Fine Tuning Universe

[Confused]

At the cosmological level, we see that so many things had to occur for earth to become habitable. The parameters for our universe had to be just right in order for the earth to form and create an atmosphere hospitable for life. A mere 1/1,000,000 of a change in some constant parameters would have made it impossible for life to exist as we now know it to.

It seems to me that most of the theistic scientists that I read all resort to the unexplainable process that is considered essential for life to exist, ie: the universe and its undeniable requirement for certain parameters to exist in order for life to ever have a chance of existing, as their ultimate reason for retaining their faith in light of science and the advancement of technology. The vast majority state that they see the evidence for a creator in the hidden requirements of our universe, not in mankind alone.

When you view man from the universe’s perspective man seems pretty unimportant. We live on a small planet circling an ordinary middle-aged star on the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy; one of millions of other ordinary galaxies. It is not hard to see why many people misinterpret this to mean God does not exist. If you are willing to open your eyes to the possibilities there are many signs of God’s hand at work in the creation. Examine the fine-tuning seen throughout our universe. Consider the fine-tuning of our solar system. Even our earth and moon show signs of fine-tuning. Non-theistic scientists do not deny this, but they see it as an incredible set of coincidences. The "coincidences" are amazing. Hugh Ross covers much of this in his book "The Creator and the Cosmos".


For debate:
1) Could we consider the universe "fine tuned"? Was it tinkered with by something greater than nature to give rise to an environment suitable for life?

[QED]

I really think you'd find it very difficult indeed to find a scientist who sees things just as "amazing coincidences". If you don't mind me asking, where did you get this rather unrealistic notion from?

The notion came from mostly evolutinary theists who seem to find everthing in nature to be ok in terms of natural explanations, but seem to fall back to the supernatural when we leave the earth and start to view the universe.

Doesn't this just reflect the intrinsic human tendency to ascribe the supernatural to the unknown?

From Collins to Polkinghorne to Ross etc... they all seem to return to faith and creation when we start to evaluate the origins of our universe.

Isn't it likely that these same people, had they been around long before Darwin, would have "drawn the same line" somewhere nearer to home?

It seems like leaving the earth to explore the universe is the equivalent of leaving the natural to explore the supernatural when I read their books, articles, etc... The idea they project is that there are certain things about our universe that science isn't meant to explain or that science can never hope to explain.

Both those ideas would be very hard to support -- especially the former! We are cut off from all direct observations beyond the light-speed range imposed by the expansion of the universe. So how can we claim to know our context? It's like the flaky assertion that all Indians walk in single file based on the observation of a single Indian. If we are tempted to legitimize our assertion by dressing it up in terms of "based on everything we know" we can see how dopey that can be (by relating it back to our single Indian).

Viewing the inflation of our universe as an event, an on-going process, I think we should be looking at what cosmologists are telling us about the process. Inflation theory is pretty solid right now and it's pointing very strongly to the non-uniqueness of this kind of event. It may not explain how the whole shebang got up-and-running in the first place, but it does very much de-personalize the service that we got. And that's where out theist friends have put all their money: The fitness of our universe for our existence has very probably misled them into thinking it was created this way deliberately.

[Furrowed Brow]

The very fact that Earth is the only place known in the universe that can sustain life makes it the most extraordinary planet in the universe.

A small qualication is needed. The very fact that Earth is the only place known in the universe that can sustain life, means the limitation of our knowledge make it seem the most extraordinary planet in the universe for the present.

[Confused]

I really think you'd find it very difficult indeed to find a scientist who sees things just as "amazing coincidences". If you don't mind me asking, where did you get this rather unrealistic notion from?

The notion came from mostly evolutinary theists who seem to find everthing in nature to be ok in terms of natural explanations, but seem to fall back to the supernatural when we leave the earth and start to view the universe.

Doesn't this just reflect the intrinsic human tendency to ascribe the supernatural to the unknown?

