The fine-tuned universe.

[Undertow]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise. This would evidence the idea that a god or external force had a say in the creation of the universe to allow for us to come about.

Why is this a weak argument? It seems pretty amazing to me, and I challenge the atheist position that this is a godless universe. Also, I challenge the idea that the theistic position is merely one of "blind faith." There would be elements of faith, sure, but this kind of argument, if valid, could only make the theistic argument gain evidence.

[HughDP]

Hi Undertow,

Interesting question.

However, I don't see how this:

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise.

Logically leads to this:

This would evidence the idea that a god or external force had a say in the creation of the universe to allow for us to come about.

If we accept that there is a so-called Goldilocks Enigma about certain initial conditions (and subsequently the universe's physical constants) and how they make the universe suitable for life, and if we also accept that the probability of these exact conditions is very small, what we have is an improbable universe.

Can it not stand alone that we live in an improbable (but evidently possible) universe?

I see no need to leap to the idea of a god to explain that.

There are other things we could postulate too. The idea of a multiverse, for example, in which billions of universes are created. Many would simply fizzle out if their physical constants were incompatible, but some would develop and some might develop into universes capable of supporting life.

Of course, we have no evidence of a multiverse, but then again we have no evidence of God either.

Furthermore, our universe might not be as improbable as we think. When we're discussing this we often talk about "if once force was different by just x% the universe wouldn't exist ...", and that's probably true, but what if another force was changed to compensate? A paper from 2006 even suggests that we could remove one of the 4 forces completely and a 'weakless universe' could exist, producing stars and such.

Sure, a lot of it's theory and we're still left with a puzzle at the moment, but I think the reason we sometimes postulate a god as being at the heart of this improbability is just cultural - God has been the default answer for things we don't understand for thousands of years.

[Nec Spe Nec Metu]

Could it be that a God may actually exist, but is not the God that the Abrahamic religions proclaim it to be?

Gee, a God that created the entire universe, designed all the laws, and set into motion the events that would go onto stretch for billions of years gets pissed off when two male lovers in, for instance, Yugoslavia, become intimate? He comissions some Jewish guy to build a big boat for him to save all the animals of Earth, including the microscopic (without leaving behind any evidence of such an occurance)? He chooses a tribe of Middle Eastern goat herders to be his 'chosen people' while providing the inspiration for (or himself authoring) several books which are interpreted in so many ways that religious ideology has become an absolute schmorgesboard of mutually contrasting dogma and opinion? The list goes indefinetely.

He contains all the attributes one would expect from the culture that produces his characteristics (emotions, values, judgments, etc). All too human attributes, really. The Abrahamic religions can be so shallow.

The idea of God, if indeed it is real, is so much more interesting when he's not some old geiser sitting on top of a cloud passing judgments on confused, oftentimes misled, people.

[Beto]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise.

I was under the impression the universal constants are within such a limited range so that the universe can sustain itself. How does it follow that the "purpose" was to sustain intelligent life?

[Undertow]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise.

I was under the impression the universal constants are within such a limited range so that the universe can sustain itself. How does it follow that the "purpose" was to sustain intelligent life?

The constants are so that the universe can sustain itself? Says who? The universe? How does it know to sustain itself? Please elaborate on this point.

Anyway, given the example HughDP gave of the multiverse, no, it doesn't necessarily follow that a god character put this thing into motion, but I see it as an intriguing possibility all the same. I also recognise the argument of a cyclic universe in which each big bang "resets" the constants, hence we're bound to reach our current state after an indefinite amount of big bang "attempts." Yet, and call it anthropocentrism if you want, I find the god idea a valid one to explain this data.

And to Nec Spe Nec Metu, I'm not talking about the Abrahamic god. I'm talking about a non-specific god.

[Beto]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise.

I was under the impression the universal constants are within such a limited range so that the universe can sustain itself. How does it follow that the "purpose" was to sustain intelligent life?

The constants are so that the universe can sustain itself? Says who? The universe? How does it know to sustain itself? Please elaborate on this point.

I'm just saying that I see the constants as necessary for the universe to exist in its observable form. I don't understand the logic leap from "constants needed for the universe to exist as it is" to "constants needed to produce intelligent life". As far as I can observe, "intelligent life" just happens to be available in a "small" interval of the spectrum.

EDIT: When I wrote "sustain itself", I didn't mean to imply the universe has a conscious quality to it, but I guess that's one interpretation.

[Nec Spe Nec Metu]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise.

I was under the impression the universal constants are within such a limited range so that the universe can sustain itself. How does it follow that the "purpose" was to sustain intelligent life?

The constants are so that the universe can sustain itself? Says who? The universe? How does it know to sustain itself? Please elaborate on this point.

Anyway, given the example HughDP gave of the multiverse, no, it doesn't necessarily follow that a god character put this thing into motion, but I see it as an intriguing possibility all the same. I also recognise the argument of a cyclic universe in which each big bang "resets" the constants, hence we're bound to reach our current state after an indefinite amount of big bang "attempts." Yet, and call it anthropocentrism if you want, I find the god idea a valid one to explain this data.

And to Nec Spe Nec Metu, I'm not talking about the Abrahamic god. I'm talking about a non-specific god.

