Is the cosmos "fine-tuned"?

[nazz]

I want to look at this from a different angle. Let's say there is a limit to scientific knowledge (I happen to think this is the case). Supposing we will never know if there is a multiverse or what the actual processes behind universe creation really are. What is this fine tuning has been given to us a clue that something intelligent created this universe? That this clue was left either by design by a being who did not want his creative action to be too obvious or perhaps as the only possible evidence for that creator's existence?

 

[Gambit]

I favor the strong anthropic principle (SAP) or, more specifically, the participatory anthropic principle (PAP).

"Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being." - John Archibald Wheeler

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Here is the problem I have option #3 that Susskind talks about. The cosmological constant is a specific number but numbers are infinite. That means there are an infinite number of possible values for the constant (if I am understanding correctly) which also means there are an infinite number of possibilities that it would never randomly hit just the right value.

If you are going to use the real number system or the rationals (or even the integers, providing that you assign equal probability to each value), then the probability for any particular outcome is always 0. This is why, given any continuous distribution function (e.g., the normal distribution), we can't refer to the probability of a specific outcome. Both the rationals and reals are infinitely dense, meaning that between any two values there are always infinitely many more (and yet, the reals are "denser" than the rationals, as well as larger).

However, Susskind isn't dealing with probabilities any mathematically formal way (or even informal, really). First, the problem is not so much the precision of the various values alone, but that we don't expect such precision to be required. To compare this to another design argument I believe to be flawed, we can look at how "miraculously" complex living systems are and in general how complex and intricate nature is. But life can be nearly wiped off of the face of the Earth and return, complex systems can break down (indeed, they are often defined by points at which they do) and the result be many more complex structures and/or systems, etc. To quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park (the movie, not the book, which is better), "life finds a way". The point is that in this case all that appearance of design and all that complexity doesn't require much. You can change the climate drastically, you can tear apart one giant continent, you can cover most of the world with ice or have it be free of ice, and yet drastic changes still give us life.

This is not true of the constants in question.

 

[bmk2416]

Same for growing a garden on concrete, yet plants do grow there

This is actually an example showing a creator because it requires a change in the environment, the cracks, for life to exist, they don't just grow out of concrete the environment must be changed

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Well even Susskind and Shermer admit that it strains credulity to think such a thing would happen by chance. Plus it depends on the multiverse idea being true which has not even been established.

Just to clarify (I don't know if this is what you intended). Susskind and others favor the multiverse theory because it "explains" fine-tuning. If our universe is the only one (i.e., there is no universe where the parameters/constants have different values; no "pocket universes"), then we are left with this incredible, infinitesimal range that certain values required for life can take and that they do. If, on the other hand, you have infinite or an enormous number of universes (alternatively, if our universe is far bigger, and we exist in a part/"pocket" of it in which the constants/parameters are what we have determined), then things become simpler. In most universes, perhaps all but one, you won't find life. But in the universe that happens to have the right values for life, you do.

Put more simply, if you pick a card from a deck you have a fairly low chance that it will be the ace of spades. However, if I deal out a deck to 52 people, someone is going to have that card. The multiverse theory explains our situation as being akin to the latter, in which all the universes are dealt and the one that is dealt the right values for life is the one in which we find life.

 

[nazz]

Just to clarify (I don't know if this is what you intended). Susskind and others favor the multiverse theory because it "explains" fine-tuning. If our universe is the only one (i.e., there is no universe where the parameters/constants have different values; no "pocket universes"), then we are left with this incredible, infinitesimal range that certain values required for life can take and that they do. If, on the other hand, you have infinite or an enormous number of universes (alternatively, if our universe is far bigger, and we exist in a part/"pocket" of it in which the constants/parameters are what we have determined), then things become simpler. In most universes, perhaps all but one, you won't find life. But in the universe that happens to have the right values for life, you do.

Put more simply, if you pick a card from a deck you have a fairly low chance that it will be the ace of spades. However, if I deal out a deck to 52 people, someone is going to have that card. The multiverse theory explains our situation as being akin to the latter, in which all the universes are dealt and the one that is dealt the right values for life is the one in which we find life.