I don't know. Many evolutionary theists in the scientific realm would argue that their final conclusion of the existence of a creator is the result of external research w/logic and reasoning combined with internal truth and knowledge. Collins and Polkinghorne both argue this in their books. I am still undecided as to the existence of some intrinsic human tendency to ascribe the supernatural to the unknown. I don't dispute that some may wish for something larger than themselves because it gives them comfort, sort of like Freuds suggestion of a father figure for an adult. Since I can hardly read others minds and psychology is anything but absolute, I am not sure I could justify crediting all this to anything intrinsic. The more I learn about "instrinsic" needs, the less comfortable I am with saying anything is intrinsic. Maslows Hierarchy of needs has been butchered and rebuilt on countless occasions and despite how many revisions it has been given, there is still no greater knowledge about its truth than there was when Maslow was alive.

From Collins to Polkinghorne to Ross etc... they all seem to return to faith and creation when we start to evaluate the origins of our universe.

Isn't it likely that these same people, had they been around long before Darwin, would have "drawn the same line" somewhere nearer to home?

Possibly, but since their education far exceeds mine (as does yours ), I can hardly make any claim to suggest they would have.

It seems like leaving the earth to explore the universe is the equivalent of leaving the natural to explore the supernatural when I read their books, articles, etc... The idea they project is that there are certain things about our universe that science isn't meant to explain or that science can never hope to explain.

Both those ideas would be very hard to support -- especially the former! We are cut off from all direct observations beyond the light-speed range imposed by the expansion of the universe. So how can we claim to know our context? It's like the flaky assertion that all Indians walk in single file based on the observation of a single Indian. If we are tempted to legitimize our assertion by dressing it up in terms of "based on everything we know" we can see how dopey that can be (by relating it back to our single Indian).

Perhaps, but I am not suggesting that they are correct. If I was convinced they were, I wouldn't have made this thread. While the former may be hard to support, it doesn't cease being presented in books by highly educated scientists. Collins falls back on it for his "biologos" as a substitute for "evolutionary theists". He supports so many natural processes in biology, then falls back to God when we move into cosmology. Polkinghorne does the same. While I loathe to put this in here, as I know it will cause me much hardship in your next post, Hugh Ross does it in most of his books as well.

Ok, so an intelligent person would have stopped while they still had some semblance of sanity, but I never claimed to be sane so I am already preparing myself for your next shredding, LOL.

(You would think after this amount of time, I would have learned to stay out of the science forum. Glutton for punishment I guess )

[Goat]

I think there is a vital part missing in this fine-tunning debate.

It is the question of "why did he only stop at fine-tunning?".

If He had fine tuned the entire universe, then life would likely exist throughout the universe. This would strongly indicate that life in the universe was inevitable and then life wouldn’t be all that special and thus man wouldn’t be all that worthy of God’s attention.

If we find life outside of earth, would you then think Man was not special?

Yes.

What would that do to your faith? If we find microbes on Mars, or Titan, would you have a crisis of faith?

[Beto]

I think there is a vital part missing in this fine-tunning debate.

It is the question of "why did he only stop at fine-tunning?".

If He had fine tuned the entire universe, then life would likely exist throughout the universe. This would strongly indicate that life in the universe was inevitable and then life wouldn’t be all that special and thus man wouldn’t be all that worthy of God’s attention.

If we find life outside of earth, would you then think Man was not special?

Yes.

What would that do to your faith? If we find microbes on Mars, or Titan, would you have a crisis of faith?

I would stay away from the TV and newspapers if I were you, flaja. Although I'm sure you'd find a way to make it "fit".

[QED]

Many evolutionary theists in the scientific realm would argue that their final conclusion of the existence of a creator is the result of external research w/logic and reasoning combined with internal truth and knowledge.

