Our Universe: one of many or specially designed?

[QED]

Design amounts to a process of selection. Human designers design things by making intelligent selections. Our Universe has a number of critical parameters that have no apparent reason for their values, but if these values were even slightly different, we wouldn't exist. This suggests to some that the values were carefully selected by a sentient being who had the intelligence to know the exact values required for our existence.

I've illustrated this scenario in the following picture:



Here our Universe, with it's critical values, is all that exists -- besides its sentient, designer-creator.

However, other forms of selection are possible. The simple act of observation can create its own selection Effect. In the illustration that follows I have drawn our Universe surrounded by numerous other universes. Within this ensemble the vast majority could be expected to have parameters that would not support life (at least in a form that would be recognizable to us). But a tiny number might. We could, therefore, have selected our own Universe as one from many, simply as a consequence of it having a favorable set of parameters for our existence.



If we are only considering the empirical evidence furnished by scientific observations then both scenarios would seem to be functionally equivalent. How then can we claim that the apparent fine-tuning implies a designer-creator when we can see this potential for ambiguity?

[island]

Cathar1950... we only have evidence for some "thing" that is moving forward in time and is constantly, (barely but apparently accelerating) increasing entropy.

Now, figure out how that might always be true because that's what you're being told without making unfounded leaps of faith and without projecting beyond what is known.

Think about it... there IS a right answer...

[island]

Certainly not in the process of making a particle accelerator large enough to hopefully view a Higgs particle

FYI: Pinning down the top quark has enabled experimentalists to recalculate the Higgs to a lower energy scale that is already within reach and actively being sought by the smaller colliders while we wait for them to fix the LHC.

I am confident that they will continue to increase the confidence level that there is no Higgs and no new physics to be found, because Einstein never made the "greatest blunder" that he thought that he'd made.

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073320.html

Theorists have predicted that a failure to find anything will cause particle theory to collapse, and my observation is that this is a necessary evil to many long-held yet unproven assumptions and ad hoc mechanisms that scientists have embraced for much too long.

http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/ ... ewett.html

[otseng]

I would have been only too happy to follow it all the way though in blue -- as I could at the beginning but once the analogy parted company with the logical role of the multiverse I could go no further.

Just a note about the story. I didn't present it to do be a direct analogy to what we're discussing here. But, more to be illustrative of the line of reasoning used. Also, it was an attempt to throw in some humor. But I guess that got missed too.

But anyways, you're right, the entire story cannot be taken literally and cannot be used as a direct comparison. But, let's see if we can try to modify the story to make it more relevant.

To make it relevant, Bob would have to come up with an explanation where the victim died by an unintentional cause. One way is that the bullet could have been randomly shot by someone and the shooter did not intend to kill the victim. Let's call the shooter Sid. Sid walks into his backyard and shoots a lot of bullets randomly into the air. By chance, a bullet happens to kill a person. Like the one of many universe scenario, the explanation then relies solely on chance and no intentional cause.

[Furrowed Brow]

Just a note about the story. I didn't present it to do be a direct analogy to what we're discussing here. But, more to be illustrative of the line of reasoning used. Also, it was an attempt to throw in some humor. But I guess that got missed too.

Perhaps we did. But there may be a good reason why. The line of reasoning used - from where I'm sitting - is vividly illustrative of the kind of reasoning needed to infer design.

[Furrowed Brow]

For the universe, nobody is asking, "what is the purpose of creation?" or "what is the purpose of the values of the physical constants?"

In which case the vales of the physical constants are what they are, and they are not fine tuned to any particular end.

The creator explanation doesn't require that the assumption that the universe is here for any particular purpose. The creator could've just created it on a whim and it would make no difference as a explanation.

And again if the creator was just playing dice then there is no fine tuning. But I think the "whim" distinction does not help your case E.g. I got my bike out the shed and went for a cycle on a whim, but my purpose was to burn some calories and get some fresh air.

Also, the inference of design derives from the empirical data and is not an assumption made beforehand.