I understand what Susskind is thinking but you are not taking into consideration what I said above. We are not talking about picking one card from 52 but one card in a deck of an infinite number of cards. You could keep picking from that infinite deck for all eternity and never pick the ace of spades.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Ah, that's better. Thanks for the clarification. Let's assume for a moment that changing the strength of gravity would create a Universe dominated by either red or blue stars. Why should that prevent life from forming?

Because we require stars that enabled the formation of planets:
"If the electromagnetic force were to be even slightly stronger relative to the other fundamental forces, all stars would be red dwarfs, and planets would not form. Or if it were a little weaker, all stars would be very hot, and thus short-lived."
McMullin, E. (2008). Tuning fine-tuning. Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning (Cambridge Astrobiology). Cambridge University Press.

Red dwarf systems are currently considered good candidates for life.

Eh...sort of. Certainly they are considered good candidates for habitable zones, but that's more because of the fact that they are so prevalent and life could exist on orbiting planets. Whether or not life, and in particular complex life (extremophiles can live just about everywhere), is another matter. While I know of at least some researchers who argue Red Dwarfs can support life, and although I can't claim to keep up on the literature in astrobiology and related fields as much as I do most of the others I follow, it seems like the majority look at these stars in terms of HZ's because of orbiting planets.

As for blue stars, their short lifespan may prevent something like humans from evolving, but not life itself.

It's somewhat of a moot point, as the gravitational constant, precise though it be, is both related to and dwarfed by the cosmological constant.

If you change the constant Λ by .000,000,00,0000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001, there'd be no universe.

It is true that for any constant that doesn't change the fact that there would exist some universe with something to live on, we can imagine life totally different from anything that lives and that could develop. However, many of the constants/parameters are of that type: small changes gets us a universe without stars, let alone planets (or no universe).

All of this did make me come to a (somewhat off-topic) realization. Young Earth creationists often argue that the speed of light could have been greatly different in the past (in an attempt to explain why we can see stars and galaxies that are more than 10,000 light-years away). If those same YECs also hold to the fine-tuning argument, then they have boxed themselves in: if they believe that the speed of light could have been thousands of times higher in the past and yet things like stars, planets and living creatures could still exist under those conditions, then that would undermine their acceptance of the FTA. This is because changing the speed of light changes many different natural values as well (such as the charge on the electron, the strength of the electromagnetic force, the rate at which orbits decay, the size of atoms and the strength of atomic bonds, etc.). So admitting to the possibility of a great change in the speed of light would simultaneously weaken the FTA (for them, at least).

Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. Nice!

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I understand what Susskind is thinking

Just to be clear: you realize he is arguing that fine-tuning isn't fine-tuning given the multiverse cosmology he refers to (albeit I think with his own special name)?

but you are not taking into consideration what I said above.

I did. Perhaps I wasn't clear about what happens when you talk about selecting one out of an infinite number of outcomes.

You could keep picking from that infinite deck for all eternity and never pick the ace of spades.

1) It isn't really accurate (and I can't see it being helpful) to think of this as picking possible outcomes (I used that analogy just to explain why Susskind favors a multiverse cosmology). As long as we're talking physics, often enough a quantum system has an infinite number of values for some observable, but we will only end up with one value (this is unbelievably over-simplified, but I don't wish to get bogged down in the technicalities of QM). We don't keep trying for a value, we just get one.
2) Given any infinite set of possibilities s.t. the set is either infinitely dense (such as the rationals), uncountably infinite (such as the reals), or consisting only of equally probable outcomes (any infinite set), the probability of any outcome is 0.

Probability distribution functions are frequently continuous. Continuity means that the set of outcomes consists of all reals in the interval [0,1]. That number of outcomes is larger than the set of rational numbers. It is uncountably infinite. The probability of any outcome is 0 because it is infinitesimally small.

The rational numbers are similar. They are countably infinite, but are infinitely dense (there exist infinitely many "points" between any two "points"). Thus, for any particular value, the probability is 0 because the value is infinitesimally small (we've removed the limits by removing the reals).

If the probabilities are countably infinite but not infinitely dense, then we could have non-zero probabilities for outcomes. However, if all outcomes are equally likely, we're dividing 1 by infinity, and we still get 0.

