hyperbole. Charge-parity symmetry is a thing and saying the model predicts symmetry here is accurate.

No, we use mathematics to predict. Incidentally, one of the most important mathematical structures and tools used in modern physics was developed using theological assumptions (namely, that a most perfect deity would organize the laws of the physical universe to reflect these extremes, which led Maupertuis and then Euler and Lagrange to formulate the variational calculus and action principles which underlie essentially the entire structure of modern fundamental physics and beyond). Newton’s laws as well as that of Galileo were likewise theologically motivated, and so was their view of mathematics and its relation to the physical and metaphysical world.

My point is not that mathematics isn’t a fundamental tool, or that God provides a useful tool or principle or anything like these in the past ~300 years. Rather, it was that simply because mathematics has been successful doesn’t justify the leap from “some mathematical structures are successfully used across physics and other sciences” to “we can infer from these successes something even remotely resembling scientific evidence for other universes.” Other universe aren’t justified by the mathematics in any case. They are posited to explain away the appearance of something like design or fine-tunings. The real issue for the extreme extrapolations based on mathematical structures is that we know such systems are inherently limited and have no way to constrain the possible sets of universes to allow such that for example we can exclude from the multiverse infinitely many gods like Zeus or universes in which Hogwarts and Vampires exist. The mathematical universe hypothesis is limited only by the structures we can dream up, and these aren’t even limited to those that can be rigorously defined.

Anyway, yeah the universe is mathematical. We see fractals in all sorts of shapes, coastlines, we see the golden ratio and so on. Even better is when the equations demonstrate something we didn't know yet existed. Like antimatter. Or when the equations of QED predicted the magnetic moment of the electron to a degree smaller than we had ever gone, and then it was verified.

As to a multiverse, there are infinite branches of mathematics, I do not know how that could relate to a multiverse. Andre Linde's version of the multiverse is regions of out spacetime too large for us to yet see. He has some evidence for this because as we look at the cosmic background in larger scales we are beginning to see evidence that other structures may emerge.
But the point of bringing up the universe and math is that it doesn't need a being to tune constants. The universe follows mathematical laws and when the unified energy broke apart it isn't surprising that it did it in a way that allows everything to be interconnected and to create structures and organization. We have only discovered some of the laws.

 

[joelr]

And yet, that is a principle factor motivating multiverse cosmologies and other solutions to the find-tuning problem(s). You like popular physics literature, so here is a quote from some:
"Most of the individual fine-tunings needed for life are not so very precise that they couldn’t just be lucky accidents. Perhaps, as physicists have always believed, a mathematical principle will be discovered that explains the list of particles and constants of nature and a lot of lucky accidents will prove to be just that: a lot of lucky accidents. But there is one fine-tuning of nature that I will explain in chapter 2 that is incredibly unlikely. Its occurrence has been a stupendous puzzle to physicists for more than half a century. The only explanation, if it can be called that, is the Anthropic Principle.
A paradox then: how can we ever hope to explain the extraordinarily benevolent properties of the Laws of Physics, and our own world, without appeal to a supernatural intelligence? The Anthropic Principle, with its placement of intelligent life at the center of the explanation for our universe, would seem to suggest that someone, some Agent, is looking out for humankind. This book is about the emerging physical paradigm that does make use of the Anthropic Principle but in a way that offers a wholly scientific explanation of the apparent benevolence of the universe."
Susskind, L. (2006). The cosmic landscape: String theory and the illusion of intelligent design.

Yeah I like Leanord S.

I don't suppose you are actually aware of the "levels of evidence" or how they qualify as such?

Well string theorists have lines of evidence. Inflationary models like Andre Linde's show the amplitude of the pertrabations (on the CMB) continue to grow with large scale. This implies that the universe may be infinite but with regions of very different physics.

You're conflating unified field theories and a plethora of differing kinds of reasonably speculative extensions of QFT here (by calling early universe a "ball of light"). Cosmologists know nothing of the sort like this, and it makes no physical sense even as a tentative extrapolation combining what we know of QFT and its structure and gravitation in GR.

Cool at 10:01 Neil Turok explains the "BALL OF LIGHT", as he likes to call it expanded and so on. "What actually created the BALL OF LIGHT" he asks?? Huh.

In the state of...? Are you going to supply us with the ket and explain how the operator acting on it is coherent in the context of GR?

Well the density of matter in this state varied by about 1 part in 100,000 but we do not know why.

Do you? Or do you spout half-understood mixes of simplified terms with pseudo-jargon you obtained from various popular physics media and those select physicists you "listen to"? If you can't do the actual research and work required to understand the theories and models in question, castigating another for not doing so seems rather hypocritical.

