The fine-tuning argument for God's existence

[El_Machinae]

I have no problem with the idea that there are some meta-laws necessary for our universe to exist.

The problem with saying that 'our universe is improbable' is that this statement requires a theory/model/system by which universes are created. You need to know what the underlying meta-laws are. We just cannot do that, we don't know. The best we have are theories that can be derived from the physical laws we know plus the ideas we can generate out of our imaginations.

So, to say "our universe only has a 1x10^60 chance of coming into being" requires knowing the underlying system. You can only say "heads, 50% of the time" on a cointoss because you know the underlying laws. We don't know if we're on a fair coin, a two-headed coin, or a multi-faced die. We cannot tell. We can only tell that we're standing on "heads"

I think there is a major with this God hypothesis.

"I cannot imagine that we live in a 10^60 multiverse*, ergo we live in a universe where God could've created any of 10^120 combinations He wanted". In other words, you're proposing an underlying set of meta-laws that are actually more impressive than the ones that comes out of the maths.

I have no problem with idea of a fundamental meta-cause. Giving this meta-cause sentience is a ginormous leap. To the best of our knowledge, the point of our universe is to maximally increase entropy over time. And to destroy hydrogen.

*Supposing this is what comes of out the physics. We don't believe it until there's evidence, but I think the system that predicted anti-matter decades ahead of experiment or that predicted Inflation decades ahead of experiments (i.e., the maths around the underlying laws) should get some leeway.

 

[PhroX]

Yeah, El Machinae pretty much said what was coming to my mind as I was reading this thread. Just because small variations in constants would prevent the universe forming does not neccesarily mean that the chances of them being the values they are are similarly small. Why? Because we simply don't know enough about how the universe came into being to know the ranges that those constants could have taken. It might well be that, due to the properties of whatever existed "before" (as much as that term makes any sense in the absence of time) the universe, these constants could only vary by +/- 10^(-70). And if that's the case, the fact that they fall within the +/-10^(-60) range needed for the universe/life to exist is not at all remarkable. In fact it would be inevitable.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Still, there's an even more fundamental reason why the fine-tuning argument doesn't work, in my opinion, and this is that it assumes that there's something intrinsically interesting and explanation-requiring about the fact that the universe permits life. Yes, if gravity had been very slightly different there would be no life. Well, so what? We care about that because it affects us, but why suppose that there's some kind of objective significance to it?

Consciousness (maybe)
Though Consciousness could of course - in spite of its kinda miraculous character - be as trivial / significant as any phenomena from an unbiased POV and therefor even if life had to be created for this new quality to exist, it does not follow that hence this does mean anything.

Otherwise an excellent post I think most if not even all points were already raised somewhere, but at times only implicit or lacking in clarity and/or depth. But there we seem to really have it all, and in a manner everyone should be able to understand.
Not much else to say. But I am curious what unicorny will respond to that.

 

[El_Machinae]

Now, it's weird, too. I have no specific objection to the idea that our universe was intentionally created. The fact that it's possible that we could create pocket universes, and various simulation arguments convince me of the feasibility of that. I also have no problem with the idea of objective morality. I see no reason to connect those two ideas, though. There's no reason why our putative creators would've knowingly created objective morality, in the same way that I don't really care about the fate of any specific carbon atom when I build a campfire.

Like I said, our universe is finely tuned to crush hydrogen out of existence. It's hard to deduce the presence or intentions of any creators, or even if I should care.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Morality is just the way we see, practicaly understand and try to tune our lives to the extraphysical (mental, psychic)laws. We recognise that "obeying" these laws -- just like "living in tune" with physical laws -- gives us more enjoyable existence.
All these laws represent different form of interconnected levels/worlds of existence ultimately leading to whatever triggered the existence of physical universe.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Consciousness (maybe)
Though Consciousness could of course - in spite of its kinda miraculous character - be as trivial / significant as any phenomena from an unbiased POV and therefor even if life had to be created for this new quality to exist, it does not follow that hence this does mean anything.

Bingo. Without consciousness nothing has any meaning. We can discuss and talk of some kind of meaning or how things are tuned only becouse of existence of consciousness. If consciousness is trivial then nothing can be grave...
Also the consciousness is the one and only miracle. Once you know its secret there can be no other miracle...


let us all get ready for our cyborg future

Link to video.

8:39 speaks about God and:

you can put all the laws of physics on one sheet of paper...

 

[timtofly]

I can understand your logic. But I don't see that the mystical explanation of "It was God wot done it" helps in any way.

That would be like an engineer building a bridge, people coming out to look at it and saying "Behold! A miracle!"

The bridge was a "miracle" to those who did not have an education in bridge building nor ever even had knowledge that something was actually on the other side of the chasm.

Education is what takes the wow factor out of a miracle. The point of a miracle is that one can do things that cannot be explained, not that they cannot be done. In theory the more education humans have the less they "need" a miracle, yet some humans can only function if something "miraculous" happens ever so often.

On the other hand we have skeptics who refuse to acknowledge that something spiritual or mystic can also be explained in scientific terms, because they need something that is not spiritual or mystic, but is materialistic that they can use to do away with the spiritual aspects of life.

If people actually sat down and thought about it, humans are the only irrational objects in the universe. Everything else is designed to work together in harmony, even animals and beast although they may kill and eat each other. The laws of nature and science point out that there is an organization to every thing but the human psyche. Even if there is a logical and materialistic reason why the brain works the way it does, the only thing left would be mechanical and we would cease to be human.