If what is meant by "internal truth and knowledge" is something that Pinker would identify with evolutionary imperatives or, if we prefer, "common sense" -- then I would suggest that common sense is too far out of its depth to be of any use at the two furthest extremes of scale away from the middle-ground upon which we stand. At the tiniest of scales concepts of identity, location and causality are not the way we normally experience them and at the largest scales we have a universe defined by the peculiarities of the small-scale world. Research is also necessarily limited to the confines of our finite past light-cone which throws a spanner in any probability engine.

Collins and Polkinghorne both argue this in their books. I am still undecided as to the existence of some intrinsic human tendency to ascribe the supernatural to the unknown.

Have you never found yourself doing this on a trivial occasion? I personally find myself immersed in a (self-created) apparently supernatural world on an almost daily basis. Everything form missing tools to odd reflections get "explained" by some kind of supernatural intervention until the rational part of my mind lumbers along to damp down the mystical outbreak. This is how we're wired. Our brains are literally in two parts, a fast-reacting instinctive unit that works in the background and a slow-reacting contemplative unit that consciously manages (if it gets a chance) what its alter-ego is up to.

I think you'll find that when the contemplative unit runs out of sufficient information to properly review the instinctive unit we get Gods of various kinds at work in the world by default.

I don't dispute that some may wish for something larger than themselves because it gives them comfort, sort of like Freuds suggestion of a father figure for an adult. Since I can hardly read others minds and psychology is anything but absolute, I am not sure I could justify crediting all this to anything intrinsic. The more I learn about "instrinsic" needs, the less comfortable I am with saying anything is intrinsic. Maslows Hierarchy of needs has been butchered and rebuilt on countless occasions and despite how many revisions it has been given, there is still no greater knowledge about its truth than there was when Maslow was alive.

I think there's a complex mixture of emotion and commonsense that has developed to serve us in our specific needs relating to "earthly matters". I don't think this serves us well as a universal tool.

From Collins to Polkinghorne to Ross etc... they all seem to return to faith and creation when we start to evaluate the origins of our universe.

Isn't it likely that these same people, had they been around long before Darwin, would have "drawn the same line" somewhere nearer to home?

Possibly, but since their education far exceeds mine (as does yours ), I can hardly make any claim to suggest they would have.

Don't you see my point though? These guys might have been an Isaac Newton, but their understanding, as great as it was, would not equip them to pass judgment on the "next level up". No one today is in that position.

Perhaps, but I am not suggesting that they are correct. If I was convinced they were, I wouldn't have made this thread. While the former may be hard to support, it doesn't cease being presented in books by highly educated scientists. Collins falls back on it for his "biologos" as a substitute for "evolutionary theists". He supports so many natural processes in biology, then falls back to God when we move into cosmology. Polkinghorne does the same. While I loathe to put this in here, as I know it will cause me much hardship in your next post, Hugh Ross does it in most of his books as well.

Given the work being done by the good people at the sharp end of cosmology today, I sure would like to fire few questions at them if I ever met them.

[Confused]

Many evolutionary theists in the scientific realm would argue that their final conclusion of the existence of a creator is the result of external research w/logic and reasoning combined with internal truth and knowledge.

If what is meant by "internal truth and knowledge" is something that Pinker would identify with evolutionary imperatives or, if we prefer, "common sense" -- then I would suggest that common sense is too far out of its depth to be of any use at the two furthest extremes of scale away from the middle-ground upon which we stand. At the tiniest of scales concepts of identity, location and causality are not the way we normally experience them and at the largest scales we have a universe defined by the peculiarities of the small-scale world. Research is also necessarily limited to the confines of our finite past light-cone which throws a spanner in any probability engine.

