davidm

Thanks for some intriguing responses to my initial posts. Tercel takes on Stenger's lottery analogy. I will have to reread his take on this. I do not understand it fully, lacking the competent background. What bothers me about the analogy is that it seems to be rigged to come up with the conclusion that, no matter how the dice fall, which ticket is drawn or which card is dealt, NO RESULT should surprise us. I can understand this, IF the lottery, etc., were conducted many, many times. Then, sooner or later, every possible result should come up, even the same result many times in a row. But IF the game is played once, and a high degree of order stands out against all the possible noise (a machine, working one time only, spits out one million dice, all of which come up six), then it seems something needs to be explained. Isn't it for THIS VERY REASON that Stenger is invoking multiple universes in the first place?

Tercel writes:

I was intrigued by your mentions of Occam's Razor in conjunction with the multiple universes hypothesis. You say "Since we have no known principle that demands that only one universe exists, multiple universes is the more parsimonious assumption". More parsimonious? All you have done is a large multiplication of entities without any evidence that any of these entities exist. As far as explanatory power goes, before there was one existence that needed explaining and now you have a large number. The only way I can see in which it becomes more parsimonious is if you are prepared to defend the idea that all possible universes exist.

I think Tegmark's idea is problematic. If anything that does not contain a logical contradiction exists, then does God exist too? Some ideas of God are certainly contradictory, but surely the idea of God as an extremely powerful intelligent being is not self-contradictory? In what way does Tegmark's theory exclude the existence of a logically-possible deity while demanding the existence of every other logically possible state of affairs?

If Tegmark's ideas are not to be accepted, I cannot see any reason to believe it is more parsimonious to believe in multiple universes over a single one: All you have done is added unevidenced entities without gaining anything - what is to stop the theists from doing the same?

I think Tercel is right, and I raised this point in my initial post. I agree: it does seem to me that the parsimony principle would, in this case, require defending the idea that all logically possible universes actually exist. And if this is so, as I commented in post one, we would then have to accept the idea that there is a universe or universes somewhere in which God/Gods exist, provided their properties are not logically inconsistent.

Finally, I am going to repost a response I made to Stenger's second response to me. I made this response after I registered, but for some reason it was not added to this thread. I think this is an important response, because I reject his implied accusations and, in fact, I think he misunderstood what I was getting at. Here is that post, written last week, which means it will cover some of the same ground as above:

I recently submitted a post on fine-tuning, referring to an article by Victor Stenger at <a href="http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_skintel.html" target="_blank">http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Cosmo/anthro_skintel.html</a>

We exchanged replies, but my latest reply was not posted, probably because I was unregistered. I am now registered, however.

In reply one Stenger concludes that I was making a hackneyed "intelligent design" claim, and in reply two he goes further, accusing me of suggesting "you can't prove God does not exist, therefore he does." He also pats me on the head, says I have not grasped his point, and sets up a helpful dialogue to enlighten me. However, while I may have suggested a variant of the argument from design, I nowhere said or implied that I believe the foolish "You can't prove God does not exist, therefore he does" claptrap, and I want to reply once more if for no other reason than to make it clear that I am not in that camp. Let me set up my own short dialogues:

Dialogue One between Creationist and Scientist:

Creationist: A universe with random parameters would have had a very low probability of evolving ordered structures of any kind, still less any conceivable life form.

Naturalist: If our universe is one of vastly many, then the probability of a universe with the parameters for ordered structures and therefore life approaches unity.

C: God is a better explanation.

N: You cannot prove that God exists.

C: You cannot prove that he doesn't.


Dialogue Two, between Scientist and a Curious Layman

Scientist: A universe with random parameters may or may not have had a very low probability of evolving ordered structures. But if our universe is one of vastly many, then the probability of a universe with the parameters for ordered structures and therefore life approaches unity.

Curious Layman: Where are these other universes? Can you prove that they exist? Is is at least possible to TEST FOR their potential existence?

S: No known principle rules them out.

CL: But you cannot prove that multiple universes exist.

S: You cannot prove that they don't.