Aarrrrhh!! No. Now how are we going to avoid an o yes it iso no it isnt debate?

we are dealing with forensics. That is, we have a set of data as a result of something that happened in the past. And we are trying to determine what happened.

Ok let me use someone elses analogy. Flew wrote about the invisible gardener. You might already be familiar with this story.

Anyhow story goes that two explorers come across a clearing in the jungle. One thinks the clearing is tended by a gardener the other does not. Let me tweak this story and apply it the physical constants. Both the believer Bill and unbeliever Ben are observing the same physical evidence. Bill has read lots of stuff on semantics whilst Bill has read stuff on forensics.

Bill: Whoa what a contrast! The clearing is obviously not like the rest of the jungle. There must be some special conditions that created the clearing.
Ben: Well obviouslyexcept I find it more accurate to say they are unique conditions not special..
Bill: And as there is a clearing this proves these "unique" conditions exist or existed at some point in the past.
Ben: Ok.
Bill: So once those unique conditions existed, the appearance of the clearing was inevitable.
Ben. I guess so.
Bill: that means it is unbelievable that the clearing could not have come into existence just here.
Ben: Errthat dont sound right. It might have been otherwise. The jungle did not have to have a clearing just here, or even a clearing at all.
Bill: Ben are we going to allow empty philosophical abstractions about unobserved possibilities or are we going to forensically analyse the evidence as it exists?
Ben (shuffling feat and mumbling in a subdue voice): forensic analysis of the evidence
Bill: Good. Moving on. So those conditions that created this clearing exist and are unique yes. You agreed that bit.
Ben: ErrI did didnt I.
Bill. And if they are unique they cant apply anywhere else. They can only apply to this clearing, otherwise they would not be unique.
Ben: ErrYes.
Bill: So it is impossible that this clearing could appear anywhere else in the jungle other than here.
Ben: Ummmerrr.yesno.I mean yes.
Bill: So the fact that this clearing exist proves that those unique conditions exist in order for this clearing to be here.
Ben: Ummoooh.errrhang on that aint right.
Bill: dont start quibbling with me down Ben. Youve agreed the conditions are unique, that the clearing was inevitable, that means the unique conditions exist in order for this clearing to be here.
Ben: But it depends what you mean by "in order". If you mean that in order for the clearing to exist there had to be some set of unique conditions. That's little more than an empty truism. If the clearing had appeared somewhere else then we would be talking about a different set of unique conditions.
Bill: But Ben that is just not being forensic or empirical because we have trampled all over this jungle and this is the only clearing. That this is the only clearing demonstrates just how finely tuned must its preconditions be.
Ben: Finely tuned! Whoa there Bill! Finely balanced is more accurate.
Bill: but the conditions are unique for there to be a clearing here. If they were different there would be no clearing. Therefore the conditions are tuned just right.
Ben: And if the clearing had appeared elsewhere then those different conditions would also be "tuned" just right. Cant you see the use of words like "tuning" are unwarranted.
Bill. No Ben you need to just look at the evidence to see it is warranted.
Ben. No Bill you need to start reading up on semantics.
Bill: But we are doing forensics not semantics.
Ben: obviously.

[island]

The analogy is designed to ignore and downplay the significance that is actually observed:

The jungle did not have to have a clearing just here, or even a clearing at all.

No, the jungle doesn't end up with a clearing by way any natural physical modeling in existence, so the conclusion is that there is something "special", rather than un-natural about it that we don't know the reason for.

We then try to account for this by either:

A) Looking for some good natural physical reason why the jungle would end up with a clearing that defies our current understanding of "natural".

B) Rationalize-away the appearance of "specialness" by positing an infinite number of jungles so that we can say that Al Gore did it in one of them.

C) Which is the route that the Furrowed Brow is taking isn't really an option, because willful ignorance of the fact that UN-naturalness indicates that something special is going on, doesn't change the fact that this is still true.

