lpetrich

I've thought a bit about that, and I consider that argument partially bogus. However, there is a related problem that is more serious, as I shall explain.

One version of the argument states that if some physical constants were only a tiny bit different, then life would be impossible because of such things as chemical bonding and reactions not working properly.

However, if one takes a closer look at the physics behind chemical bonding, it turns out to be less fine-tuned than some people seem to think. This comes from work in quantum chemistry, attempts to predict the properties of chemical bonds using from-scratch quantum mechanics. The only physics that enters is that electrons are spin-1/2, electrostatically interacting, and much lighter than nuclei -- meaning that chemical bonds would keep their angles, relative lengths, and relative energies if the Fine Structure Constant ((electric charge)^2/(4*pi); dimensionless in hbar = c = 1 units) got changed or the electron got lighter or heavier relative to the nuclei.

There are interesting effects in other areas. If the FSC was smaller, then nuclei could extend up to higher masses, since protons would repel each other less. Likewise, if the FSC was larger, then nuclei would extend up to lower masses than they do, because of protons' greater repulsion of each other.

However, there would still be long-lived radioisotopes at the upper end of the mass scale, like the uranium and thorium in our Universe, because instability due to proton repulsion is not a sharp cliff. And stellar-nucleosynthesis processes that produce heavy elements would produce them all the way up to where they become too unstable to last.

It may be possible to derive nuclear binding energies directly from quarks, gluons, and Quantum Chromodynamics in the way that one would do quantum chemistry; one nuclear physicist once joked that particle physicists have turned them into chemists.

But there is a serious difficulty. The electromagnetic FSC has a value of 1/137, making it easy to expand in powers of it, while the QCD equivalent has a value near 1 at the energy scales typical of nucleons -- making it much more difficult. To do nucleon structure requires an enormous amount of computer time, and that's with picturing space-time as a very coarse grid, something like 10*10*10*10. And that barely covers nucleon-nucleon interactions. However, one may be able to hand-wave one's way through nuclear structure by using the fact that the up and down quarks (those in nucleons) are nearly massless (a few MeV) compared to QCD's built-in energy scale of a few hundred MeV.

There are other interesting problems, such as the maximum sizes of planets and the luminosities and lifetimes of stars that can be treated in this way, but I'll skip on that.

There are some features that seem very convenient for us, but it is always possible that there are even better possibilities than those of our Universe.

One curious oddity is that neutrons are more massive than protons. From this, one infers that down quarks are more massive than up ones, which is contrary to the trend shown by their heavier relatives (strange less than charm, bottom less than top). This circumstance has allowed hydrogen to form in the Big Bang; if protons were the unstable one, then the Big Bang would have formed a surfeit of neutrons instead of protons, meaning that hydrogen would be a rare element. Stars would behave differently, since they'd be mostly helium and heavier elements, meaning that they'd burn out more quickly than the stars of our Universe do.

It is interesting that QCD becomes superstrong at energies of a few hundred MeV; this is why nucleons are much more massive than electrons -- the strong quark-gluon and gluon-gluon interactions make the quarks relativistic, with kinetic energies at the QCD energy scale.

If QCD got strong at much less energy, then the rest masses of the up and down quarks would dominate the nucleons' masses, making them not much more massive than electrons. This would have fun consequences in chemical bonds, but I don't think that that would be fatal. There is also the question of nuclei forming with a weak QCD interaction; at energies higher than its natural energy scale, its FSC equivalent gets smaller and smaller in reciprocal-of-logarithm-of-energy fashion.

But if QCD got superstrong at much higher energy scales, then the Universe would still be much like our Universe, but with much more massive nucleons.

Now to the question of weak interactions. These are weak because of a "symmetry breaking" of a combined electromagnetic-weak force that happens at energies of a few hundred GeV. If this symmetry breaking did not happen, then beta decays would happen much faster, and there would be an "extra" electromagnetic-like force. But it happens, and it is likely connected to the masses of the electrons (e, mu, tau) and the quarks. The top quark has a mass of 150 GeV, which is almost the right size, but the other quarks and all the electrons are much less massive, with the "true" electron being 300,000 times less massive! This may be due to some quantum-mechanical spillover, but the details are unclear.

