Is The Universe Fine Tuned for Human Life?

[We_Are_VENOM]

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I say yes.

This thread was created in order to discuss/debate what is called the argument from design (teleological argument), which is a classical argument for the existence of God.

For more on what fine tuning is as it pertains to the argument, please read this wikipedia article..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe

Now, it is well known and established in science, that the constants and values which govern our universe is mathematically precise.

How precise?

Well, please see this article by Dr. Hugh Ross...

https://wng.org/roundups/a-fine-tuned-u ... 1617224984

Excerpt...

"More than a hundred different parameters for the universe must have values falling within narrowly defined ranges for physical life of any conceivable kind to exist." (see above article for list of parameters).

Or..(in wiki article above, on fine tuning)..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tune ... e#Examples

When you read the articles, you will find that there isn't much room for error.

If you start with a highly chaotic, random, disordered big bang, the odds are astronomically AGAINST the manifestation of sentient, human life.

How disordered was the big bang at the onset of the expansion...well, physicist Roger Penrose calculated that the chances of life originating via random chance, was 1 chance in 10^10^123 ( The Emperor’s New Mind, pg. 341-344.....according to..

https://mathscholar.org/2017/04/is-the- ... 20universe.

That is a double exponent with 123 as the double!!

The only way to account for the fine tuning of our universe..there are only 3 possibilities..

1. Random chance: Well, we just addressed this option..and to say not likely is the biggest understatement in the history of understatements.

If you have 1 chance in 10^10^123 to accomplish something, it is safe to say IT AIN'T HAPPENING.

2. Necessity: This option is a no-go..because the constants and parameters could have been any values..in other words, it wasn't necessary for the parameters to have those specific values at the onset of the big bang.

3. Design: Bingo. First off, since the first two options are negated, then #3 wins by default...and no explanation is even needed, as it logically follows that #3 wins (whether we like it or not). However, I will provide a little insight.

You see, the constants and values which govern our universe had to have been set, as an INITIAL CONDITION of the big bang. By "set", I mean selectively chosen.

It is impossible for mother nature to have pre-selected anything, because nature is exactly what came in to being at the moment of the big bang.

So, not only (if intelligent design is negated) do we have a singularity sitting around for eons and expanding for reasons which cannot be determined (which is part of the absurdity), but we also have this singularity expanding with very low entropy (10^10^!23), which completely defies everything we know about entropy, to a degree which has never been duplicated since.

So, we have a positive reasons to believe in intelligent design...an intelligent design...a Cosmic Creator/Engineer...

We have positive reasons to believe in a God of the universe.

In closing...

1. No need to downplay fine tuning, because in the wiki article, you will see the fact that scientists are scrambling to try to find an explanation for fine tuning..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tune ... planations

If there was no fine tuning, then you wouldn't need offer any explanations to explain it away, now would you?

2. Unless you can provide a fourth option to the above three options, then please spare me the "but there may be more options" stuff.

If that is what you believe, then tell me what they are, and I will gladly ADD THEM TO THE LIST AND EXPLAIN WHY THEY ALSO FAIL.

3. 10^10^123. Ouch.

[brunumb]

If the universe had been fine tuned specifically to support life like us then we'd see what we do see, extremely specific values for certain constants that by sheer coincidence just so happen to be exactly the values needed for us to exist.

If it hadn't been fine tuned specifically to support life like us then we'd still see what we do see. The universe exists as it does and there is no compelling reason to think that it was all created just so that humans could exist. Billions of galaxies, trillions of stars and planets, all so that life could emerge on some backwater planet in the outer suburbs of the Milky Way. Really? The creator could have done a little fine-tuning on its thinking before it came up with that idea, not to mention fine-tuning its holy book so that it wasn't such a confusing mish-mash.

[brunumb]

6 Problems with the Fine-Tuning Argument



1) Most of the universe is inhospitable to human life and would instantly kill us.

2) It considers the odds of producing OUR life in particular instead of any possible kind of life an all-powerful God could have created.

3) It assumes the universe was made to help life survive and not that life adapted to survive in the universe.

4) It assumes that the “constants” and other attributes of the universe that make life possible were random.

5) It dismisses alternatives such as the multiverse hypothesis as having no evidence.

6) It proposes that God went out of his way to design humans with specific weaknesses just so he could design the universe to accommodate them.

[Inquirer]

If the universe had been fine tuned specifically to support life like us then we'd see what we do see, extremely specific values for certain constants that by sheer coincidence just so happen to be exactly the values needed for us to exist.