Yet in all of these cases, in actuality we still get outcomes.

 

[Bunyip]

And yet, somehow, I have friends, followers, and those members I communicate with or am connected with outside of this discussion board.


There are counter-examples to this claim in this thread alone.



Of course they would seem so. You do not know logic, physics, probability, mathematics, etc. You've demonstrated this repeatedly. If you object to my posts, please stop responding. If I wished for completely ignorant responses, I have 3-year-old nieces I could pose such questions to.

LOL Most of our exchanges have been you posting on my threads mate. You ask for a discussion on fine tuning, but refuse to even consider any of the arguments against it. I would have cited research from formal peer review, rather than Krauss' brilliant article - but of course it doesn't appear in formal physics research, only in apologetics.
Why? Because it is useless.

 

[Bunyip]

That part is easy, the argument is that it is fine tuned for life as we know it. I suppose the OP doesn't actually state that explicitly, although it's implied by the anthropic principle

The problem is that if it was created by a God, it would not need to be fine tuned - God could create us so that we live in vacuum, or on the surface of the sun. He could create life to live in whatever circumstances he wants. The universe if it is fine tuned for life would make God redundant.

 

[Bunyip]

If you change the constant Λ by .000,000,00,0000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001, there'd be no universe.

Which means that the cosmological constant has to be what it is in order to have a universe at all, so the probability of any other constant is zero.

 

[lovemuffin]

The problem is that if it was created by a God, it would not need to be fine tuned - God could create us so that we live in vacuum, or on the surface of the sun. He could create life to live in whatever circumstances he wants. The universe if it is fine tuned for life would make God redundant.

This isn't really correct, I don't think. It's true that if the fine tuning argument succeeds, it doesn't establish the existence of "God" as far as any traditional theology. Same objections as to the cosmological argument. But if it succeeds it implies that there is something which caused the constants to take on the values they did, because they are unlikely to amount to brute facts. That something is not specified. There's no reason to fill in the something with "God" but it doesn't preclude doing so either. The argument that you are making, which is about the plausibility of God creating the universe in one way versus another, might be an argument against filling in the "something" with "God", but if so it's not a consequence of the fine tuning argument itself

Interestingly, the argument from it being implausible for a God with certain attributes to have created the universe in this way versus some other is more or less the same as the problem of evil. I think in the case of the problem of evil it's quite strong, but as just an argument from incredulity as far as the ability to live on the sun, it's rather weak.

 

[Bunyip]

This isn't really correct, I don't think. It's true that if the fine tuning argument succeeds, it doesn't establish the existence of "God" as far as any traditional theology. Same objections as to the cosmological argument. But if it succeeds it implies that there is something which caused the constants to take on the values they did, because they are unlikely to amount to brute facts. That something is not specified. There's no reason to fill in the something with "God" but it doesn't preclude doing so either. The argument that you are making, which is about the plausibility of God creating the universe in one way versus another, might be an argument against filling in the "something" with "God", but if so it's not a consequence of the fine tuning argument itself

Interestingly, the argument from it being implausible for a God with certain attributes to have created the universe in this way versus some other is more or less the same as the problem of evil. I think in the case of the problem of evil it's quite strong, but as just an argument from incredulity as far as the ability to live on the sun, it's rather weak.

Well why would god need a universe fine tuned so that life can emerge and evolve naturally without the need for interference from a God? A universe created by God for life would not need to obey any set parameters whatsoever.

 

[lovemuffin]

Well why would god need a universe fine tuned so that life can emerge and evolve naturally without the need for interference from a God? A universe created by God for life would not need to obey any set parameters whatsoever.

When I say the argument is weaker I mean because it depends on nothing except a human intuition about the internal thought process of a supposed omnipotent being. Who knows why a god would create the universe in one way versus another? There isn't any rational basis for speculation, and it's easy to dismiss the argument as involving an excessively anthropomorphic conception of God. The problem of evil is a strong argument not because it asks "why A instead of B" (why evil instead of no evil) but because it points out an apparent logical incompatibility between the universe we observe and the postulated attributes of God (omnipotence and goodness).