D) ...is of course that goddit, which is the un-natural explanation that isn't expected when the cause for every other effect for which we know the cause for, is natural.

The clearing is most apparently, UN-natural, yet you pretend that there is nothing apparently-special about it. That's why Richard Dawkins knows what he's talking about when he very reluctantly admits that the forces of nature are deployed in a very special way, but you do not.

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0512148

[Confused]

Hey, I could have held you to the point, but I let it slide... so should you...

See if you can figure out why I might have been insulted first... but yeah, I'm overly sensitive becuase my interest is more than casual.

What can I say, I am glutton for punishment. If I let it slide, I will learn how? Obviously the books I read are skewing my view of some things. If you have something educational to add to you insults, then by all means, bring it on. You won't be the first to embarrass me, and I doubt you will be the last. My only request is that you don't resort to paltry ad hominems without corrections.

[Confused]

Certainly not in the process of making a particle accelerator large enough to hopefully view a Higgs particle

FYI: Pinning down the top quark has enabled experimentalists to recalculate the Higgs to a lower energy scale that is already within reach and actively being sought by the smaller colliders while we wait for them to fix the LHC.

I am confident that they will continue to increase the confidence level that there is no Higgs and no new physics to be found, because Einstein never made the "greatest blunder" that he thought that he'd made.

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073320.html

Theorists have predicted that a failure to find anything will cause particle theory to collapse, and my observation is that this is a necessary evil to many long-held yet unproven assumptions and ad hoc mechanisms that scientists have embraced for much too long.

http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/ ... ewett.html

And what part of this FYI is suppose to negate anything I said about the Higgs particle. I am unsure what you are referring to in regards to no new physics to be found. Are you referring to no new elementary particles or are you saying that the particle theory will collapse to negate any current theories in regards to particles?

[island]

And what part of this FYI is suppose to negate anything

None, that's why it was an FYI. It was just a note to let you know that they've already agressively begun the hunt, and have already narrowed things down quite a bit.

A null result supports the physics that I referred in the first link, and I don't think that anybody will willingly look that far back for a carried flaw, until and unless quantum gravity and the standard model are in jeopardy, so that's what I want the LHC to confirm.

Unfortunately, it's all broke down right now...

[QED]

The clearing is most apparently, UN-natural, yet you pretend that there is nothing apparently-special about it. That's why Richard Dawkins knows what he's talking about when he very reluctantly admits that the forces of nature are deployed in a very special way, but you do not.

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0512148

Terms like special, unnatural and so on are so much part of our vocabulary that even professional authors, like Dawkins, might be expected to fall into traps made by themselves from time to time. I really don't know if he would agree with your exact same interpretation of the term "special" or not. I doubt it though.

How can we disentangle the workings of physics and biology that we are familiar with, from the question of other types that could exist in other universes governed by different laws? Special can only relate to the particular, in our case huge, hierarchies between the energy scales. Has anyone modelled other long-lasting environments with the capacity for evolution to sentience?

From the paper you quoted

At the present time, then, there is not a reliable environmental explanation for the observed value of the cosmological constant. Meanwhile, other attempts to use anthropic reasoning lead to predictions that are in wild disagreement with observations [66]. But objections to the credibility of the apparently-successful predictions of the multiverse idea have equal force when applied to the apparently-unsuccesful predictions; whether or not the idea is falsifiable, it would be an exaggeration to say that its already been falsified.

More importantly, limitations in our current ability to calculate expectation values in
the multiverse are not evidence that there isnt some truth to the idea itself. If we eventually decide that environmental selection plays no important role in explaining the observed parameters of nature, it will be because we somehow come to believe that the parameters we measure locally are also characteristic of regions beyond our horizon, not because the very concept of the multiverse is aesthetically unacceptable or somehow a betrayal of the Enlightenment project of understanding nature through reason and evidence.

You seem to disagree and feel that the mere mention of a multiverse is a betrayal. I think it's a timely reminder of our true ignorance of our situation.