Yes, I am the process of reading Pinker, though it is slow progress. I have to research much of what is written because it goes over my head. You can admit it, so do you. We say evolutionary imperative, Freud says it is the inherent search for a father figure, Lewis give the credit to "internal truth" intrinsic to man at birth. Can anyone really make a strong case here? Some fall back on "psychology", some fall back on "emotions", some fall to "common sense". None of these are truly reliable indicators of knowledge are they? They are all hypotheses in the wind. If psychology was strong enough, we could predict human behavior much more accurately. If it was emotions, then we could explain the reasons behind them since emotions usually have certain hormones and neurtransmitters associated with them. If it was really "common sense" then can we justify how the largest population in the world accepts the interactions with God to propel man forward in evolution.

Collins and Polkinghorne both argue this in their books. I am still undecided as to the existence of some intrinsic human tendency to ascribe the supernatural to the unknown.

Have you never found yourself doing this on a trivial occasion? I personally find myself immersed in a (self-created) apparently supernatural world on an almost daily basis. Everything form missing tools to odd reflections get "explained" by some kind of supernatural intervention until the rational part of my mind lumbers along to damp down the mystical outbreak. This is how we're wired. Our brains are literally in two parts, a fast-reacting instinctive unit that works in the background and a slow-reacting contemplative unit that consciously manages (if it gets a chance) what its alter-ego is up to.

I think you'll find that when the contemplative unit runs out of sufficient information to properly review the instinctive unit we get Gods of various kinds at work in the world by default.

Of course I see myself trivializing things on occasions (to many to count). But if we are all wired this way, then why is it that beliefs vary so vastly? The workings of the brain are speculative at best. Why do some react one way while others react extremely opposite. Nature vs Nurture is a debate that will likely never be settled. But I don't know that I would try to mix it with evolution. I have known some who have been raised under the worst conditions who grow and become productive members of society. Others have had the best of conditions and become parasites.

Your last statement is quite interesting. Is it really possible to override the instintive unit? Pinker would suggest so, correct? But isn't it our instinctive unit that has led us to surviving? Do we not act instinctively to some conditions because to contemplate it would guarantee our demise?

I don't dispute that some may wish for something larger than themselves because it gives them comfort, sort of like Freuds suggestion of a father figure for an adult. Since I can hardly read others minds and psychology is anything but absolute, I am not sure I could justify crediting all this to anything intrinsic. The more I learn about "instrinsic" needs, the less comfortable I am with saying anything is intrinsic. Maslows Hierarchy of needs has been butchered and rebuilt on countless occasions and despite how many revisions it has been given, there is still no greater knowledge about its truth than there was when Maslow was alive.

I think there's a complex mixture of emotion and commonsense that has developed to serve us in our specific needs relating to "earthly matters". I don't think this serves us well as a universal tool.

Perhaps. But we have survived this long.

From Collins to Polkinghorne to Ross etc... they all seem to return to faith and creation when we start to evaluate the origins of our universe.

Isn't it likely that these same people, had they been around long before Darwin, would have "drawn the same line" somewhere nearer to home?

Possibly, but since their education far exceeds mine (as does yours ), I can hardly make any claim to suggest they would have.

Don't you see my point though? These guys might have been an Isaac Newton, but their understanding, as great as it was, would not equip them to pass judgment on the "next level up". No one today is in that position.

Sigh..... yes, I see your point.

Perhaps, but I am not suggesting that they are correct. If I was convinced they were, I wouldn't have made this thread. While the former may be hard to support, it doesn't cease being presented in books by highly educated scientists. Collins falls back on it for his "biologos" as a substitute for "evolutionary theists". He supports so many natural processes in biology, then falls back to God when we move into cosmology. Polkinghorne does the same. While I loathe to put this in here, as I know it will cause me much hardship in your next post, Hugh Ross does it in most of his books as well.

Given the work being done by the good people at the sharp end of cosmology today, I sure would like to fire few questions at them if I ever met them.

I will wait for the recap. Though it would be quite interesting.

[Confused]

Many evolutionary theists in the scientific realm would argue that their final conclusion of the existence of a creator is the result of external research w/logic and reasoning combined with internal truth and knowledge.