And following your "hey I'm a huge D89c" theme you invent a question about me asking if you study cosmology at all? So you can go on a tool rant. Yup, I enjoy watching actual scientists, I learn from them and to bullies who would try to make people feel bad about educating themselves from pop-science you have shown your poor character to all.

 

[joelr]

We don’t. For example, almost all the laws of physics you might refer to posit that all virtually all measurable quantities and physical properties take values in a continuum, are located within a space with the same cardinality, or both. Moreover, these mathematical structures are generalizations of the familiar real line (in terms of e.g., number of dimensions, topological properties, relationship to a base space, providing or requiring additional structure, etc.).

You may think that it is simply trivial and obvious that we can observe all kinds of instances of physical systems following mathematical laws that clearly involve R, R2, R3, R4 (equipped with a different metric), etc. Motion of a body along a line, for example, involves following physical laws along a kind of physical R^1 embedded in higher-dimensional space.

But in fact we can never even in principle ever observe such laws. This is because what we observe and measure are finite values. So even if we could imagine an idealized situation where we measured with infinite accuracy, we would be restricted to the countably infinite set of rational numbers. Now, between any two rational numbers are infinitely many more rational numbers. No matter how infinitesimally you may wish to consider some length, volume, time, etc., away from some “point”, you will find infinitely many rational numbers between the deviation and the original point.

Thank you for Zeno's Paradox. The universe is highly mathematical regardless. This isn't in question. Mathematics describes the natural world amazingly.

Which don’t exist. They are approximations that fail in a number of ways, from violating special relativity to positing the existence of physical properties, entities, and dynamics that don’t exist.

Cool, classical systems don't exist, I can't wait to quantum tunnell through my wall!
Whatever. Of course they exist. You are nit-picking to a quantum level here.

Wrong. Utterly and completely wrong. The above is a statement that is so radical in nature if true it would demolish modern physics entirely. Even radical physicists who deny the validity of QM do not somehow posit that we should regain classicality. Classical physics is simply wrong as a model of reality; it is a set of useful approximations that breaks down in a variety of ways at every level.

Writing wrong over and over doesn't help you.
quantum rules don't apply at the macroscopic level. I am much larger than my wavefunction and not in several places at once. The quantum behavior smears out as you become macroscopic. What a stupid topic to even argue about.
Neutron stars are like one big neutron. Are they in multiple spots, are they jumping around their wavefunction, no they behave as a macroscopic object.



Find a QM textbook (undergrads and beginning grads in related fields are still using Shankar and Griffiths, but there are better sources if you want recommendations). Look up the parts about basic postulates. Compare these with classical laws. You will find that what you said above fails to remotely accurately describe the evolution of classical or quantum states and perhaps even understand what I said about the deterministic evolution of QM before measurement (this relates to your mention of Everett below).
Then find just about any book on physics that addresses nonlinearities and realize that the problem described above would exist in classical physics in an even worse way.[/QUOTE]

Can the future states of the early universe in it's ball of light stage be determined? No. Ok, there you go.

We know a universe is possible because it is defined to be that which exists. We don’t know anything about multiverses other than that taken literally such a thing can’t exist because the universe is all that does so by definition. Taken more generally, it is an extrapolation from about the least generalizable observation imaginable to the most fantastic.
Your logic is no better than “I know I was born once, therefore I know I can be born infinitely many times.”

We can see all of me. We cannot see all of the universe.

Hugh Everett’s dissertation under Wheeler and his subsequent paper were later rediscovered by the real founders of the many-worlds interpretation. The problem with the above is that 1) you're utterly wrong about the mathematics part (the whole point behind Everett’s approach and those who followed along similar lines is to drop the non-unitary evolution and reject the Born rule) and 2) this is not a cosmological model but an interpretation of QM in which we get rid of half of the mathematics governing quantum systems. So the only thing you’ve told me above is that you haven’t read Everett or any of the mathematics involved, as it is identical to that within standard non-relativistic quantum mechanics. The difference is that (contrary to what you said above about probability in classical vs. quantum states) in Everett’s approach, half of the mathematics is rejected. What remains is the standard type of state evolution familiar to college students taking their first semester of quantum physics.

No, like I said it takes care of the wave collapse. By removing it. But the universe does branch and creates many worlds

What is ridiculous is to posit that because our own universe appears to be so special, and we have no theoretical explanation for this, therefore we are justified in asserting that there exists vast numbers of universes for which our only evidence is that our universe seems unnaturally fine-tuned and otherwise special. Theists assert that God’s design explains why our universe appears special. Physicists like Susskind and Weinberg explain the same appearance of design by positing universes that we can’t describe, understand, test, or even reasonably constrain in any well-defined manner other than that they must allow the finely-tuned parameters and similar features to be in our universe by chance in the sense that they must not exist a vast majority of universe posited to “explain” the improbability of our universe.