If it hadn't been fine tuned specifically to support life like us then we'd still see what we do see. The universe exists as it does and there is no compelling reason to think that it was all created just so that humans could exist. Billions of galaxies, trillions of stars and planets, all so that life could emerge on some backwater planet in the outer suburbs of the Milky Way. Really? The creator could have done a little fine-tuning on its thinking before it came up with that idea, not to mention fine-tuning its holy book so that it wasn't such a confusing mish-mash.

None of that speculation alters the fact that a miniscule change to the cosmological constant or the initial conditions and life would never develop, that's what the cosmologists and theoretical physicists conclude.

[Inquirer]

6 Problems with the Fine-Tuning Argument



1) Most of the universe is inhospitable to human life and would instantly kill us.

2) It considers the odds of producing OUR life in particular instead of any possible kind of life an all-powerful God could have created.

3) It assumes the universe was made to help life survive and not that life adapted to survive in the universe.

4) It assumes that the “constants” and other attributes of the universe that make life possible were random.

5) It dismisses alternatives such as the multiverse hypothesis as having no evidence.

6) It proposes that God went out of his way to design humans with specific weaknesses just so he could design the universe to accommodate them.

I'd be embarrassed to post that, I mean really, "Prophet of Zod"?

[We_Are_VENOM]

To maybe clear up another point, from the opening post:

"If you start with a highly chaotic, random, disordered big bang, the odds are astronomically AGAINST the manifestation of sentient, human life."

Apologize for the confusion.

This was hypothetical based on what we should expect to happen if we start off with a highly chaotic, random, disordered big bang..

Since that is what happens in 99.9% of occurrences that we observe through any experiment that has ever been conducted, it makes no sense as to why the big bang was the .1% exception.

Post #35 (page 4):
"You are continuously placing the cart before the horse and you're not addressing the bigger issue of how can low entropy have been an initial condition of the big bang...and how could those parameters have been so mathematically precise from the onset?"

Please clarify. Were the initial conditions of the Big Bang high or low entropy?

Astronomically low.

[Inquirer]

Either it was not constrained and God chose a very specific value or it was constrained and God chose a very specific constraint.

An example of a logical fallacy known as the ‘false dilemma’. You have included God as a supporting clause in each case when it’s not necessary to do so.

That's incorrect. What I said above is to show that by arguing it was not tuned (that there was just no option for the constant to be otherwise) one cannot eliminate a tuner. To argue it was constrained, could only ever be the value X is to argue that it was still tuned but in a different way, selecting a value is no different to devising a process that dictates a value.

Took me a while to work through this. Fair enough, and if you want to restate your claim a different way that avoids ambiguity (e.g. words like ‘selecting’ and ‘dictates’), then I’m happy to read it.

I suggest that question be directed at Jose. My choice of "constrained" and "dictates" was prompted by Jose's statement: "I've yet to see anyone demonstrate that it's possible for the constants to even be different".

Which is an attempt to imply that the matter is closed because the constants can only ever take a single value, i.e. something has "dictated" the value.

The fact that these are constants and not functions also seems to have escaped Jose's attention.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #124]

I get it, chemistry is non-random, that was never contested, it is the reason, the cause of the laws governing atomic orbitals and so on, that I asked you about. You said "chemistry is non random" so tell me why? why is the universe not a random jumble of chaos?

Who cares why? It is how physics and chemistry developed and how it works.

How do you know that the laws governing the behavior of matter "developed"?

I've never claimed to know why, and don't care.

So in which case you can't really answer my original question to you, which was:

Very well, so next question, to what do we attribute this unexplained absence of random behavior?

You "answered" that but all you did was describe the nature of atomic orbitals, describing observations does not constitute an explanation.

So you did claim to know when you confidently responded to my question with a mini-lecture on orbitals, yet of course nothing was actually explained!

It has no bearing on my life in any way whatsoever, or in how life developed on this planet. I think the prevailing theory is that at the initial stages of the universe it was so hot and chaotic that only naked quarks and electrons were running around bashing into each other, then it cooled enough for the quarks to form protons and neutrons, then it cooled further allowing electrons to join the party and atoms to form, then eventually H and He, which eventually formed stars, etc. and some 9 billion years later our star formed, and Earth came in existence.

Yes that is what we think happened, again, this is a description not an causal explanation.