If what is meant by "internal truth and knowledge" is something that Pinker would identify with evolutionary imperatives or, if we prefer, "common sense" -- then I would suggest that common sense is too far out of its depth to be of any use at the two furthest extremes of scale away from the middle-ground upon which we stand. At the tiniest of scales concepts of identity, location and causality are not the way we normally experience them and at the largest scales we have a universe defined by the peculiarities of the small-scale world. Research is also necessarily limited to the confines of our finite past light-cone which throws a spanner in any probability engine.

Yes, I am the process of reading Pinker, though it is slow progress. I have to research much of what is written because it goes over my head. You can admit it, so do you. We say evolutionary imperative, Freud says it is the inherent search for a father figure, Lewis give the credit to "internal truth" intrinsic to man at birth. Can anyone really make a strong case here? Some fall back on "psychology", some fall back on "emotions", some fall to "common sense". None of these are truly reliable indicators of knowledge are they? They are all hypotheses in the wind. If psychology was strong enough, we could predict human behavior much more accurately. If it was emotions, then we could explain the reasons behind them since emotions usually have certain hormones and neurtransmitters associated with them. If it was really "common sense" then can we justify how the largest population in the world accepts the interactions with God to propel man forward in evolution.

Collins and Polkinghorne both argue this in their books. I am still undecided as to the existence of some intrinsic human tendency to ascribe the supernatural to the unknown.

Have you never found yourself doing this on a trivial occasion? I personally find myself immersed in a (self-created) apparently supernatural world on an almost daily basis. Everything form missing tools to odd reflections get "explained" by some kind of supernatural intervention until the rational part of my mind lumbers along to damp down the mystical outbreak. This is how we're wired. Our brains are literally in two parts, a fast-reacting instinctive unit that works in the background and a slow-reacting contemplative unit that consciously manages (if it gets a chance) what its alter-ego is up to.

I think you'll find that when the contemplative unit runs out of sufficient information to properly review the instinctive unit we get Gods of various kinds at work in the world by default.

Of course I see myself trivializing things on occasions (to many to count). But if we are all wired this way, then why is it that beliefs vary so vastly? The workings of the brain are speculative at best. Why do some react one way while others react extremely opposite. Nature vs Nurture is a debate that will likely never be settled. But I don't know that I would try to mix it with evolution. I have known some who have been raised under the worst conditions who grow and become productive members of society. Others have had the best of conditions and become parasites.

Your last statement is quite interesting. Is it really possible to override the instintive unit? Pinker would suggest so, correct? But isn't it our instinctive unit that has led us to surviving? Do we not act instinctively to some conditions because to contemplate it would guarantee our demise?

I don't dispute that some may wish for something larger than themselves because it gives them comfort, sort of like Freuds suggestion of a father figure for an adult. Since I can hardly read others minds and psychology is anything but absolute, I am not sure I could justify crediting all this to anything intrinsic. The more I learn about "instrinsic" needs, the less comfortable I am with saying anything is intrinsic. Maslows Hierarchy of needs has been butchered and rebuilt on countless occasions and despite how many revisions it has been given, there is still no greater knowledge about its truth than there was when Maslow was alive.

I think there's a complex mixture of emotion and commonsense that has developed to serve us in our specific needs relating to "earthly matters". I don't think this serves us well as a universal tool.

Perhaps. But we have survived this long.

From Collins to Polkinghorne to Ross etc... they all seem to return to faith and creation when we start to evaluate the origins of our universe.

Isn't it likely that these same people, had they been around long before Darwin, would have "drawn the same line" somewhere nearer to home?

Possibly, but since their education far exceeds mine (as does yours ), I can hardly make any claim to suggest they would have.

Don't you see my point though? These guys might have been an Isaac Newton, but their understanding, as great as it was, would not equip them to pass judgment on the "next level up". No one today is in that position.

Sigh..... yes, I see your point.

