Proxima Centauri

posted May 04, 2002
'It is impossible to follow the scientific reasoning on fine-tuning fully without a degree in some branch of physics, ideally at least a Ph.D. The phylosophy is accessible to less educated mortals.

The advocates of Intelligent Design and the supporters of Naturalism both say that the other side is totally unscientific and violates Occam's razor horrendously. As an agnostic I feel neither side necessarily violates Occam's razor, though the more extreme advocates of theism certainly do.

It seem to me that at least some of the anthropic coincidences are real, Professor Victor Stenger of Colorado University, for example, claims this.
<a href="http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_skintel.html" target="_blank">http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_skintel.html</a>
The following is a more recent and very scientific paper by V.Stenger.
<a href="http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_philo.pdf" target="_blank">http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_philo.pdf</a>
These coicidences are remarkable, surprising and in need of explanation. Today, early in the 21st century, neither the scientists nor the theists have come up with an explanation which does not need many unproved assumptions. The scientists and the theists make different assumptions.

The most basic form of the Intelligent Design Hypothesis is that an intelligent designer (designers)of unspecified type created the universe with fine-tuned parameters, or that the designer/designers reset the parameters of an existing universe. Any other form of the Design Hypothesis is in my opinion unscientific.

It is possible to suggest the form which a hypothetical fine-tuner/fine-tuners might take but there is no scientific reason for insisting that any designer/designers must have any particular form, eg that of the God/gods of any particular religion. Difficulties arising from the suggestion that any creator may be the God of the Bible are dealt with at the end of this post.

We have no idea how an designer/designers could exist, how it could understand the parameters of the universe or how it could create a universe. Perhaps carbon-based life from a previous universe created our universe. See Alan Guth

ALAN GUTH: I in fact have worked with several other people for some period of time on the question of whether or not it's in principle possible to create a new universe in the laboratory. Whether or not it really works we don't know for sure. It looks like it probably would work. It's actually safe to create a universe in your basement. It would not displace the universe around it even though it would grow tremendously. It would actually create its own space as it grows and in fact in a very short fraction of a second it would splice itself off completely from our Universe and evolve as an isolated closed universe growing to cosmic proportions without displacing any of the territory that we currently lay claim to.
The quotation comes from the following Horizon Programme from the BBC, here is the link.
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml</a>

Bill Schultz has also suggested that this universe may have been designed by aliens. I disagree with Bill Schultz in at least one respect. I see no reason why alien creators have to be extra-dimensional. The document by him, 'Metaphysical Naturalism and Intelligent Design' is in the library of the Internet Infidels. Here is the URL.

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/crsc.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/crsc.html</a>

The Design Hypothisis in its most basic form assumes that the designer/designers exist or existed with sufficient complexity and power to understand and fine-tune the universe and that it/they did this. See Theodore Drange's. 'The Fine-Tuning Argument' on this web site.
<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning.html</a>
Natural hypotheses also make assumptions. One natural hypothesis assumes that other types of life are possible in universes with different parameters, we do not know this for sure. Another natural hypothesis assumes that a very large multiverse exists now or that very many universes
have existed in the course of time and that the parameters of these universes varied widely so that the aparent fine-tuning of our universe is not surprising. Yet another natural hypothesis assumes that an unknown Theory of Everything explains why the parameters of our universe are the only ones possible or are much more likely than alternative parameters. Again we do not know this.

I try to apply Occam's razor to the natural and design theories. I cannot see clearly that either theory makes wilder or less plausible assumptions. I have been an agnostic all my adult life. The fine-tuning argument will not bring me closer to strong atheism.

Those Christians who argue that a Designer of the universe must exist and must be the God of the Bible are clearly unscientific. Do they mean one God or do they mean three gods, Father, Son and Holy Ghost?

If the Bible is taken literally, how do we explain what is contrary to science, the First Chapter of Genesis, the Flood etc?

If the Bible is not strictly literal then which parts are literally true? Which parts are symbolic? What are those parts symbolic of?

Taken literally the Bible is easy to disprove. Taken symbolically the Bible is so uncertain no scientific statements can easily be made. No religious statements can be made with certainty either.

The Skeptics Annotated Bible is a website with any number of reasons why the Bible doesn't make sense. Christians can't answer all those arguments in a lifetime. Here is the URL.

<a href="http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/" target="_blank">http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/</a>

Christianity is contrary to reason. Christians have to deny the validity of human reason. If human reason is valid then any God or Gods which may exist cannot be the Christian God.'

The above is taken from a post which I put into a previous discussion thread, also on fine-tuning. Some people who have read this thread may not have read the previous one. I hope no one will mind me repeating it.

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]</p>

Wyrdsmyth

I can't help it. Every time I see the expression 'fine-tuning' anymore, all I can think of is a young God wearing a baseball cap, working on a ham radio in his garage (He looks like one of those kids from the "Far Side" cartoon strip). He is turning the knobs and dials on his ham radio, and adjusting the antenna, trying to get the thing to work properly. Nearby are some of his other recent projects -- like an aquarium filled with sea monkeys, and some ants he fried with his magnifying glass.