My clock starts 4.6 billion years ago for asking how life developed because we do actually know something about how the planets formed, and how the geology and atmosphere of Earth developed over time. We have a chance to get serious about the question rather than postulating the fine tuneness of the initial conditions of the Big Bang, or the physical constants, etc. ... neither of which relate to HOW life arose from nonliving matter (if it did). Chemistry worked as it does before that process started, so it is irrelevant HOW atoms developed to have different configurations of their outer shell electrons causing nonrandomness in chemical bonding and reactions. A useless diversion as far as how life began on this planet.

The point is that none of what you describe could ever have happened unless various constants had very very very specific values, such specificity suggests a cause, at least to me with my science education anyway.

[We_Are_VENOM]

If they reacted to create NaCl in solution, or amino acids, would you be impressed? It depends on what you throw in of course, but the point was that chemical reactions are not random as you seem to be assuming.

Nonsense.

The Swamp Thing bit was analogous to chemicals reacting, and human beings resulting (eventually).

Because after all, that is what ultimately happened, isn't it?

These are identical. If the second law is valid, then it can't be violated, therefore the entropy at the Big Bang had to be lower than it is now (due to the second law).

I agree.

Life is fine tuned for life to exist? Not sure what that means, but it isn't just life that wouldn't exist if the gravitational (or other constants) had random values different than they have now.

Um, that is a point that I've been making from jump street.

Glad you are finally here, after 10+ pages in.

You keep singling out life as if it were the only thing what would have played out differently had the constants been different. Matter itself may not exist, or antimatter would have won out over matter (and we still don't know exaclty why that happened), etc. Life existing, or not, is a miniscule, insignificant part of the equation.

Again, that is a point that I've been making from the jump.

I had been saying (in this thread and also Jose's), that if the values were different even to the tiniest degree, you wouldn't even have atoms, much less chemistry.

You are making it seem as if you had this sudden epiphany about this when I've been saying it all along.

Really? Here are some excerpts:

0:44: "Now usually, when people talk about this fine tuning, they're talking about something quite different. They refer to the constants of nature."

Yeah, um...listening comprehension.

He is saying that "when people talk about this fine tuning, they're not talking about the fine tuning of the initial conditions of the Big Bang, they are talking about the fine tuning of the constants of nature".

He is not insinuating that the constants of nature aren't fine tuned. He is saying there is something even bigger going on, namely, the fine tuning of the initial conditions..and that should be the real focus.

That is his point.

Then they go on from the end of that statement, until the 2:52 time you mention talking about fine tuning of the physical constants (NOT the initial conditions of the Big Bang) and how their present values may be required for life as we know it, but different values may produce life of different kinds. None of this relates to the 10^10^123 number.

If the initial conditions of the Big Bang weren't fine tuned, then the physical constants wouldn't even matter (no pun intended).

The physical constants (different values) may have produced life of different kinds (keyword: may), but the initial conditions are independent of the physical constants and need to be fine tuned for ANY kind of life to exist.

2:52: "Now there's fine tuning in the origin of the universe, which has to do with the second law of thermodynamics, it has to have been extraordinarily precise, if fact is has to have been at least as precise as 1 part in 10^10^123 ..."

He clearly states "there is fine tuning in the ORIGIN of universe", of which you are on the record of saying there isn't....so the answer to the thread title AND the video title, according to Penrose and every other physicist that you've been presented, is YES.

I had been saying from jump (go back and check) that low entropy was a prerequisite for life to originate, PERIOD.

Then he goes on to point out that the precision needed in the (few) physical constants is nothing by comparison and are dwarfed by the precision needed for the initial condition of the Big Bang to get a universe identical to ours, for the entire universe, and that the anthropic argument is useless for explaining this precision level.

"4:10: That number is ... the precision is so incredibly enormous ... because you have to do it for the whole universe. If you just had to do it for our solar system, or for our galaxy, the number would be ridiculously smaller."

There is no comment on quantifying "ridiculously smaller", but obviously that would reduce the 10^10^123 number drastically, and it does not refer to life originating in any way, but in a universe identical to ours existing from the total number of initial conditions of the Big Bang. You've stolen the 10^10^123 number as a probability for life originating by pure chance, and that number has nothing to do with a probability for life originating.

Well first off, you are simply confusing what Penrose is implying.

You say above (about video)..

"Then he goes on to point out that the precision needed in the (few) physical constants is nothing by comparison and are dwarfed by the precision needed for the initial condition of the Big Bang to get a universe identical to ours"

What he is saying is, the precision of the physical constants are NOTHING compared to the precision needed for the initial conditions...and this is OBIVOUS because even with the erroneous 10^123 number that I originally gave, that number is STILL an astronomically large number, but compared to 10^10^123, the number is chump change.