Also, if supersymmetry is real, it is expected to be broken, and the energy scale of this breaking is expected to be a little above the electroweak-interaction symmetry breaking -- and may be related to that breaking.

What makes this symmetry breaking happen is obscure, however; but one thing less obscure is that the FSC equivalents of the electroweak and QCD forces change reciprocal-logarithmically with interaction energy, converging on a single value at about 10^15 GeV -- implying that they were parts of a single interaction that was split up by symmetry breaking. This is, of course, GUT territory. But it's not clear why there is a 10^12 ratio of energies between GUT symmetry breaking and SUSY/electroweak symmetry breaking. It may be connected with the logarithmic rate of change of various interaction constants with energy (huge difference in energy to produce a significant change).

But the GUT energy scale is close to the Planck energy scale of 10^19 GeV (10^19 that of a nucleon, 10^22 that of an electron), that of quantum gravity. This suggests some connection, though exactly what connection is obscure.

But one interesting consequence of this great difference in energies between the familiar elementary-particle world and gravity is that we can live in a very complicated Universe, owing to the resulting weakness of gravity. For example, this enables the largest planet (approx. Jupiter) to have an enormous number of elementary particles, while if the familiar elementary particles had GUT-scale masses, then such an object could not have many particles in it.

However, there does not seem to be much fine tuning here; the gravity-elementary-particle energy-scale discrepancy can be somewhat larger or smaller without producing a drastically-different Universe.

But the final question is: why the particular GUT that had led to the particles of our Universe? What other possibilities could there be?

One attempt to answer this question has been to explore superstring theory, but although that has no free parameters, it does have a large number of possible ground states -- which correspond to different GUT's. What makes a superstring "choose" one and not another is, however, an unsolved problem. Another oddity that must be explained is that superstrings prefer to live in 10 space-time dimensions, while we directly observe only 4. It is expected that the other 6 will curl up into a tiny ball somewhere from Planck-sized to GUT-sized. But why this 4+6 split? Why not some other?

Actually, 4 space-time dimensions are convenient for us, since that allows for complicated structures while allowing objects to orbit each other, producing many of the structures of our familiar Universe. The inverse-square law of gravity and electromagnetism becomes inverse-(D-1) for D space dimensions; if D = 4, then orbits are borderline unstable, and if D is greater than 4, then orbits are definitely unstable. Thus, our familiar Universe has to have 3 space dimensions to allow us to exist.

But superstrings offer an intriguing hypothesis; our Universe could be a supercooled bubble in some "superstring soup" that has several other such bubbles in different ground states, producing Universes that were usually sterile -- and sometimes inhabited when they could allow inhabitants to come into existence, as ours does.

Pomp

When I'm done reading the rest of the threads in here, I swear I'm going to make an attempt to actually understand this.

Easy Be

I can explain!!!!
<a href="http://web.wt.net/~cbenton/kabbalah/string.htm" target="_blank">*here*</a>
THIS PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Have you ever heard of M-theory? I feel it does a better job explaining superstring theory than the five 10-dimensional string theories. M-theory is a universe with 11 dimensions instead of 10. It actually combines the 5 10-dimensional theories into one.

Grumpy

*I can't say I understood that, but it was very readable. Like, Steven Weinberg readable. You didn't boost any of the text, did you, lp?

Proxima Centauri

COSMIC FINE -TUNING

Oh what is the Cosmos, oh was it designed?
What will research tell us, what will science find?
Our life, based on carbon needs such narrow range,
We live on a knife-edge with parameters strange.

There’s Christians and others say the world was designed.
But what could have made it, how complex a mind?
Divine is the mystery, believers declare.
But mysteries solve nothing, mysteries hang in the air.