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

Jobar

Damn, I wish Larson was still doing The Far Side. He'd probably do that if it was suggested!

davidm

To B. Shack: I agree with a lot of these points and raised some of them myself in starting this thread. I think I also pointed to the Schultz article and I started this out with references to Prof. Stenger. We've had something as basic as radio for only about a hundred years, and already we have Alan Guth talking about the possibility of creating a universe in a laboratory. If it is possible to do this, it is reasonable to believe that it may already have been done by others, although, of course, we have no way to test this hypothesis. But in general, the idea that the universe could be the product of naturalistic intelligent design does not seem far-fetched.

Proxima Centauri

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Synaesthesia:
[QB]

This strikes me as a rather dramatic misunderstanding of Occam's razor. If ANYTHING is unparsimonious, it is the multiverse theory. It basically posits entities (albeit of a familiar kind) that have no current means of being observed and no good theoretical grounds to be believed in.

There are theoretical reasons for believing in the multiverse or at least suspecting that it might be true. There is the M-theory involving a universe with 11 dimensions instead of 10. This theory works from different physics but leads to a large multiverse. I'll give the link again.
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml</a>
Perhaps Synaesthesia and davidm may like to read the transcript of the programme.

Pomp

B.Shack,

The parameters of our universe require explanation.

Why? I don't think that the parameters of our Universe require explanation at all, or are even open to explanation, in the usual sense of the word. We normally speak of explanations in the form of cause and effect pairs, presuming the existence of time, as we observe it inside the Universe. I don't see any real reason to suspect that cause and effecdt as we know it are even valid concepts as applied to the origin (if any) of the Universe, which would be, necessarily, found outside the Universe.

In short, when we ask why the Universe is the way it is, the answer, if one even exists, is likely to be so strange that the terms we normally use are likely to be rendered meaningless.

Clutch says, 'The idea, roughly, is that if it doesn't rule any result out, then it doesn't rule anything in either' Both intelligent design and the multiverse rule nothing out. Both intelligent design and the multiverse rule in a universe with parameters within the narrow range which allows our type of life. Both are possible explanations.

Yes, but Clutch's point, a valid one I believe, is that they are not very productive explanations. Neither makes any predictions and neither expands our knowledge in any way. Each serves only to give us an exit from the uncomfortable position of having to admit that we have no idea why the Universe is the way it is, and no reliable tools for even thinking about the question. I can just as easily say the the Universe is the way it is because it is in the nature of Universes to be exactly as this one is.

Clutch

I just don't see the point of this claim.

And no, I don't especially see the motivation for multiple universes either, if it's *only* the low probability of an orderly (hence potentially life-supporting) universe that motivates the proposal. The questions are the same as for the ID-ologist who wants to make hay by hurling around Really Big Numbers.

First, as I've already conjectured to a resounding chorus of (yet again) zero responses, it's unclear that the notion of probabilities of outcomes on which the basic parameters of the universe are different is even coherent. Second, the constraints on what forms *life* could take -- in a universe with different elements, different basic constituents, different laws -- is opacity multiplied by opacity. And finally, the principle behind the whole thing seems to be that really improbable events can't happen. Ie, if those probability calculations *are* sound, then we have to propose something, however loopy, in virtue of which the probability of an orderly universe is much higher -- as high as 1, maybe. I just don't see the motivation. Here's an explanation: the probability of this was extremely low, and it happened anyhow.

And again: I'd really like someone to explain just what background or structuring information we're using to calculate the probability of the universe having its actual basic parameters. Viz, how do we cash out the implicit Normality constraint: "...given the basic parameters it *could* have had"? Maybe the answer is simple, but I've never seen it.

Clutch

[...sigh...]

Aquila ka Hecate

Clutch:

I was wondering if it was only me missing something!

I have a huge problem understanding what the shooting is all about.

I'm no philosopher, and I lack debating skills markedly, but ny degree was in both physics and astronomy, so I doubt that I'm base-level stupid on this topic!

The apparent fine-tuning has, to me, and since I've been a small person,not presented any dilemma needing either an intelligent designer or multiple universes to account for it.

OK, I'm going to risk sounding naive to say that I've always thought of it this way:

If the universal constants were not life-supporting, there would be no life to observe them.

They are and we are.

What's the big hairy deal?

Edited to add:

Include eysesight as another function I'm lacking!
I didn't see Pompous Bastard's post.
PB...yes. What you said.

[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: Aquila ka Hecate ]</p>

Tercel

Aquila ka Hecate,
I think the standard analogy given as a reply to your question is the firing squad:
You are sentenced to death by a firing squad.
The firing squad all miss.

You might say "If the squad hadn't all missed then I wouldn't be here to observe it. They did, and I am. Big hairy deal."
A more thoughful person might be inclined to wonder why the firing squad missed... (Was it chance? Or is there a plot afoot to save you? etc.)