So the structure of dialogue two is the same as that of dialogue one. If a scientist is making a claim for the existence of multiple universes, he has the burden of proof, just as the Creationist has the burden of proof of God. It would be inconsistent to deny this. The only advantage the scientist has in this case is that at least his theory, while untestable, involves a claim of naturalism and not supernaturalism.

Stenger is careful to state that he is NOT making a claim for multiple universes, just suggesting them as one way out of the fine-tuning impasse. This is, I think, double-talk. He is certainly implying such a claim, if not making it overtly. He seems to be trying to have it both ways, suggesting that multiple universes clears up any fine-tuning mystery, while at the same time carefully avoiding formally posing multiple universes as a theory, which would then subject it to the demands of a falsifiability test.

He claims that I am making a speculation when I say that if the laws of physics are random, most parameters would imply sterile universes. I don't think I am. This seems to be the conclusion of the physicist Max Tegmark, for one, in his paper that can be found at: <a href="http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/" target="_blank">http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/</a> And in fact, Stenger seems to agree with this conclusion. In his online article at he wrote, and I am quoting this for the second time:

"Tegmark examines the types of universes that would occur for different values of key parameters and concludes, as have others, that many combinations will lead to unlivable universes. However, the region of the parameter space where ordered structures can form is not the infinitesimal point only reachable by a skilled artisan, as asserted by proponents of the designer universe."

So he agrees, at least, that MANY universes would be unlivable. He only denies that the number of nonsterile universes would be infinitesimal. But if I am making a speculation on this subject, then so is he, and so is Tegmark

With respect to his comments on how to retrospectively formulate the odds of our universe looking the way it is, if it is a one-time only event ("unity"), I can't reply without studying the issue more. He seems to be saying that if you win a one-time only lottery against a billion other entrants, then, after the fact, you should claim that your odds of winning were not one in a billion, but one-to-one. Perhaps that is a mischaracterization of the issue. In any event, if for this reason our universe is not to be marveled at for its apparent anthropic coincidences, why invoke multiple universes in the first place? Wouldn't they be superfluous?

I don't want to labor this issue, because, in fact, I AGREE with Stenger that there is no evidence for intelligent design. There is reason to believe, however, that the apparent fine-tuning puzzle and the various anthropic coincidences are not so easily resolved. Stenger, though, seemed to infer that I was writing a Creationist tract. I don't know where he got that idea. In fact, if fine-tuning is such a mystery, here are six possible explanations that involve neither God nor multiple universes:

1. Block spacetime implies that the universe, past, present and future, is simply THERE. Thus there is nothing to explain. The universe has always been and will always be, just as it is. Something that IS can't be some other way.

2. The laws of physics are not random, but can be derived from first principles, an idea that might be consistent with an overarching Theory of Everything. It could someday be shown that other universes are logically possible but cannot be physically real for deep reasons that we have yet to grasp:

3 Argument from Design, with no God involved: The universe is the result of an experiment by naturalistic beings. It's perfectly possible, and one way that this could be so was demonstrated by one of your contributors, Bill Schultz, at:

<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>

This idea would help clear up the puzzle that while the universe can in fact SEEM to be the product of a design or designers, the design is highly flawed. Just what you would expect from a committee of superintelligent, but still bungling, naturalistic creators.

4. The Big Bang is false. Unlikely, probably, but see Richard Carrier's essay at: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbang.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbang.html</a>

4. Solipsism. The universe is all in someone's mind. This idea is usually dismissed out of hand, but no known principle forbids it, and anyway, solipsism might seem to have the advantage of satisfying the parsimony principle best of all.

5. We are in a cul de sac. No knowledge is possible of first principles on any of these matters, and science has reached a limit. Again, perfectly possible, even plausible. I see no reason to believe that science can explain everything or even most things. Most things might well be in a naturalistic realm but beyond the power of our brains to comprehend or even think about.

I am not a scientist, so I may be making flawed assumptions or drawing unwarranted inferences on some of these matters. But I think it's self-defeating for a scientist to assume that nonscientists can't grasp these subjects or talk about them intelligently, or that any observation or question seeming to challenge scientific thinking implies an ignorant theistic stance on the part of the questioner.

Koyaanisqatsi

Such an argument, to my admittedly lay mind, is inherently flawed, because it is based upon the illusion of progressive time, which, thanks to Einstein, we should more correctly label spacetime.