No, it's not. First we are looking for reasons within the universe and some are looking for ways to test multiverse theories. We already known nature tends to be bigger than we realize and that structures in nature come from larger structures. Cosmologists are looking for ways to test all ideas. Cosmologists and physicists are also never in consensus. One favors Many Worlds and other favors Copenhagen. There are not many absolutes at the frontier.

Are there any other fake questions you wanted to pretend like I asked?

Wrong. Some do. Most do not or are ambivalent. Like me, they are more interested in quantum foundations than cosmology and their work seldom touches upon multiverse cosmologies if ever. Many are not even concerned with the standard model of particle physics.

Super pointless point.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

When a physicist mentions the "tuning" or values of the universe they are interested in finding a new set of laws that would explain why our universe is the way it is.

I don't use it in this sense, nor do other physicists I work with, is it used this way in the physics literature. Granted, I'm not a cosmologist. I tend to use the term in the manner found more frequently in particle physics, HEP, and quantum foundations literature, because in particular here (as opposed to e.g., the fine-tuning problems with the cosmological constant) one cannot obtain the value of any parameters or constants without applying some renormalization scheme in order to obtain finite answers from the relevant theory.
Nor is it true that cosmologists and other physicist use fine-tuning only in senses which have nothing to do with the sense used in fine-tuning arguments. That is, frequently physicists like L. Susskind (whom you said you like) and others refer to fine-tuning problems specifically in the context of values that seem to indicate design by a Creator. A difference is that to us this means something is wrong, because invoking a Creator is essentially giving up (although I'm sure there are many theists in physics who are fine with the idea of a Creator on a personal level, such an "explanation" fails to be physics or science more generally). If you want a source that's more at your level, then you may wish to check out the book below:

"the choice is between a multiverse and a creator, so take your pick. The explanation it offers for the fine tuning of the fundamental physical constants is probably the strongest argument in favour of the multiverse." (p. 254)
Barrett, R. & Delsanto, P. P. (2021). Don't Be Afraid of Physics: Quantum Mechanics, Relativity and Cosmology for Everyone. Springer

Saying "absolutely wrong" is such hyperbole.

It's when "not even wrong" doesn't qualify because it is clear you don't have a sufficient grasp of the subject matter.

Charge-parity symmetry is a thing and saying the model predicts symmetry here is accurate.

This has nothing to do with matter-antimatter asymmetry in cosmological models. The fact that you can refer to another symmetry holds in a different model or inherited from such a model is irrelevant. Also, the matter-antimatter asymmetry is not a result of Noether's theorem extensions in the Lagrangian of the standard model of one of its gauge subgroups. That is, with CP symmetry (as with more general symmetries and corresponding conservation laws found in the standard model of particle physics) we can invoke group theoretical properties of the actual QFT equation(s) for the relevant systems and properties. Conservations and symmetries follow directly. But with matter-antimatter asymmetry we would need to be able to write a quantum gravitational Lagrangian and we have no field theory of quantum gravity to do so. We cannot so specify the system in question to determine the relevant properties, invariances, and dynamics in order to derive the relevant symmetries as we can with CP invariance, color charge conservation, Baryon number more generally (Baryonic calculations are relevant here), etc.

Anyway, yeah the universe is mathematical. We see fractals in all sorts of shapes, coastlines, we see the golden ratio and so on.

This kind of talk is reminiscent of theists and creationists talking about evidence of design. Evidence of the usefulness of mathematics is no more evidence of ontological structures or physical principles/theories/systems/universes/etc. than it is evidence of a Creator. We describe the universe linguistically even more aptly and in accordance with observations than we can mathematically in most cases, yet we cannot infer that the universe is multilingual.

Even better is when the equations demonstrate something we didn't know yet existed. Like antimatter. Or when the equations of QED predicted the magnetic moment of the electron to a degree smaller than we had ever gone, and then it was verified.

The equations of QED yield an infinite value for this and just about every other would-be physical value. It is only when we plug-in the measured value to the regularized expression and renormalize that the theory yields finite values. And every such value is mathematically equivalent. The miracle here is not that the mathematics is so precise, because it is infinitely wrong, but that with the appropriate quantum corrections we can obtain from the theory and the measured value as in put a result that agrees with the measurement used to obtain the "prediction."

As to a multiverse, there are infinite branches of mathematics

There aren't.

I do not know how that could relate to a multiverse.

It's the basis for what constitutes the multiverse in the MUH proposed by Tegmark. Others do not merely suffer from fine-tuning problems, they often are themselves a matter of fine-tuning or fine-pruning.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Thank you for Zeno's Paradox.

It isn't Zeno's paradox. At all. It isn't even related, as Zeno's paradox involves only countably infinite sets. The issue with physical theories based on real numbers is that almost all real numbers are non-computable and even more are irrational, while the totality of all possible measured values in such theories is mathematically no different from 0.

The universe is highly mathematical regardless. This isn't in question. Mathematics describes the natural world amazingly.

Words describe the universe too. So do pictures. This doesn't mean the universe is multilingual any more than mathematical. It means that the tools we use to describe things in general tend to do this: they describe. And again, this argument is theistic in origin. There is no reason that the mathematics used to describe the universe should be law-like, nor that the structures of physical theories should follow some immutable set of eternal, unchanging mathematical relationships selected out of an unquantifiable set of possible ones. Rather, deists and theists whose work begat early modern sciences and classical physics assumed that the design of a Creator would be reflected in such structures and laws, and set about finding the appropriate mathematics.
Platonic mysticism is no better an explanation than a Deity. But even if it were, the fact that certain mathematical relations and structures appear over an over again in physical theories with remarkable success doesn't explain why particular values in would-be fundamental theories require unexplained parameters which are so finely tuned for life (or for a universe with much in the way of structure or existence, for that matter)

Cool, classical systems don't exist, I can't wait to quantum tunnell through my wall!
Whatever. Of course they exist. You are nit-picking to a quantum level here.

You are composed of atoms, no? A fundamental issue in modern physics is the emergence of classicality from the actual physical world which is non-classical. There is a real sense in which, at a fine enough level of measurement, you are "tunnelling" and obeying quantum laws all the time. "Classical system" is just a manner of speech. It is a term used to refer to a method of approximation that is accurate enough for the desired purpose. Another level of approximation is semiclassical. But there are no semiclassical systems either.

Can the future states of the early universe in it's ball of light stage be determined? No. Ok, there you go.

Again, this is not due to quantum uncertainty. Firstly, we have no "unified theory" or "unified whatever" you seem to keep harping on about that incorporates fundamental physics with gravitation in order to have either a classical or a quantum description of the initial state of the universe. Secondly, as I said earlier the evolution of quantum states is entirely deterministic until measurement. The randomness comes from the Born rule or collapse postulate, in which the wavefunction or ket of the system is projected onto a subpace associated with the Hilbert space of the observable in question or more generally of the "state space" of the system (or Fock space, or some other generalization or alternative depending on the quantization scheme and representation, among other things). So, for example, in your Everettian interpretation there is no randomenss at all. There is only the unitary, deterministic state evolution. Measurement outcomes that appear random are simply the result of branching processes of an underlying deterministic evolution.

We can see all of me. We cannot see all of the universe.

The point is that we can't infer that because this universe has certain properties, therefore there can exist possible universes in a physically meaningful way. We can't see all of the universe, but we can't get from this fact to the notion of a multiverse or even inflationary cosmology.

No, like I said it takes care of the wave collapse. By removing it. But the universe does branch and creates many worlds

You said "beautiful mathematics". The mathematics is just the mathematics of QM. There is nothing special about it at all (other than that one has to appeal to probability theory in order to derive anything remotely resembling an explanation as to how we could possibly use quantum theory to predict anything if this interpretation were true). There is no evidence that the universe branches other than aesthetics. Everett didn't like the fact that there were two rules governing the dynamical evolution of quantum states. Many others don't either (myself included). This doesn't mean that we can therefore conclude there exists only one wave-function in some unreasonably gigantically impossible configuration space. Nor does it mean that we can actually use quantum theory to do anything if it were true. Because all predictions are made based upon probability distributions that assume only one outcome in a given experiment, not the realization of all outcomes by various ever-increasing branches.

No, it's not. First we are looking for reasons within the universe and some are looking for ways to test multiverse theories

For most multiverse cosmologies, there are no ways even in principle for them to be tested. For many BSM cosmological models in general, a central "test" is explaining fine-tuning without recourse to a Creator. This is for me and for many others unacceptable. Explaining away the appearance of design by enlarging the parameter space in terms of physically inaccessible, in-principle untestable universes isn't mucn better than invoking magic or god as an explanation, and arguably worse. Newton had one God whose laws explained the mathematics of physics and the adherence of the universe to these laws. Tegmark requires infinitely many universes to explain how we can have an infinite subset of law-like universes in order to explain how our own is finely-tuned.

.

We already known nature tends to be bigger than we realize and that structures in nature come from larger structures. Cosmologists are looking for ways to test all ideas. Cosmologists and physicists are also never in consensus. One favors Many Worlds and other favors Copenhagen. There are not many absolutes at the frontier.

Now you are confusing quantum foundations and cosmology. Cosmologists are virtually never interested in the orthodox or Copenhagen interpretation of QM as it is almost entirely unrelated to cosmology.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Yeah I like Leanord S.

Ok, there's your physicist you listen to who believes the universe is incredibly finely tuned and we need to explain why this isn't evidence of a creator by invoking extreme metaphysics and alternative reasoning.

Well string theorists have lines of evidence.

String theory isn't sufficiently well formulated to get beyond the proof that there are infinitely many possible compactifications if it were to turn out that there could be evidence of a single manner in which the vague ideas requiring the extra dimensions were to be formulated. In over 40 years, we are left without a sufficiently well formulated theory of "string theory" in order to wonder how we might ever subject it to experimental testing.

Inflationary models like Andre Linde's show the amplitude of the pertrabations (on the CMB) continue to grow with large scale.

What is the justification for inflationary models? Fine-tuning. In fact, Linde has been quite clear that inflationary cosmologies (not just chaotic inflation) are to be regarded positively because they resolve not only certain remaining fine-tuning problems of older inflationary cosmologies but because, together with the Anthropic principle, we no longer need wonder about "the idea that the universe was created many times until the final success. It was not clear who did it and why it was necessary to make the universe suitable for our existence"

This implies that the universe may be infinite but with regions of very different physics.

The idea is that because the physics of our universe are seemingly too finely tuned, and because we don't want to invoke a Creator, therefore it is preferable to explain the appearance of design by positing that there are many such universes. Again, though, the evidence is the same: the appearance of fine-tuning.

[QUOTE
Cool at 10:01 Neil Turok explains the "BALL OF LIGHT", [/QUOTE]
As FASCINATING as I'm sure youtube explanations of popular physics oversimplifications are, "ball of light" has no place in real cosmology or in physics more generally, particulary not for someone such as yourself who is prepared to criticize another for not being familiar with cosmology when your own knowledge extends only as far as sensationalized, popular media.

Yup, I enjoy watching actual scientists, I learn from them and to bullies who would try to make people feel bad about educating themselves from pop-science you have shown your poor character to all.

Unless the scientist is Paul Davies, apparently, or perhaps any other physicist you find too theistic. As for bullying, I have a problem with those without a scientific background whose knowledge of physics or whatever field extends to youtube clips like the one you linked to and yet are prepared to "inform" others as to what physicists think, what "real" physics shows, how we reason, and in particular ask the very question you did:

Do you study cosmology at all?

Compared to any actual study of cosmology, you don't. But you are fully prepared to act as if another was ignorant in order to "inform" them of the what actual research in cosmology shows, despite your being unacquainted with the basics.
That is my central problem with most of the criticisms to the fine-tuning argument in this thread. Actual physicists, including popular ones, are often quite clear about the fact that the universe does appear to be finely-tuned or designed but (typically) are equally prepared to explain why this is not so. What they are not prepared to do is explain the extent to which their justifications rely on the same evidence theists do, but with different preferences.

 

[leroy]

No the multiverse doesn't mean there is intelligent life all over the place at all.
Simulation theory is pointless, it solves nothing and just adds more questions. Mainly where did the original life come from?
But the current multiverse theory by Andre Linde is that our region of the universe looks uniform because we see only a small part but values could be vastly different in different locations. So life might not be common at all.

No the multiverse doesn't mean there is intelligent life all over the place at all.
Simulation theory is pointless, it solves nothing and just adds more questions. Mainly where did the original life come from?
But the current multiverse theory by Andre Linde is that our region of the universe looks uniform because we see only a small part but values could be vastly different in different locations. So life might not be common at all.

Multiverse hypothesis (including Andre Linde´s) is based on potentially infinite universes and infinite probabilities.

Simulations are possible therefore there must be simulated universes

Simulated universe would be more abundant than “normal universes” therefore we have to conclude that we live in a simulation since that would be the most likely scenario.

The point is that “simulation” is a reduction ad absurdum (RA), and we should reject any hypothesis that leads to RA, so under this basis we should ether:

1 reject the multiverse hypothesis,

2 find a solution to this paradox

3 or bite the bullet and accept that we life in a simulation.

Which one do you pick?

 

[tas8831]

tas8831 wrote, "Fine tuning is only necessary if life is purely physical and God doesn’t exist"

Is it from Science/Scientific Method, please?
Regards

Ask Carroll.

 

[joelr]

I don't use it in this sense, nor do other physicists I work with, is it used this way in the physics literature. Granted, I'm not a cosmologist. I tend to use the term in the manner found more frequently in particle physics, HEP, and quantum foundations literature, because in particular here (as opposed to e.g., the fine-tuning problems with the cosmological constant) one cannot obtain the value of any parameters or constants without applying some renormalization scheme in order to obtain finite answers from the relevant theory.
Nor is it true that cosmologists and other physicist use fine-tuning only in senses which have nothing to do with the sense used in fine-tuning arguments. That is, frequently physicists like L. Susskind (whom you said you like) and others refer to fine-tuning problems specifically in the context of values that seem to indicate design by a Creator. A difference is that to us this means something is wrong, because invoking a Creator is essentially giving up (although I'm sure there are many theists in physics who are fine with the idea of a Creator on a personal level, such an "explanation" fails to be physics or science more generally). If you want a source that's more at your level, then you may wish to check out the book below:
.

Pointless answer. Like I said, on a religion forum "fine-tuning" is related to the universe being designed by a God. When scientists talk about "tuning" they mean what is the scientific reason the values are what they are.

It's when "not even wrong" doesn't qualify because it is clear you don't have a sufficient grasp of the subject matter.

HA HA HA. Thanks Wolfgang Pauli. Your need to sound smart is hilariously over the top. As if one cannot have some knowledge of science (hint, they can). The discussion is about science vs God as a reason for the universe. Your ridiculous need to try to correct every literal science word is actually pathetic.

This has nothing to do with matter-antimatter asymmetry in cosmological models. The fact that you can refer to another symmetry holds in a different model or inherited from such a model is irrelevant. Also, the matter-antimatter asymmetry is not a result of Noether's theorem extensions in the Lagrangian of the standard model of one of its gauge subgroups. That is, with CP symmetry (as with more general symmetries and corresponding conservation laws found in the standard model of particle physics) we can invoke group theoretical properties of the actual QFT equation(s) for the relevant systems and properties. Conservations and symmetries follow directly. But with matter-antimatter asymmetry we would need to be able to write a quantum gravitational Lagrangian and we have no field theory of quantum gravity to do so. We cannot so specify the system in question to determine the relevant properties, invariances, and dynamics in order to derive the relevant symmetries as we can with CP invariance, color charge conservation, Baryon number more generally (Baryonic calculations are relevant here), etc.

Oh no, I referenced a different symmetry, oh boo-hoo.

From the Cern website
The matter-antimatter asymmetry problem | CERN

"The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the early universe. But today, everything we see from the smallest life forms on Earth to the largest stellar objects is made almost entirely of matter. Comparatively, there is not much antimatter to be found. Something must have happened to tip the balance. One of the greatest challenges in physics is to figure out what happened to the antimatter, or why we see an asymmetry between matter and antimatter."
So what I said in the context of this discussion was correct. You can F73$ off with your BS.

This kind of talk is reminiscent of theists and creationists talking about evidence of design. Evidence of the usefulness of mathematics is no more evidence of ontological structures or physical principles/theories/systems/universes/etc. than it is evidence of a Creator. We describe the universe linguistically even more aptly and in accordance with observations than we can mathematically in most cases, yet we cannot infer that the universe is multilingual.

Wrong. We actually see a universe, we have mathematical laws that describe reality to extreme degrees. The creator is completely imaginary.

The equations of QED yield an infinite value for this and just about every other would-be physical value. It is only when we plug-in the measured value to the regularized expression and renormalize that the theory yields finite values. And every such value is mathematically equivalent. The miracle here is not that the mathematics is so precise, because it is infinitely wrong, but that with the appropriate quantum corrections we can obtain from the theory and the measured value as in put a result that agrees with the measurement used to obtain the "prediction."

Oh wow, look how smart you are, you know about renormalization!
I also know about renorm. I do not care. QED is still celebrated as the most precise theory ever. You can cry in a corner all you want.

There aren't.

I meant there are potentially an infinite branches.

It's the basis for what constitutes the multiverse in the MUH proposed by Tegmark. Others do not merely suffer from fine-tuning problems, they often are themselves a matter of fine-tuning or fine-pruning.[/QUOTE]

 

[joelr]

It isn't Zeno's paradox. At all. It isn't even related, as Zeno's paradox involves only countably infinite sets. The issue with physical theories based on real numbers is that almost all real numbers are non-computable and even more are irrational, while the totality of all possible measured values in such theories is mathematically no different from 0.

Yeah, it was. It was Zeno's Paradox plus "hey look I know about Cantor's transfinite stuff"
I read Infinity and the Mind too. Don't care.

Words describe the universe too. So do pictures. This doesn't mean the universe is multilingual any more than mathematical. It means that the tools we use to describe things in general tend to do this: they describe. And again, this argument is theistic in origin. There is no reason that the mathematics used to describe the universe should be law-like, nor that the structures of physical theories should follow some immutable set of eternal, unchanging mathematical relationships selected out of an unquantifiable set of possible ones. Rather, deists and theists whose work begat early modern sciences and classical physics assumed that the design of a Creator would be reflected in such structures and laws, and set about finding the appropriate mathematics.
Platonic mysticism is no better an explanation than a Deity. But even if it were, the fact that certain mathematical relations and structures appear over an over again in physical theories with remarkable success doesn't explain why particular values in would-be fundamental theories require unexplained parameters which are so finely tuned for life (or for a universe with much in the way of structure or existence, for that matter)

some physicists go as far as saying only mathematics exists. Max Tegmark for one. I don't know, it's a debate. The universe is highly mathematical anyways. There is more math than "God".

You are composed of atoms, no? A fundamental issue in modern physics is the emergence of classicality from the actual physical world which is non-classical. There is a real sense in which, at a fine enough level of measurement, you are "tunnelling" and obeying quantum laws all the time. "Classical system" is just a manner of speech. It is a term used to refer to a method of approximation that is accurate enough for the desired purpose. Another level of approximation is semiclassical. But there are no semiclassical systems either.

This is my point exactly. This is a discussion about God vs natural. Not a discussion where you pick at every term I use, which is exactly what you are doing. There is a quantum realm and a classical realm. There is a middle area where some quantum effects can be seen on some objects. Doesn't matter right here.

Again, this is not due to quantum uncertainty. Firstly, we have no "unified theory" or "unified whatever" you seem to keep harping on about that incorporates fundamental physics with gravitation in order to have either a classical or a quantum description of the initial state of the universe. Secondly, as I said earlier the evolution of quantum states is entirely deterministic until measurement. The randomness comes from the Born rule or collapse postulate, in which the wavefunction or ket of the system is projected onto a subpace associated with the Hilbert space of the observable in question or more generally of the "state space" of the system (or Fock space, or some other generalization or alternative depending on the quantization scheme and representation, among other things). So, for example, in your Everettian interpretation there is no randomenss at all. There is only the unitary, deterministic state evolution. Measurement outcomes that appear random are simply the result of branching processes of an underlying deterministic evolution.

And what constitutes a measurement?

The point is that we can't infer that because this universe has certain properties, therefore there can exist possible universes in a physically meaningful way. We can't see all of the universe, but we can't get from this fact to the notion of a multiverse or even inflationary cosmology.

You said "beautiful mathematics". The mathematics is just the mathematics of QM. There is nothing special about it at all (other than that one has to appeal to probability theory in order to derive anything remotely resembling an explanation as to how we could possibly use quantum theory to predict anything if this interpretation were true). There is no evidence that the universe branches other than aesthetics. Everett didn't like the fact that there were two rules governing the dynamical evolution of quantum states. Many others don't either (myself included). This doesn't mean that we can therefore conclude there exists only one wave-function in some unreasonably gigantically impossible configuration space. Nor does it mean that we can actually use quantum theory to do anything if it were true. Because all predictions are made based upon probability distributions that assume only one outcome in a given experiment, not the realization of all outcomes by various ever-increasing branches.


For most multiverse cosmologies, there are no ways even in principle for them to be tested. For many BSM cosmological models in general, a central "test" is explaining fine-tuning without recourse to a Creator. This is for me and for many others unacceptable. Explaining away the appearance of design by enlarging the parameter space in terms of physically inaccessible, in-principle untestable universes isn't mucn better than invoking magic or god as an explanation, and arguably worse. Newton had one God whose laws explained the mathematics of physics and the adherence of the universe to these laws. Tegmark requires infinitely many universes to explain how we can have an infinite subset of law-like universes in order to explain how our own is finely-tuned.

..

Yes there were some theoretical ways to test for a multiverse depending on what was found at the er. It's been a while since I watched that.

 

[joelr]

Multiverse hypothesis (including Andre Linde´s) is based on potentially infinite universes and infinite probabilities.

Simulations are possible therefore there must be simulated universes

Simulated universe would be more abundant than “normal universes” therefore we have to conclude that we live in a simulation since that would be the most likely scenario.

The point is that “simulation” is a reduction ad absurdum (RA), and we should reject any hypothesis that leads to RA, so under this basis we should ether:

1 reject the multiverse hypothesis,

2 find a solution to this paradox

3 or bite the bullet and accept that we life in a simulation.

Which one do you pick?

Andre Linde's multiverse involves other patches of spacetime with different laws of physics. It doesn't mean all possibilities about life are played out. Inflation and string theory are all still hypothetical. Every time we are at the front of a science people will assume God did it. In pre-evolution times before it was accepted, human life was probably a popular argument for God. Then it switched to the origin of life because science figured out the human part. It would seem there must be some other reason to take nature out of universe creation?
In the Bronze Age the fact that the Earth was so hospitable to us and humans could eat plants and animals and we had materials for tools and so forth, this must have seemed like there was little doubt God created this all for us. But now we see all that completely differently.
Nature continues to be the cause of things. When the movement of the planets could not be accounted for with the math of the time it was thought God governed the planets motions. It continues to be pushed back farther and farther. This in itself is evidence for nature.

