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]

Have your read Paul Davies book "The Goldilocks Enigma"? I think it provides an excellent survey of the current ideas on the table.

Could we consider the universe "fine tuned"?

Yes we can, but our lack of a total context means we can also consider that it may not be. I tend to agree with Davies that the

[Furrowed Brow]

Guess what I'm going to say.....like.....NO.

Arguments for "Fine Tuning" are bogus because they are based on incomplete math. The big numbers are the result of only half worked out sums.

We tackled a similar point in Winning life's lotteries.

The point I was trying to put forward to 4gold and QED in that thread is that there are too many unknown variables for the sums to mean anything. "Fine tuning" arguments are half baked.

[Confused]

Guess what I'm going to say.....like.....NO.

Arguments for "Fine Tuning" are bogus because they are based on incomplete math. The big numbers are the result of only half worked out sums.

We tackled a similar point in Winning life's lotteries.

The point I was trying to put forward to 4gold and QED in that thread is that there are too many unknown variables for the sums to mean anything. "Fine tuning" arguments are half baked.

No, don't sugar coat it on my account. What thread are you referring to w/4gold and QED so I can read it?

[The Duke of Vandals]

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?

Richard Dawkins talks about the Anthropic principle. It goes something like this.

Let's say the origin of life (I know... stay with me) on an existing planet is so rare that it happens only one in a billion times. Sounds pretty unlikey... until we start actually looking at the numbers. If we have 10 billion planets, statistically, 10 of those billion have life. If we have 1000 billion planets, that's 1000 with life and so on. Since our universe is infinite and each galaxy has the chance for tens of billions of planets, we have a universe that is likely teaming with life. The problem is each planet is very far away from every other planet.

So, if you wanted to hop in your space ship with it's sci-fi hyper drive and go looking for that one in a billion planet, your best bet is to turn around and look at your own. You, by the very definition that you're alive, just happen to be on one of those one in a billion planets that spawned life.

That's the Anthropic principle: high improbability is negated by higher numbers of instances.

Dawkins goes on to apply the Anthropic principle to universes. Physicists have theorized our universe is one of many. They analogize universes to sea foam where each bubble of the foam is another universe. Each universe has its own set of "tunings". If we say the chance for one of these universes to have proper conditions for supporting life is 1 in a trillion and there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, universes... well, the chances are pretty good that... many of them (lol) will have conditions favorable to life.

Again, while it's neat idea to go visiting other universes, there's really no reason to. We're already living in one of the ones that supports life.

Finally, the alternative offered by theists is (as Dawkins terms it) a "divine knob twiddler" (DKT) who (metaphorically) sits at a big control panel and twiddles the knobs that govern the laws of physics to make our universe favorable for life. Where did his DKT come from? What process lead to his exisence? He causes more problems than he solves.


Source:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins ... index.html

[The Corinthian]

@Confused

The argument from improbability is extremely similar to the argument from design. You view the universe/our solarsystem as too complex to have happened by "accident", thus it must have had a creator.

I thought that this argument had been thoroughly refuted.

[flaja]

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.

Who is it that gets to decide that the earth is such an ordinary planet with an ordinary sun in an ordinary galaxy? 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. The argument of ordinariness is what the secularists rely on. If you concede that the earth is ordinary, you have effectively lost the battle.

As for the earth being fine tuned you would have to define what fine tuned means. It certainly cannot mean constancy in function or include any claim that life can exist only within the narrowest of parameters. If ancient myths and written records mean anything, the earth has not been constant in its function and living things have managed to survive repeated disasters of the most severe nature. The Mayans, ancient Indians (Asian), ancient Chinese, Egyptians and Romans all have records of a time when the civil year had only 360 solar days, and even the Bible uses a 360 day year for prophetic purposes). And some ancient societies made records that indicate that the order of the seasons was once disrupted and that the sun may have once rose in the west and set in the east. All of these records strongly indicate that the earth has been disrupted in its orbit around the sun and its rotation on its axis.

[Cathar1950]

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?

I think we are fine-tuned to the universe even if poorly.
Given all the possibilities and all the other variations of life forms it doesn't seem so odd.

[flaja]

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?

Richard Dawkins talks about the Anthropic principle. It goes something like this.

Let's say the origin of life (I know... stay with me) on an existing planet is so rare that it happens only one in a billion times. Sounds pretty unlikey... until we start actually looking at the numbers. If we have 10 billion planets, statistically, 10 of those billion have life. If we have 1000 billion planets, that's 1000 with life and so on.

The odds that life will originate on any given planet depend entirely on what conditions must prevail for life to be possible. The more narrow these conditions must be, the greater the odds are that life will not originate in any given place. Either the prevailing conditions will sustain life or they will not. Until we know exactly what conditions will allow life to exist, we cannot put numbers on the odds.

Since our universe is infinite

Says who? If the universe is infinite, then there must be an endless supply of new planets- but this would violate the law of conservation of matter.

[QED]

If you are willing to open your eyes to the possibilities there are many signs of God’s hand at work in the creation.

That is one possible interpretation, but there are others having equal validity.

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.

Why stop there? Why not continue all the way down to the apparent fine-tuning of your eye for it to see so clearly?

Non-theistic scientists do not deny this, but they see it as an incredible set of coincidences. The "coincidences" are amazing.

I must disagree with you here. 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?