That is what Penrose is saying...he is saying never mind the 10^123 for the constants (in general), the 10^10^123 is meat and potatoes of the matter.

*And BTW, the 10^123 is actually the value of the cosmological constant, but I had mistaken it for the initial condition value*

So I fail to see how you giving the breakdown of the video works in your favor.

We have no idea what the exact conditions at the Big Bang were. Our math says it was a singularity, meaning we don't understand it completely.

LOL.

So, you keep reminding me time and time again that 10^10^123 are the calculations relating to the initial conditions of the Big Bang...

Yet..

You turn around and then say we have no idea what the exact conditions of the Big Bang was, which is contradictory to being able to calculate the initial conditions for the Big Bang.

Not only that, but you are contradicting Penrose himself, in 2:12-23 of the video he states we know the circumstances required for our kind of life, which, of course, BEGINS with the fine tuning of the initial conditions of the Big Bang.

Yes, but he used it as the precision needed for the initial condition of the Big Bang in order for that event to produce a universe just like ours out of all the other possibilities. My point all along (see post 34 again ... why no response to that?)

You've ignored a lot of prior post...namely, the part where I questioned why are we having this discussion when you aren't concerned with the how's or the why.

is that you are using the 10^10^123 number as a probability for life originating by pure chance, and referencing the Penrose calculation as a basis, when he arrived at that number without any consideration of whether life would arise, or not. That is the crux of the issue.

Nonsense. The question that was posed to Penrose is; is the Universe fine tuned for life...and he answered yes.

Point blank, period.

[We_Are_VENOM]

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I will respond to this unusual substance.

6 Problems with the Fine-Tuning Argument

1) Most of the universe is inhospitable to human life and would instantly kill us.

Syllogism test..

1. Most of the ocean's water will instantly destroy the picture which is on the canvas of my freshly painted painting.

2. Therefore, the picture on my freshly painted painting was not designed.

Non sequitur. Fallacious reasoning.

Test; Failed.

Next...

2) It considers the odds of producing OUR life in particular instead of any possible kind of life an all-powerful God could have created.

Syllogism test..

1. I am considering the odds of Ford Motor Company producing the Model T automobile instead of any possible kind of automobile an all-powerful God can/could have created.

2. Therefore, the Model T would not be designed.

Non sequitur. Fallacious reasoning.

Test; Failed.

Next...

3) It assumes the universe was made to help life survive and not that life adapted to survive in the universe.

Strawman. Adaptation is observed in nature and no one is denying that.

Next...

4) It assumes that the “constants” and other attributes of the universe that make life possible were random.

Strawman. It doesn't assume random chance, but rather rules out random chance.

Next..

5) It dismisses alternatives such as the multiverse hypothesis as having no evidence.

As stated in the OP, if the multiverse is given as a hypothesis to fine tuning, then that itself is evidence of fine tuning.

If there was no fine tuning, then you wouldn't need to formulate hypothesis to explain fine tuning.

Next...

6) It proposes that God went out of his way to design humans with specific weaknesses just so he could design the universe to accommodate them.

Syllogism test..

1. The belief in the Wright Bros is based on the proposition that those guys went out their way to accommodate the specific weakness' in human mobility.

2. Therefore, the Wright Brothers did not exist.

Non sequitur. Fallacious reasoning.

Test; failed.

Or, here is a syllogism test..

1. Sound/valid arguments can't be refuted.

2. The arguments you provided were refuted.

3. Therefore, your arguments are not sound/valid.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #137]

The point is that none of what you describe could ever have happened unless various constants had very very very specific values, such specificity suggests a cause, at least to me with my science education anyway.

And my science education says the "cause" was more likely nature and how it developed naturally (from a Big Bang event, or some other natural event). You keep going on about how the physical constants are so precise in their values and that other values would preclude life (at least life identical to that on Earth I presume). So what? That in no way shows that any "fine tuner" was involved. It is equally well explained as just how things shook out after the origin event (whatever that was) and the values had to be what they ended up at in order for matter, etc. to materialize as it is now. Life developed on Earth many billions of years later, and if it never had the universe would have continued along just as it is apart from a minor change in the nature of one tiny, insignificant and irrelevant planet in an insignificant galaxy in a universe containing billions of them.

You're entire (incredibly weak) argument is that the physical constants have very precise values, you can't fathom how this could happen without a creator or fine tuner, therefore this fine tuner exists and tweaked the constants so that life could develop. Imagining a creator being isn't explaining anything either by the way ... it is just pulling the usual "god did it" explanation for lack of a better (and more realistic) idea.