The assumption is that an initial event progressed from "a" to "b" to "z" like dominoes toppling and it is this progression (or, more appropriately, interpretation of progression) that is then considered so improbable by the anthropic principle/fine tuning camp.

From what we do know of the quantum universe and from what we can glean from string theory, such an illusion of linear progression is fundamentally flawed. Events do not progress in a linear fashion at all. It is only an effect of the human brain's structuring functions that makes us interpret quantum events as linear and then, only in hindsight.

Thus, only the "past" can be said to be a linear progression and thus philosophical/mathematical musings regarding this illusion of spacetime are utterly irrelevant and constitute little more than mental masturbation.

A long time ago I was presented with this argument (before I even knew what the AP was, weak or strong) when a cult member asked me what the probability was of my picking up a red grain of sand blindfolded in the Sahara Desert on the very first try. He was very adamant about that, "on the very first try!"

I simply responded, "What happens to your argument if I did?"

He, of course, had no response to that and only went on and on about the probability being so minute that you might as well consider it impossible and blah, blah, blah, all hopeless fallacies.

The fact is, we don't know how matterenergy truly reacts in spacetime on any fundamentally relevant manner to the question of our existence, but we do know one thing: there is no such thing as actual linear progression from one quantum event to another, only the interpretation of our brains that what has occurred, occurred in a linear manner to us.

In the immortal words of James Coburn's character in The Great Escape, "What bloody good is that?"

[ June 05, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Let me begin by noting that I find the FT argument entirely counter-intuitive. I raise this, not as an argument, but as a self-criticism. I just don't get it. Given that, my comments may well be overly naive.

My first question is: fine tuning for what? What might the alternatives to our Cosmos be? And, if one can imagine any non-trivial alternative, would not the universe then be "fine-tuned" for that condition? Finally, if this is true, is it not then the case that the 'power' of the FT argument is entirely a function of a highly subjective, anthropocentric view of life. A universe 'fine-tuned' for green slime seems somehow less special than one 'fine-tuned' for agnostics, theists and atheists, but how much of that is simply bias?

As for parsimony, given an Intelligent Designer with the power necessary to "finely tune" the universe, S/he seems remarkable wastefull and sloppy.

Theli

Tercel...

Impressive post, it's a facelift for the old design argument.
However there are some loose ends that I wich to ask you about.

With your argument P(L|D) you claim that life can ultimaltly be a product of design (a designer).
If you reffer to D to be a living (conscious + intelligent) being. In this case - god.
And P as a universe containing life.
And L as intelligent beings. Example - humans. Is it not safe to assume that within the boundaries of this equation that D=L? (both being intelligent life)
Then your argument evolves into P(L|(L|?)).
1. Where we either get an infinite regression L|L|L|L|L... creator creating creator. Where neither P or L has a source (P=? L=?).
2. The creator is a product of change himself. His nature (along with intelligence) was evolved from nothing.
We would get P(L|D|C), and in lack of evidence for D doesn't Ockhams razor apply?
We get P(L|D|C) = P(L|C).
Just a thought.

Another thing, does "D" refer to Deus?

I don't see how this example correlates to god. If you choose a card while making the program, that card will show up when running the program. As opposed to letting the program choose a random number itself.
Where did your choice come from?
1. If it was random then your choice was no different (regarding to a one-time result (a red card)) from a random choice made by the computer.
2. If your choice was in any way based on your surrounding enviroment, then do you claim that god has a surrounding enviroment that guided his design?
3. If your choice was based on your nature, then don't you owe your choice to your creator, or to chance? And how does this relate to god?

Black and white.

Is the chance for the unknown designer to create a single rock with a diameter of excacly 14.395722886mm as large as the designer not creating that specific rock (50/50)?
If a rock was created with a completely random diameter, then the chance for that specific size is almost insignificant.
If bilions and bilions of rocks were created (with random diameter) then the chance would increase significantly, don't you think?

However this example, just as the designer-god example assumes that a 14.395722886mm diameter rock or Life (as we know it) is somehow the "right result".
That the result was set as a goal for creation before the universe (or the rock ) was even created.

