The fine-tuning argument for God's existence
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Old Hippy
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There's life in the center of the suns or black holes?Sorry, you lost me there.
no, but in a finely balanced universe, who knows, we only know that we happen to be in a universe where it happens to suit us, most of the time... a finely balanced universe where we thank god our children are not born with deformities, its the same Universal lottery we all live in
You seem to be confused. It's not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires.
I've quoted an example above: had the strong nuclear force been only 2% stronger than it is now (everything else being unchanged), no hydrogen would exist in the universe, i.e. no stars, hence, the universe would have been a dark cold place at -273 C with no form of life whatsoever.
Old Hippy
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and most probably called a finely balanced universe at -273C by God as he would appear to be the only one around , we just happen to live in one that supports the building blocks of life but it tells nothing more than that we live in it, and as you said earlier, we can not observe any other, we simply don't know if we won the lottery with this one, or it was some vast plan or even if it could have been any different,
Old Hippy
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exactly that
But life does exist because of it, so the question begs: why / how / who had fined tuned said cosmic parameters so such a degree to support life in the universe?
A 1% error in one constant would have abolished any hope for the establishment of life.
So it is a huge deal (maybe not to you for whatever nonsensical reasons), but most if not all physicists and cosmologilists are pondering such questions, such as Stephen Hawkings.
Ignorance is bliss.
So, if you believe God did it, that's great; otherwise, you're arguing from incredulity, because you can't conceive that such a thing could happen by chance. That does not in itself prove anything.
Let's assume that our universe popped into existence with a perfectly fine-tuned set of cosmic constants to permit life. You have two options here:
1) Either that the universe was designed & fine-tuned knowingly
2) It happened randomly out of a sample of billions if not an infinite number of universes out there.
#2 is problematic. Not only can you not prove the existence of other universes - rendering such a notion as non-scientific - and therefore, as mere fiction - but also this multiverse model will be in vain if it turns out that the mechanism that generates the multiverse in the first place must also be fine-tuned, for then one has only kicked the problem upstairs.
And, indeed, that does seem to be the case. The most popular candidate for the multiverse fictitious theory is the inflationary multiverse, as it appears to require fine-tuning. For example, M-theory, the theory which supposedly governs the multiverse, works only if there are exactly eleven dimensions—but it does nothing to explain why precisely that number of dimensions should exist. There will never be an answer.
So when someone brings out the multiverse thing, just ask them: isn’t the multiverse itself describable by specific physical laws? Don’t those laws themselves include constants and boundary conditions which must be fine-tuned in order for the multiverse to exist in the first place? Rinse & repeat forever.
2 is unfortunately true. 'Unscientific' is also not a synonym for 'false'. 'United will win tomorrow' is an unscientific statement, but it may well be true.
Or you could try:
3) These various constants have always existed for some reason (randomly or otherwise) and life grew out of those constants by random chance over billions of years.
The first is also extremely problematic, given that whoever supposedly designed the universe has never made themselves known in some quantifiable fashion. If you're going to insist that 2) requires an act of faith, so too must 1), by absolute virtue of the fact that such a hypothesis is entirely unknowable.
Without evidence (i.e. being scientific), it's fiction and therefore holds no merit.
"United will win tomorrow"? When you know that they're playing - in which case they have a 50-50% chance of winning, or when you know that a team called "United" exists? Therefore, there being a 7% chance of them winning on any day of the week?
You already know that there is a team called United. A more accurate analogy would be saying: "Team <generate a random alphanumerical sequence> will win tomorrow" - you can't know that that event will happen anyway.
So to fix your statement: "Team USH6aJSW will win tomorrow" - is an unscientific statement, but it may well be true. Team USH6aJSW could exist somewhere out there. That statement holds as much merit as saying "Other Universes exist out there". Because you can neither prove or know that either of them exist.
If you're going to insist that said constants existed for "some reason - randomly or otherwise" then you must either prove that a near infinite set of universes exists, out of which, our universe happens to be the lucky one OR just blindly believe that it just happened randomly which is no better than believing that a perfect entity designed it as such.
As for whether or not said entity made itself known, it's given you enough hints already. Thing is, it will never give you an absolute proof however, because there would be no point to life in that case.
if the universe is not designed but fine-tuned, there is no necessity to assume a multiverse (or several). No matter how unlikely it is, there just needs to be one universe with the right physics. As we postselect for our universe to be able to support life, we cannot make any assumptions about the number of universes, even if we exactly knew the probability distribution
Which is exactly why (a) it's pointless having such a discussion and (b) will never in itself prove or disprove the existence of God.
So you're saying that there's nothing note-worthy of our universe having the perfect set of cosmic constants to permit life? Even though a mere 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% deviation in any of the constants would have rendered any chance of life development null & void?
That's a greater leap of faith than believing in a higher power. I recommend watching this short video:
Link to video.
That really isn't, unless you're already predisposed to believing in God. Besides, if you're going to bring up William Lane Craig, I'm sure that even he can manage more than a simple argument from incredulity.
Have you watched the video above? To cite an example: had the gravitational constant been off by 1 part in 10^60, the universe would've either expanded way too fast or collapsed on itself by now, allowing no life to exist.
10^60 is a huge number. Even winning the lottery is trivial against it. So you either blindly believe that it happened by chance, or it's been set so by design by someone else. The latter is more likely and requires a far smaller leap of faith.
Or to put it a different way, either you believe that it happened by chance, or you blindly insist that it's been set so by design by someone else.
As I said, that in itself will never prove or disprove the existence of God, despite what WLC and his supporters believe. I am perfectly capable of believing in God without needing fallacies to convince myself of that.
As I said, that in itself will never prove or disprove the existence of God, despite what WLC and his supporters believe. I am perfectly capable of believing in God without needing fallacies to convince myself of that.
Not necessarily. It's which of the two scenario is more likely to you:
A 1 in 10^60 chance of the gravitational constant having been spot on by randomness, or someone making it so in the first place.
The existence of God can neither be proven or unproven, however, evidence around you should convince one of which scenario is more liker. Existence of God would also automatically explain everything else about life, universe, death, etc.
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