 

[nazz]

Just to be clear: you realize he is arguing that fine-tuning isn't fine-tuning given the multiverse cosmology he refers to (albeit I think with his own special name)?

Yes, I followed that but my argument was that his proposition that a multiverse somehow makes this seem like less than fine tuning doesn't hold up.

I did. Perhaps I wasn't clear about what happens when you talk about selecting one out of an infinite number of outcomes.

1) It isn't really accurate (and I can't see it being helpful) to think of this as picking possible outcomes (I used that analogy just to explain why Susskind favors a multiverse cosmology). As long as we're talking physics, often enough a quantum system has an infinite number of values for some observable, but we will only end up with one value (this is unbelievably over-simplified, but I don't wish to get bogged down in the technicalities of QM). We don't keep trying for a value, we just get one.
2) Given any infinite set of possibilities s.t. the set is either infinitely dense (such as the rationals), uncountably infinite (such as the reals), or consisting only of equally probable outcomes (any infinite set), the probability of any outcome is 0.

Probability distribution functions are frequently continuous. Continuity means that the set of outcomes consists of all reals in the interval [0,1]. That number of outcomes is larger than the set of rational numbers. It is uncountably infinite. The probability of any outcome is 0 because it is infinitesimally small.

The rational numbers are similar. They are countably infinite, but are infinitely dense (there exist infinitely many "points" between any two "points"). Thus, for any particular value, the probability is 0 because the value is infinitesimally small (we've removed the limits by removing the reals).

If the probabilities are countably infinite but not infinitely dense, then we could have non-zero probabilities for outcomes. However, if all outcomes are equally likely, we're dividing 1 by infinity, and we still get 0.

Yet in all of these cases, in actuality we still get outcomes.

I really have no idea what you are really saying here (unfortunately this happens a lot when we try to converse). That being the case I don't see a rebuttal to what I stated (maybe it is there but I am not getting it). In any event your analogy of 52 people picking one card out of a 52 card deck was a poor one.

 

[Bunyip]

When I say the argument is weaker I mean because it depends on nothing except a human intuition about the internal thought process of a supposed omnipotent being. Who knows why a god would create the universe in one way versus another? There isn't any rational basis for speculation, and it's easy to dismiss the argument as involving an excessively anthropomorphic conception of God. The problem of evil is a strong argument not because it asks "why A instead of B" (why evil instead of no evil) but because it points out an apparent logical incompatibility between the universe we observe and the postulated attributes of God (omnipotence and goodness).

Yeah, I completely understand your point. It is a question of faith, not physics. And yes, I agree that the problem of evil is a more useful argument.

 

[nazz]

The problem is that if it was created by a God, it would not need to be fine tuned - God could create us so that we live in vacuum, or on the surface of the sun. He could create life to live in whatever circumstances he wants. The universe if it is fine tuned for life would make God redundant.

That makes a lot of assumptions about the possible creator of the universe. I'm of the opinion that omnipotence is a logical impossibility so that limits the possible creation scenarios. Human beings cannot live in a vacuum (for very long) nor on the "surface" of the sun. So we would have to be something entirely different than what we are.

 

[nazz]

Well why would god need a universe fine tuned so that life can emerge and evolve naturally without the need for interference from a God? A universe created by God for life would not need to obey any set parameters whatsoever.

I could imagine some kind of spiritual beings that could live under any circumstances. But that is not what physical beings are. Maybe the designer of this universe wanted it to be just as it is. Have you considered that possibility?

 

[Bunyip]

That makes a lot of assumptions about the possible creator of the universe. I'm of the opinion that omnipotence is a logical impossibility so that limits the possible creation scenarios. Human beings cannot live in a vacuum (for very long) nor on the "surface" of the sun. So we would have to be something entirely different than what we are.

Sure, but I think that is the crux of the matter - it is all drawn from assumptions. In terms of an argument for God it is very much akin to presuppositional apologetics. It does not really translate from theology and apologetics into meaningful physics.

 

[nazz]

I do have a question LegionOnamaMoi if you know the answer. In another discussion of this someone suggested that if all the constants were shifted just a little in tandem we could still get this universe. Do you think that is accurate?