Perhaps, but I am not suggesting that they are correct. If I was convinced they were, I wouldn't have made this thread. While the former may be hard to support, it doesn't cease being presented in books by highly educated scientists. Collins falls back on it for his "biologos" as a substitute for "evolutionary theists". He supports so many natural processes in biology, then falls back to God when we move into cosmology. Polkinghorne does the same. While I loathe to put this in here, as I know it will cause me much hardship in your next post, Hugh Ross does it in most of his books as well.

Given the work being done by the good people at the sharp end of cosmology today, I sure would like to fire few questions at them if I ever met them.

I will wait for the recap. Though it would be quite interesting.

[QED]

Yes, I am the process of reading Pinker, though it is slow progress. I have to research much of what is written because it goes over my head. You can admit it, so do you. We say evolutionary imperative, Freud says it is the inherent search for a father figure, Lewis give the credit to "internal truth" intrinsic to man at birth. Can anyone really make a strong case here? Some fall back on "psychology", some fall back on "emotions", some fall to "common sense". None of these are truly reliable indicators of knowledge are they?

I have no doubt that our cognitive capacity was developed through natural selection. This in turn means that our reasoning is optimised only for those matters that actually affect us. Knowledge gained through such reasoning can therefore be reliable as unreliable knowledge about things that affect us can limit our ability to pass on our "optimised reasoning" capacity. Unreliable knowledge, gained through faulty reasoning, about things that don't affect us is likely to accumulate.

They are all hypotheses in the wind. If psychology was strong enough, we could predict human behavior much more accurately. If it was emotions, then we could explain the reasons behind them since emotions usually have certain hormones and neurtransmitters associated with them. If it was really "common sense" then can we justify how the largest population in the world accepts the interactions with God to propel man forward in evolution.

I think perhaps you're referring to the problems of looking for specifics in a chaotic system. This is the problem with weather forecasting. The problem is not so much with the models that forecasters develop, but with feeding them accurate enough information about the present state of the weather systems.

Of course I see myself trivializing things on occasions (to many to count). But if we are all wired this way, then why is it that beliefs vary so vastly?

You make my point. We're biased towards pattern matching because those with excessive paranoia generally fayre better than those who err on the other side. Seeing patterns where there are none sounds exactly like the root of the problem we are debating.

The workings of the brain are speculative at best. Why do some react one way while others react extremely opposite. Nature vs Nurture is a debate that will likely never be settled. But I don't know that I would try to mix it with evolution. I have known some who have been raised under the worst conditions who grow and become productive members of society. Others have had the best of conditions and become parasites.

Your last statement is quite interesting. Is it really possible to override the instintive unit? Pinker would suggest so, correct? But isn't it our instinctive unit that has led us to surviving? Do we not act instinctively to some conditions because to contemplate it would guarantee our demise?

Certainly. You'd be amazed at the amount of lag in your perception of your reactions (0.2seconds IIRC). There's an experiment (that I'm sure was cited in the 2006 edge question) that clearly shows this. I'll try to find it for you.

I think there's a complex mixture of emotion and commonsense that has developed to serve us in our specific needs relating to "earthly matters". I don't think this serves us well as a universal tool.

Perhaps. But we have survived this long.

Yes because we haven't ventured "very far from home". The universe has other ideas about what makes sense at wildly distant scales -- as revealed to us in Quantum Mechanics and, because the universe as a whole is dependent on QM, in cosmology.

[Furrowed Brow]

Certainly. You'd be amazed at the amount of lag in your perception of your reactions (0.2seconds IIRC). There's an experiment (that I'm sure was cited in the 2006 edge question) that clearly shows this. I'll try to find it for you.

Are you referring to Benjamin Libet’s 1983 experiment. Five volunteers hooked up to an EEG. They were asked to make voluntary movements like lift a finger whenever they felt like it. It appears they only became consciously aware of their own intention to act a few hundred milliseconds after their brain initiated the movement. (I lifted this tibit from an article in yesterday’s New Scientist)