I understand that, I'm just stating on a forum which is, as you well know, called Debating Christianity and Religion, that the Christian ideal of God isn't overly plausible when you examine what a true God would encompass as you have postulated it.

[GrumpyMrGruff]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise. This would evidence the idea that a god or external force had a say in the creation of the universe to allow for us to come about.

Would you mind expanding on the details of this argument or providing links? Specifically, I am interested in the definitions of life and intelligence used above.

Why is this a weak argument? It seems pretty amazing to me, and I challenge the atheist position that this is a godless universe. Also, I challenge the idea that the theistic position is merely one of "blind faith." There would be elements of faith, sure, but this kind of argument, if valid, could only make the theistic argument gain evidence.

This is a modification of the teleological argument, the position that some aspects of the world are ordered in ways which imply design or purpose (e.g., the "just right" orbital distance of the Earth-Sun system or the "irreducible complexity" of an organ). Whereas the usual argument cites a complex system in nature, this version bypasses physical system examples and instead appeals to the fine-tuning of physical constants.

From a philosophically materialistic view, one might posit that complex replicating systems (life) are are an emergent property of the underlying rules (constants and laws) of reality. (Complexity and emergent order were discussed in Complexity Improbability and Design; see also Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science.) Different rules would prevent life as we know it from forming, but it would not necessarily preclude some form of natural replicators from existing. And since we can't definitively explain self-aware/conscious matter in our universe, I can't really say anything about intelligence in other universes.

The fault in the fine-tuned universe argument is that it begs the question. It must assume design in order to show design. While it purports to show evidence of a design in the fabric of reality, it must first assume that something in the universe (life/humans/etc) is already designed. The argument states that life as we know it is the teleological goal of a creator (which has not yet been shown to exist) and then states that our universe must be designed by the creator to support such life. The first implicit assumption that life is a goal/design falls under the normal teleological argument, the basic refutations for which can be found at its wiki article.

That's my take on it, anyway.

Grumpy

[Undertow]

The specifics of this argument have recently come to my attention. The logic behind it is that many of the universes constants are within such a limited range so that intelligent life, such as us, can arise.

I was under the impression the universal constants are within such a limited range so that the universe can sustain itself. How does it follow that the "purpose" was to sustain intelligent life?

The constants are so that the universe can sustain itself? Says who? The universe? How does it know to sustain itself? Please elaborate on this point.

I'm just saying that I see the constants as necessary for the universe to exist in its observable form. I don't understand the logic leap from "constants needed for the universe to exist as it is" to "constants needed to produce intelligent life". As far as I can observe, "intelligent life" just happens to be available in a "small" interval of the spectrum.

EDIT: When I wrote "sustain itself", I didn't mean to imply the universe has a conscious quality to it, but I guess that's one interpretation.

Bold text = you're mixing this up. You should have written "constants needed to produce intelligent life" and "such a set of constants is rare among all possible sets of constants" to "there was a supernatural purpose behind this universe."

And to be honest I thought it would have gone without saying that the constants we have are necessary for the universe we observe, as the universe we observe is an outworking of those constants. That's really not the issue here.

Would you mind expanding on the details of this argument or providing links? Specifically, I am interested in the definitions of life and intelligence used above.

I've not actually done the specific research to determine the actual used definitions of "life", "intelligent life", nor the actual tweaking of any given constant necessary to make "life" or "intelligent life" impossible. Laziness on my part.

I'll give you that such tweaks may not preclude obscure forms of life from forming yet some forms of the argument seem to say a slight tweak of even one constant a very small degree makes atoms impossible, let alone self-replicators.

The fault in the fine-tuned universe argument is that it begs the question. It must assume design in order to show design.

It does no such thing. I'll summarise the argument as follows:

(P1) We are an intelligent, complex life-form.

(P2) The physical constants of the universe have allowed our evolution.

(P3) Any slight tweaking of the physical constants would eliminate the possibility of intelligent, complex life-forms, such as us, to come about.

(C1) There must be some explanation to account for our improbable existence.

(C2) That explanation is what man calls "god"

Though, to be fair to my fellow atheists, another possible conclusion could be -

(C3) Conversely, the explanation could be that we are the "lucky" ones out of the set of universes contained in what some people posit as a "multiverse." Such universes gain their constants at random and thus it's not surprising that our improbability would eventually be represented through random chance.

[Undertow]

I found this interesting, it's from the wiki article on the anthropic principle:

Paul Davies has discussed fine-tuning at length, and in his book The Goldilocks Enigma (2006) he summarises the current state of the debate in detail. He concludes by enumerating the alternative responses:

A - The absurd universe - It just happens to be that way.
B - The unique universe - There is a deep underlying unity in physics which necessitates the universe being this way. Some 'Theory of Everything' will explain why the various features of the Universe must have exactly the values that we see.
C - The multiverse - Multiple Universes exist which have all possible combinations of characteristics, and we naturally find ourselves within the one that supports our existence.
D - Intelligent Design - An intelligent Creator designed the Universe specifically to support complexity and the emergence of Intelligence.
E - The life principle - There is an underlying principle that constrains the universe to evolve towards life and mind.
F - The self-explaining universe - A closed explanatory or causal loop: 'perhaps only universes with a capacity for consciousness can exist'.
G - The fake universe - We are living in a virtual reality simulation.