Vorkosigan

Gould is always asking, if we wound the clock back and replayed it, would we get our universe?

FT has always struck me as an argument that depends very heavily on a clockwork version of determinism. In other words, the FT universe is even more deterministic than the conventional naturalistic universe. The FT universe says that the parameters of the universe were set this way because we were the intended result -- which to me implies that FTers believe we were the only possible result of that set of parameters. Humanity was inherent in those rules.

It seems to me that there is a source of genuine randomness in the universe -- quantum behavior -- that would rule out the clockwork determinism that FT demands.

Of course, FT has never needed the multiple universes to refute it; it basically is a misunderstanding of selection processes and natural law. Any universe that operates under natural law will appear to be fine-tuned, because natural laws "fine-tune" things in the universe to conform to their constraints. Fine Tuners have the situation backward; it is things in the universe that are Fine Tuned, not the universe itself.

Vorkosigan

Tercel

Yes: D is the event of the universe being designed by an intelligent designer. ie As you point out: god.
I don't know where you get "P" from. Unless there is a typo in my post, the only place I used "P" was for the standard probablity function: P(X) = the probability of X occuring.
Also "L" is not simply "intelligent beings", but is the event of the universe containing intelligent beings.

But your question of whether god -as an intelligent being- would hence require a designer - producing an infinite regression is a reasonable one.
Basically the FT argument deals only with material biological beings. It is our observation that material biological life requires certain things in order to be able to live: A stable universe, the potential for complex chemical reactions to take place etc.
However there might exist intelligent beings out there somewhere who have none of these requirements and can exist independent of having a universe to live in, and who don't need material bodies composed of interacting chemicals. (The standard concepts of god would fit here) Such beings are not dependent upon physical principles for their existence and hence there can't be any fine-tuning going on.

You've included multiple ideas in one here. First of all is the idea that the designer might want to create something to do with rocks. Second is the idea that the designer might want to create only one rock. Third is the idea that the designer might want that rock to have exactly 14.395722886mm.
Neither of the last two decisions are one choice of our two alternatives, but rather one choice out of a potentially infinite number of alternatives. Hence there is no way to evalute the a priori probability of a designer choosing to make such a rock other than to say it's pretty extremely low.

I'll grant that my statement that P(L|D) = 1/2 is too certain a statment. However, since whether a universe is able to contain life or not is a fairly important design decision, I think P(L|D) should be somewhere around 1/2.

Jobar

Our only data point here is that the probability of a universe with life (and thus necessarily the constants which allow life) is 1. We exist, indubitably.

But we have no idea of how many possible universes can exist; we don't actually know that it's more than 1. We cannot establish any probabilities about whether other universes contain life; we cannot say if other universes exist at all! Therefore all we can say is that, until further information is available, the question is indeterminate. We can do lots of hand-waving, and do- - but no useful answers are forthcoming at present. And as Prof. Stenger has pointed out, indeterminacy- ignorance- is of no use to us in the point we address here (i.e. the existence/nonexistence of god(s).)

Theli

Tercel...

[quote]Yes: D is the event of the universe being designed by an intelligent designer.

I changed the meaning of the letters to better explain my logic (or lack thereof ).

I know, and I tried to show that P(L|D) is equal to P(L|C) and therefore has the same probablility.

I don't see how chemicals or matter is even relavent. In your argument of design you state that an intelligent designer is a required in order to create intelligent life in the universe (whatever form that intelligence exist as).
If god created our universe aswell as the matter/energy in it, he must have had some notion of what matter/energy is. So where did that come from?
I would say that evolution speaks for a big influence of chance rather than design. Creationism would be more suited for an intelligent creator. Life in the center of the universe.

Excuse me?

Why would matter/energy require fine tuning from an orderly intelligence to form order, while that orderly intelligence does not, simply because it is made of an unknown substance?
And also, since you mention "such beings" (and also call them "independent of physical principles") the burden of proof falls on you.
What forms the order of god (his intelligence)?
Where did that order come from?
Does order require prior order to exist?

I took this one for granted for the sake of the argument.

I never said that. If my text led you to believe that, then I'm sorry. My idea is that we would focus on a single rock created.