Could there be more universes, many not few?
With number so countless, that we have not a clue?
From time to time one springs, fine-tuned just like ours.
And there things can happen, there with more luck life flowers.

Elsewhere laws of physics could be different from here.
Life could still exist but with a nature so queer.
We cannot imagine what there could be found.
We try hard to reason but we don't know what's sound.

There's the principle, anthropic, the principle strong.
They say its not science and they say that its wrong.
Only worlds that contain life can come to exist.
For reasons unknown, so strong anthropics insist.

And a series of principles anthropic come next.
Most are even less science, make the scientists vexed.
But this cosmic fine-tuning, it really looks odd.
Well perhaps it is natural. Or perhaps it is God.

If the forces of science were not what they are,
Our world could be sterile, both near also far.
So why does the universe keep us alive?
And why, here on earth do plants and animals thrive?

So what is the Cosmos, so was it designed?
What will research tell us, what will science find?
The theists say, surely, the others say, no.
We cannot say truly, on with studies we go.


B.Shack.


This poem is decidedly agnostic. It sits firmly on the fence and refuses to budge from that position.


<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

Proxima Centauri

My last post was intended partly as a poem. Please, scientific debaters, do not tear me apart if it lacks total scientific rigour.

With this next post I am trying to be rigorous. 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 try to 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.

[ May 09, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]

[ May 11, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]

[ May 24, 2002: Message edited by: B.Shack ]</p>

Proxima Centauri

I have tried to be scientific with the second post, if there are problems with it, please let me know. Is Richard Carrier interested?

Proxima Centauri

Have you ever heard of M-theory? I feel it does a better job explaining superstring theory than the five 10-dimensional string theories. M-theory is a universe with 11 dimensions instead of 10. It actually combines the 5 10-dimensional theories into one.[/QB][/QUOTE]

If you want to find out more about M-theory and a possible universe with 11 dimensions try the following 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>
Its well worth reading and not as difficult as many science sites.

Jamie_L

Isn't it more accurate to say chemical bonding reactions would not work the way that they do? If physical constants were different, we'd have an entirely different universe that would evolve on its own for billions of years, or whatever. It seems to me that we can't possibly fathom what that would be like. However, given the complexity of the situation, I have no reason to believe there wouldn't be some sort of life. Maybe just not our kind of life.

Every single event in my life is completely, 100% dependent on every single event that came before it. If the entire universe had not exactly evolved the way it has, I would not have sneezed at 2:47pm EST today. Should I therefore conclude that all of existence was designed specifically to create my sneeze?

The fact that we are capable of living in the universe as it exists is in no way evidence that the universe is designed to allow us to exist.

Jamie

Proxima Centauri

I've already quoted the BBC'S Horizon programme broadcast on February 14th 2002. I'll give you 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>
If the M-theory involving a universe with 11 dimensions instead of 10 gets to be generally accepted it looks like that will end the fine-tuning argument for realistic scientists. This M-theory seems to lead to a multiverse so large and with such varied parameters that our univerese with apparently fine-tuned parameters is no longer surprising.
On February 14th 2002 this theory was not (yet?) generally accepted. Here's another quote from the programme, near the end.

NARRATOR: This idea is so new it's only begun to be discussed, but IF IT'S ACCEPTED it will mean Einstein's missing theory has finally been found.
'M Theory may really be able to explain everything in the Universe, but the victory will be bittersweet, for at the end of its long quest, science has discovered that the Universe it's thought to explain may be nothing special. It is nothing more than one of an infinite number of membranes, just one of the many universes which make up the multiverse.'

I retyped the section in capitals to draw attention to it but kept the original words. As of now the M Theory is not generally accepted and we still have to look for explanations for apparent fine-tuning of the universe.

Even if scientists explain the parameters of the universe I've no doubt 'fuzzy fundies' will carry on spouting about fine-tuning for years and years. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />