Is the cosmos "fine-tuned"?

[LegionOnomaMoi]

But it was learned by physics not religion

Great point. It started with science, continued with science, and is still science (although one day it may not be). The fact that religious arguments are made because of it does not make these arguments magically equivalent to the treatment of fine-tuning in physics literature.

 

[shawn001]

It's also called "naturalness" among other things. The point is the same: we find there is an extremely precise and extremely surprisingly precise range for the parameters used in our models of the universe.





1) That isn't a very accurate description of fine-tuning, in that it isn't simply letting one parameter vary while keeping the other constant. One could vary all of them, and we'd find the same thing, we'd just have no idea whether or not changes to all but one of the parameters made 0 difference.
2) A "theory of everything" would by definition explain all the parameters and everything else.


Here's what Stenger actually says:
""The next important step in the history of fine-tuning occurred in 1952 when astronomer Fred Hoyle used anthropic arguments to predict that an exicited carbon neucleus, 6C12, has an energy level at around 7.7 MeV...The probability of three bodies [necessary for Hoyle's predicted carbon nucleus] coming together simultaneously is very low...A laboratory experiment was undertaken, and, sure enough, a previously unknown excited state of carbon was found...Hoyle's prediction provied scientific legitimacy for anthropic reasoning." (emphasis added)

"A "theory of everything" would by definition explain all the parameters and everything else."

That is what I believe he was stating. We don't know enough yet. But that doesn't mean we need to fall into "god did it" or a designer whatever that maybe as the explanation and give up of course. There still is no evidence for a God or designer and invoke a supernatural explanation.
.

 

[shawn001]

Wonder if the religious folks would use it if it was re-phrased as "naturalness" then fine tuned, that I bet would change the tune.

Randomness, just doesn't go well with human thinking. Humans don't like it for the most part.

 

[shawn001]

With a solar system

"We are giving you the keys to the universe. Think you can build a solar system that can maintain the balance and spawn life? Design your own planets and stars and try your hand at the interactive Solar System Builder. But construct carefully, the fate of your planetary system requires keen celestial reasoning and understanding of gravity's pull."

Solar System Builder | National Geographic Channel

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Biological organisms (at least, at first blush) appear to have been designed.

Yes, by evolution.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Why is life so important to justify the question?

Good question. The obvious answer is because we marvel at our own existence and seek an explanation. We assume that because we are here the universe must have been designed to make that happen, or that we are somehow the purpose of the cosmos. It's a long stretch though!

 

[shawn001]

One of the most successful creatures on the planet who "have been inhabiting earth for at least 530 million years!."

"
ant to be a superhero? Then you may want to pick up some skills from the segmentedmicroscopic Tardigrades (slow steppers). Popularly known as water bears or moss piglets because of their slow gait, these tiny creatures can survive anything - From boiling to sub-zero temperatures, radiation, and even the vacuum of outer space. It is no wonder that this virtually indestructible animal has had the scientific community buzzing with excitement, for years.

The 1,150 known species of the micro-animals that measure between 0.5mm to 1.2 mm long, can be found almost anywhere, from mountaintops to the bottom of the deep sea, from tropical rainforests to the Antarctic. "

The Virtually Indestructible Water Bear - Kids News Article

I post this because some animals are all cute and are called "designed" and some you would think, what was a designer thinking. Life is all over the planet now, where we use to think it was just certain conditions, but now in 7 miles deep in the oceans, 2000 feet down in solid rock, in a place with almost no water at all, except vapors.

Astronomers estimate 100 billion habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, 50 sextillion in the universe

Astronomers estimate 100 billion habitable Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, 50 sextillion in the universe | ExtremeTech

Pretty good odds for other life in the universe as well even though we have not discovered it yet. But, we haven't even discovered all the life forms on this planet yet and even as we do we kill them pretty fast.

 

[bishblaize]

That actually doesn't work for most religions or most arguments. For example, a common interpretation of Islam (at least during the late medieval and early modern period), or perhaps I should say of the Quran and ahadith, was that finding order in the cosmos placed limitations on God. This view exists also in the Old Testament, but by the time the Church had begun to climb back up to the academic/intellectual status of the Roman empire (in other words, by the time Western Christians were in a position to develop natural philosophy, the precursor to science), the Church quickly wedded itself to Aristotelian philosophy and thanks to the factors like the Protestant revolution quickly developed natural philosophy. In other words, we can't see how constraining cosmology was to the intellectual/academic development within Christianity because by the time Christians were at the point to develop arguments based upon the nature of the universe Scholasticism developed in the West while the East was already mostly conquered and continued to shrink (FYI- a common misconception is that part of the reason the Church adopted the view that the Earth was the center of the universe was because this was a good position, rather than the notion actually held: that this was the lowest position).

In the East, not only was such a view absent from most if not all traditions, the majority viewed the material world as mostly negative and the cosmos unchanging or cyclical.

The first developed "proofs" (arguments) for God, such as Anselm's, Descartes', etc., made no reference to cosmic design. The scholalistics followed Aristotle in reasoning about causality (his 4-fold division, out of which the final cause naturally was attributed to God), and the first real argument for design of the type you refer to isn't until Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. One can certainly quote-mind various texts and see words like order or how God's works are so magnificent because God is magnificent, but these are no more arguments than is Hamlet's description of the cosmos when first he meets up with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (minus the ending- "and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me").

There doesn't seem to be a point there.

Another difference is that fine-tuning isn't just an argument for a designer. It's a simple fact of physics, that physicists hold to be true whether they regard it as a problem to be explained, don't care, or believe it to be evidence of design. The question isn't whether our universe is fine-tuned, it's what this might entail, could entail, and cannot entail.

For fine tuning to be more than just another interesting line of human enquiry requires the belief that humans/life/consciousness are objectively special. More important than any other thing that does or could ever have existed.

If you believe that, then when you look at all the things that had to be just so in order for life to exist then, of course, it seems fabulous. A chain of innumerable events, each with apparent near zero probability, all of which happened. You take the view that since the chances of it not happening vs the chances of it happening are so overwhelming, there may/must be some other factor at work.

On the other hand if you believe that life is merely subjectively special, but objectively no more or less important than anything else the Universe may have spawned, you have a very different perspective. You lose the apparent weirdness of the chances involved because there wasn’t only one path of importance. Any configuration is as ‘important’ as any other configuration.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

There doesn't seem to be a point there.

I'll summarize: your "old argument" is quite new.

For fine tuning to be more than just another interesting line of human enquiry requires the belief that humans/life/consciousness are objectively special. More important than any other thing that does or could ever have existed.

And given that this is the starting point of the anthropic principle, why is this so surprising or impossible?

If you believe that, then when you look at all the things that had to be just so in order for life to exist then, of course, it seems fabulous.

It's called a problem within physics for a reason. Nobody was looking for it and precious few want it. Entire classes of solutions to this "problem" exist within the literature and have for some ~50 years.

A chain of innumerable events

Fine-tuning concerns parameters (fundamental constants). There is no chain of events.

 

[bishblaize]

I'll summarize: your "old argument" is quite new.

Fair enough.

And given that this is the starting point of the anthropic principle, why is this so surprising or impossible?

My understanding is that the anthropic principle is that the universe is merely compatible with consciousness, which it apparently is. Strong AP goes into the consideration that it is somehow arranged in order to achieve consciousness, which is not so readily apparent and is not a view I agree with, for the reasons above.

Fine-tuning concerns parameters (fundamental constants). There is no chain of events.

The parameters allow events to occur in a certain way, as opposed to a different way.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

My understanding is that the anthropic principle is that the universe is merely compatible with consciousness

It has almost nothing to do with consciousness. In the weakest form, it simply asserts that the universe must have properties that allow us to exist. In a slightly stronger form (motivated in no small part by fine-tuning), it asserts that the presence of life (or at least the life that we find; some deviations from values of fundamental constants could theoretically allow a kind of life we can't imagine or predict) is sufficiently improbable to serve as a substitute for the once-profitable and now largely abandoned or at least highly problematic reductionist program in physics (namely, that we can explain all reality by some set of simplest forces and simplest and particles). Indeed, some ~50 years ago it began as such (or something similar; namely the prediction of a property of the universe based on the assumption that we are the "fundamental forces/particles").

Strong AP goes into the consideration that it is somehow arranged in order to achieve consciousness, which is not so readily apparent and is not a view I agree with, for the reasons above.

"Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP) : The universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history"
Tipler, F. J., & Barrow, J. (1986). The anthropic cosmological principle. Oxford University.

The parameters allow events to occur in a certain way, as opposed to a different way.

Sort of, but that's the point. Incredibly small changes to some would destroy the universe, others would render impossible any life, and still others would ensure that whatever life existed isn't anything we are familiar with. The parameters tell us what could happen or would happen; they don't allow anything to happen.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In the weakest form, it simply asserts that the universe must have properties that allow us to exist.

How does this argue that you and I, and all we see, are anything other than unintended consequences?

 

[bishblaize]

In a slightly stronger form (motivated in no small part by fine-tuning), it asserts that the presence of life (or at least the life that we find; some deviations from values of fundamental constants could theoretically allow a kind of life we can't imagine or predict) is sufficiently improbable to serve as a substitute for the once-profitable and now largely abandoned or at least highly problematic reductionist program in physics (namely, that we can explain all reality by some set of simplest forces and simplest and particles). Indeed, some ~50 years ago it began as such (or something similar; namely the prediction of a property of the universe based on the assumption that we are the "fundamental forces/particles").

By "we are the fundamental forces/particles” you appear to be referring to observers. But observers that have almost nothing to do with consciousness?

"Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP) : The universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history"
Tipler, F. J., & Barrow, J. (1986). The anthropic cosmological principle. Oxford University.

That quote is easily misunderstood. Not saying you have misunderstood it, but for another reader of this post it may occur. The “must” in this case is something that is required to happen, not a simple deduction.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

By "we are the fundamental forces/particles” you appear to be referring to observers. But observers that have almost nothing to do with consciousness?

Observers have a great deal to do with consciousness, but it's a moot point. There is absolutely no evidence that even granting the fine-tuned argument that the universe was designed for life, it was designed for conscious life.

The “must” in this case is something that is required to happen, not a simple deduction.

The "must" is absolutely intended to convey that it "is required to happen". Hence the "strong anthropic principle". The WAP doesn't assert this.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How does this argue that you and I, and all we see, are anything other than unintended consequences?

In the weakest form, it doesn't.

 

[bishblaize]

Observers have a great deal to do with consciousness, but it's a moot point. There is absolutely no evidence that even granting the fine-tuned argument that the universe was designed for life, it was designed for conscious life.

That seems a bit like saying "even granting that unicorns exist, there's absolutely no evidence that pink unicorns exist"

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

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That seems a bit like saying "even granting that unicorns exist, there's absolutely no evidence that pink unicorns exist"

Only there is nothing analogous in your analogy. In what you quoted, I granted an argument concerning the nature and properties of the cosmos that are consistent with and possibly entailed by physics. You granted a fantasy creature.

 

[bishblaize]

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Only there is nothing analogous in your analogy. In what you quoted, I granted an argument concerning the nature and properties of the cosmos that are consistent with and possibly entailed by physics. You granted a fantasy creature.

So there is evidence that the universe was designed for life?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So there is evidence that the universe was designed for life?

Yes. Absolutely. Is there evidence that can't be disputed by various arguments? No.

 

[bishblaize]

Yes. Absolutely. Is there evidence that can't be disputed by various arguments? No.

And that evidence is not applicable when applied to consciousnesses rather than just meat?