 

[Perfection]

We are only capable of living on a low percentage of the surface of a tiny sphere surrounded by remarkably deadly environs that extend unfathomable distances in all directions. As far as fine-tuned for life the universe is, it is only very marginally so.

If God fine-tuned the universe for life why didn't He do a better job?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

We are only capable of living on a low percentage of the surface of a tiny sphere surrounded by remarkably deadly environs that extend unfathomable distances in all directions. As far as fine-tuned for life the universe is, it is only very marginally so.

If God fine-tuned the universe for life why didn't He do a better job?

Who says the Dude is done?

 

[Perfection]

Why would God bother fine-tuning the universe if He was planning on monkeying with the variables later?

 

[Kennigit]

Why would God bother fine-tuning the universe if He was planning on monkeying with the variables later?

he probably got a girlfriend and stopped playing World Of Earthcraft

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Why would God bother fine-tuning the universe if He was planning on monkeying with the variables later?

I guess God believes in evolution and progress. What is worse God seems to believe in challenge too, enjoys it and had choosen man to execute a lot of it....

 

[timtofly]

Why would God bother fine-tuning the universe if He was planning on monkeying with the variables later?

God could even destroy it at whim, it seems. Any imaginable scenarios between the ability to create and destroy it are possible.

 

[Perfection]

God could even destroy it at whim, it seems. Any imaginable scenarios between the ability to create and destroy it are possible.

And that's what makes the fine-tuning argument for God not very compelling, because in the end it doesn't really answer the question of why does this universe exist (or why do we happen to be in this universe) and not some other one. If we can ascribe some rules to God's behavior, if He behaves in a certain way, then we should be able to see patterns of His actions in the universe. But without that, God doesn't really explain anything.

 

[Funky]

Kudos to Plotinus for thoroughly debunking the so-called cosmological argument. It must have taken a while to write those two long posts, but you did a very good job in pointing out the many flaws of the argument. The argument itself of course is not new and has been debunked by cosmologists many times before. Two fine examples can be found in the debates here and here.

All the whole cosmological argument is, is one big argument from ignorance. Even if we grant the premises - the universe had a beginning, it therefore must have had a cause, the laws of nature are fine-tuned for life - all it leaves us with is an open question, namely how this universe came to being. To say that we cannot think of any other explanation than that a god must have been the cause says more about our lack of imagination than anything else. It's no different than me saying lightning must be caused by Zeus because I can't think of a better explanation.

The amusing thing is that the cosmological argument's first premise used to go "everything that exists has a cause". When people started asking "well where did god come from then?" it was modified to "everything that begins to exist has a cause" and god was defined as having always existed, which is a fallacy of special pleading.

God itself has of course no explanatory power at all. By postulating a god, we are not actually explaning a phenomenon, we are simply replacing a mystery with a bigger mystery. Finally, even if we were to grant that a god was involved, at best it leads us to deism. It tells us nothing at all about theism, i.e. our distinct religious beliefs. This is the most absurd part of the whole argument: Even if we follow it to the end and decide that it is totally flawless, the theist still has all his work ahead of him. It leaves him where he started.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, the idea of an uncaused cause is a bit of a mind-bender. But you can see why people put it in their mapping of 'how things work'. So, I actually have no real problem with it.

Our current method of investigation is to chip away at the causes sequentially, working our way backwards. To say there's an infinite way to go is fine, but it's also okay to acknowledge that a 'mere' infinite of causes is non-intuitive.

The real leaps in fallacy start happening once you assign attributes to this UnCaused Cause. Insisting it's sentient is a infinitely sized leap already. Then "it watches you masturbate" is a second infinite sized leap.

 

[Plotinus]

Thank you, Funky, but be aware that the fine-tuning argument isn't the same thing as the cosmological argument. They're really quite different. Note also that there are different versions of the cosmological argument (just as there are of the teleological argument), and they don't all have the same weaknesses. Aquinas' version, for example, does not use "everything that exists has a cause" as a premise, and he expressly rejected the version that states "everything that begins to exist has a cause". Of course there are other serious flaws with his argument, but not the same ones that dog those versions. This is why we ought to be careful with the whole "cosmological argument", "teleological argument", and "ontological argument" categorisation in the first place, which was invented by Kant for polemical purposes and which obscures the fact that each category contains a whole range of arguments which may be quite different.

 

[Borachio]

Then "it watches you masturbate" is a second infinite sized leap.

If it hasn't got anything better to do than watch me do that I feel a bit sorry for it. Even I wouldn't want to watch myself.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

The real leaps in fallacy start happening once you assign attributes to this UnCaused Cause. Insisting it's sentient is a infinitely sized leap already. Then "it watches you masturbate" is a second infinite sized leap.

I atribute God to be supremely good since in most humans good is the inner tendency they try to execute. I atribute God to be supremely sentinent becouse I see consciousness emerging through the process of evolution out of seeming unconsciousness of material nature.
And finally I think of God as omnipresent:

Because this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being...

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

If it hasn't got anything better to do than watch me do that I feel a bit sorry for it. Even I wouldn't want to watch myself.

No need to feel sorry:

If we would understand God, we must renounce our egoistic & ignorant human standards or else ennoble and universalise them.