As Caroll points out there are also other factors we can look at like world religions.
His argument has a list of 9 things. Do you only want to weigh options for deism/universe creation? Is the truth or non-truth of theism not a factor in weighing deism?

Would you apply this level of logical thinking to theism?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Pointless answer. Like I said, on a religion forum "fine-tuning" is related to the universe being designed by a God. When scientists talk about "tuning" they mean what is the scientific reason the values are what they are.

How many conferences have you attended? You don't read scientific literature, so stop telling me what we say to one another based off of your youtube clips. And, incidentally, when scientists like Susskind refer to fine-tuning they also often do so with specific references to a supernatural creator (almost always as something to be avoided, of course). I can cite forever in the literature here, from conferences, journals, technical monographs, etc., but again I'll try short and sweet:
"Responses to fine-tuning like chance, God, multiverse, a fundamental theory, Cosmological Natural Selection (CNS), Cosmological Artificial Selection (CAS) or a combination of them might well be correct."
Vidal, C. (2012). Fine-tuning, quantum mechanics and cosmological artificial selection. Foundations of Science, 17(1), 29-38.

The discussion is about science vs God as a reason for the universe.

And as you don't understand the subject matter, the argument(s), or the physics, you are mistaken at just about every turn. Furthermore, your inability to deal with the actual physics literature or how it can and does involve the very things you insist it does not hampers any serious discussion far more than e.g., your personal prejudices.

Your ridiculous need to try to correct every literal science word is actually pathetic.

I find it obnoxious when people who don't understand what they are talking about nonetheless insist on speaking authoritatively about what "science" or "physicists" say about X when they don't understand the science nor are they acquainted with more than sensationalism. You can't get much correct here, you can't address the numerous references I've made to the literature (including attempts to bring in literature that is still reputable in the sense of having to be reviewed and published by an academic publishing company and written by specialists, or attempts to quote to you from the physicists you explicitly state you like, such as Susskind), you can't seem to get the basic write when it comes to the mathematics or the nature of the theories in question, and constantly confuse basic matters such as fundamentally different symmetries or Zeno's paradox vs. a fundamental measurement problem that is actually related to BSM physics in a number of ways, from quantum foundations (see e.g., Gisin, N. (2019). Indeterminism in Physics, Classical Chaos and Bohmian Mechanics: Are Real Numbers Really Real?. Erkenntnis, 1-13.).

So what I said in the context of this discussion was correct.

It wasn't. You claimed it was a prediction of the model in question. It isn't. It is certainly true that it is something we expected, but contra your mistake it is not a prediction of the model as claimed. You just do not know what it is you are talking about. But you are free to castigate another for somehow lacking the familiarity with cosmology you also lack.

You can F73$ off with your BS.

How mature.

Wrong. We actually see a universe, we have mathematical laws that describe reality to extreme degrees. The creator is completely imaginary.

We don't see a universe, but for the purposes of this discussion it is actually important there that extrapolation beyond the visible can be indeed reasonable. We can describe more than we can see using mathematics and theories that are supported by experiments as well as reasonable physical assumptions. Since you understand neither the physics nor the mathematics, it is proving difficult to get you to a point at which you could appreciate the logical problems with going from "mathematics works very well in empirically supported physical theories" to "mathematical aesthetics and its previous successes justify extrapolations which cannot even be theoretically constrained into something remotely resembling a physical model or set of models let alone one that can ever even in principle be tested." The fact remains that the logic behind much multiverse cosmology is the same as that behind fine-tuning arguments: evidence for design requires a supernatural explanation. In the case of multiverse cosmologies, we just throw out the class of what constitutes natural and replace it with metaphysical aesthetics and faith. Likewise for theists/deists.

I meant there are potentially an infinite branches.

You stated:

Hugh Everetts Relativistic State has mathematics that is very convincing as a solution to the wave-function collapse problem to a number of physicists.

1) It's "relative state", not relativistic. His thesis wasn't not relativistic at all. But no matter, as the important issue is 2) the mathematics was just the most basic version of the most common formulation of quantum mechanics. There was nothing at all convincing about his mathematics, as it wasn't even his!!!

It's the basis for what constitutes the multiverse in the MUH proposed by Tegmark.

It isn't. It's something that is incorporated into Tegmark's cosmology via his acceptance of the MWI, but it cannot serve as the basis for his MUH.