I don't wish to assume such a creator exist, that's your job.
About the rock example... if you found a rock with that exact diameter, would you draw the conclution that it was designed to have that specific size, based on a unique design?
Or would you assume the size was a product of chance?

The problem here is that if you think it was designed specific, then you must value 14.395722886mm higher than, lets say... 15.5294756mm.
Comparing this life in the universe, you have already valued life as we know it higher than any other outcome of chance.
Thereby you have set our existence as a "goal" for creation, and already assumed the existence of a creator as a premise.
Just as the rock, if you value 14.395722886mm much higher than any other diameter you will come to the conclution that - the probability for the rock to get that excact diameter by chance is insignificant, so a creator who value 14.395722886mm just as you do must have created it.
The strange thing about this is that if the rock was 15.5294756mm and you valued that higher, you would probably have reached the same conclution.

Just a thought.

davidm

What a lot of interesting posts this topic has generated. It will take me some time to fathom the Tercel/Theli exchange, but I think it will be worth it. Jobar says:

we have no idea of how many possible universes can exist; we don't actually know that it's more than 1. We cannot establish any probabilities about whether other universes contain life; we cannot say if other universes exist at all! Therefore all we can say is that, until further information is available, the question is indeterminate. ...And as Prof. Stenger has pointed out, indeterminacy- ignorance- is of no use to us in the point we address here (i.e. the existence/nonexistence of god(s).)

Yes, but the Max Tegmark paper, as I understand it, postulates that: All mathematically possible universes actually exist. Moreover, he asserts that his claim is falsifiable. And, he asserts that a survey of the actual properties of the vast majority of universes possessing properties different from our own implies universes that would be devoid of structured forms either because they would be too bland, or because they would be too chaotic. (For example, he claims that all universes possessing our current properties, but having ANY spacetime dimensionality different from our own 3+1, would almost certainly rule out life of any kind.) So these are positive scientific claims. These claims can seem to have a bearing on an issue of god/gods because, if it is true that all mathematically possible universes are actually real, and if this is the same as saying that all logically possible universes are real, then it seems we must infer the presence of a universe or universes with entities very much like god or gods, provided they have no logically contradictory properties.

If these other universes DO NOT exist, we are (at least I am!) left to puzzle over why our universe has such a seemingly narrow range of values allowing for the existence of orderly structures. After all, Tegmark could have found LOTS of potential universes implying orderly structures. But he found the opposite.) Yet reading over some of these posts, and rereading some Stenger, I am left to wonder whether my wonder is justified. Don't know yet! I will have to ponder the matter more, though I think, in general, it is wrong to say that fine-tuning implies our existence as a "goal," therebye implying a creator. One just naturally wonders (see Tegmark) why the VAST RANGE of potential alternate universes comse up with little or NOTHING orderly -- not people, not planets, not green slime, not atheists, not anything. (Maybe!)

Vic Stenger

I have read through allmessages on this thread and find I do not have many strong disagreements. As far as I am concerned, the fine tuning argument has a simple, fatal flaw that is the same as the flaw in all design arguments. We simply do not have the knowledge to make the statement that a designer is required by the data. When I offer alternative exlanations, all I am required to do is make them consistent with existing knowledge. I do not have burden of proving them. Unless they can be disproived, they serve to refute any claim that a designer was necessary.

It's as if someone came up to me and said that he predicted 9/11 before the fact but presents no evidence.
"How can you possibly explain that, he asks?"
"You're lying."
"Are you calling me a liar!"
"No, I am simply giving you what you asked for, a possible explanation. People are known to lie."

A couple of other points.

1. Richard Carrier is a good friend of mine but he is a historian, not a cosmologist. You will not find a current working cosmologist who doubts the big bang. The data, much of it very new, is overwhelming.

2. There is one multiple universe proposal that is possibly testable, the one of Lee Smolin in which black holes lead to new universes. The details are in his book "The Life of the Cosmos." He mentions the idea briefly in his new book "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity." There he says that one falsifiable prediction, an association between carbon and black hole formation (he is assuming carbon is the best way to make life) is borne out by the data, but he gives no details. But, again, I wish to emphasize that the fine tuning argument fails even without multiple universes.