Almost any other view is more plausible than thinking fine-tuning is brute Certain parameters in physics fall in a very narrow range needed for the formation of life. If they didn’t fall in this range, either the universe would have just been floating clouds of hydrogen gas, or all particles would immediately fly apart, or the universe would immediately collapse. The physics behind this claim is largely uncontroversial. As theoretical physicist Aron Wall, who provides very measured and balanced takes on these sorts of things, put it: https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/hep/person/aw846 https://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/did-the-universe-begin-x-recap/ >It is not controversial among physicists that these “anthropic coincidences” exist. Even atheistic physicists who work in the relevant areas mostly acknowledge it is true. The question is what is the explanation for this phenomenon?
>>18451074Of the values the cosmological constant could have taken on, only about 1/10^120 of them https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fortunate-Universe-Finely-Tuned-Cosmos/dp/1107156610 would have made any life possible. That’s about the odds of throwing an atom-sized dart across Earth and hitting the same atom three times in a row, then winning a one in a million lottery twice in a row. You shouldn’t think such an astonishing coincidence happened merely by chance. That theism can explain such a puzzling phenomenon is a good argument for believing in God. Probably you have a bunch of objections at this point I’ve tried to address them comprehensively here. https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works
>>18451075Fortunately for atheists, there are much better options available than attributing this to chance. You can explain fine-tuning with a multiverse. I think this explanation has some problems, https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works and fine-tuning remains strong evidence for theism, but it’s much, much, much better than eating the hit on a 1/10^120 coincidence. You should never do that if there’s an alternative explanation that isn’t comparatively implausible.But some people think fine-tuning doesn’t need an explanation. These people think that it doesn’t make any sense to talk about the odds of the parameters having some value. It isn’t as if there was some random process that selected the parameters, making each value equally likely. So we can’t call such a thing probable or improbable.I think this position is about as wrong as anything could be.Let’s first be clear on the kind of improbability we’re talking about. It’s called antecedent epistemic improbability. This is how unlikely you would have found some event before you knew it was the case. Crucially, some proposition can be epistemically improbable even if you now know it’s likely and it couldn’t have been any other way consistent with the laws of physics.If tomorrow we discovered that there were 10^100 particles in the known universe, we would subsequently know that with high confidence. Nonetheless, it would be highly antecedently epistemically improbable in that before knowing it was the case, you would have had a low credence in it being true. Something can have been antecedently improbable even if you now know that it’s true: if someone gets an extraordinary string of luck in poker, you now know that they got lucky, so the probability that they got so lucky is 100%.
>>18451077But still, you can reasonably say that something improbable happened, in the sense that you would have reasonably assigned a low probability to it happening before it happened.And crucially, for something to be epistemically improbable, there doesn’t have to be some random selection process that leads to it a low percentage of the time. A lot of the evidence for continental drift comes from the fact that the fossil records of continents started diverging at discrete points in the past, and the continental shelfs fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. We can reasonably say that such a pattern is unlikely unless continental drift happened, even though we don’t have any repeated experiments of such things.Similarly, one of the major lines of evidence for atomic theory was that there were many different ways of calculating Avogadro’s number that all converged on the right answer out to many decimal points. It is reasonable to say that such a thing would be improbable if atomic theory was false, even though there would be no random selection process for determining the values that they would take on. Rather, it would be epistemically improbable that such ways of calculating the values would return convergent results.Let’s look at some cases of this kind of reasoning closer to the fine-tuning case.
>>18451080Imagine that the initial conditions of the universe spelled out “made by God, with love,” in every human language. That would be very surprising. It would be surprising even though we’d then know that it was true, and it would be physically necessary. The reason it would be surprising is that out of all the shapes the initial conditions could take on, it’s unlikely they’d take on that specific one. In contrast, a theory on which there was some designer would render it less unlikely that the initial conditions would take on such a shape.I think of fine-tuning as working similarly to this case. We notice some surprising pattern in the laws and constants, we see that the pattern is both highly specific and very valuable, and so we attribute it to design absent a better explanation. This is a very normal inference: if you saw a space ship appear in the sky and begin shooting lasers, you should think it was caused by an agent, even though it could, in principle, be produced by a random physical process. We invoke design as an explanation when something is very improbable by chance but the kind of thing that an agent might get up to.Here’s one case that seems especially close to fine-tuning and shows that you shouldn’t just declare fine-tuning brute.Imagine that there were two physical theories. One of them entails that the value of some parameter will be one of a hundred possible 120-digit numbers. The other places no constraints on the value of that parameter—it could be anything. Now imagine that we find that the parameter takes on one of the values that the first theory predicts it must. Surely that is evidence for the first theory!
>>18451081This is very similar to fine-tuning.Theism makes predictions about what the constants will be. It doesn’t make certain that the constants would be finely-tuned, but it at least makes a finely-tuned constant not astronomically improbable. So theism is like a theory that narrows down a physical parameter to 100 options (or 1,000, or 10,000 or whatever). Single universe atheism, imposing no constraints on the value of the constants, is like the theory that leaves the constant unconstrained. If the constant is one of the 100 options, that obviously confirms the first theory over the second!I see two options available for the in-principle opponent of fine-tuning: biting the bullet and arguing that the cases are non-parallel.How might they argue that they’re non-parallel? One way is to suggest that theism doesn’t place any constraints on the value of the constants. But this surely isn’t right. If there was a God, the odds of the cosmological constant falling in the range that gives rise to life and complexity without needing direct divine intervention surely aren’t astronomically low. https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works Surely the odds of such a thing happening aren’t one in googol?
>>18451082If you knew God existed, and we had the physical laws we do, you would not be as shocked to find the cosmological constant fine-tuned as to hit the same atom with a dart thrown randomly across Earth three times in a row, then win the lottery twice. Perhaps you think you would be that surprised. Well, there are lots of smart people who don’t think it’s that surprising. When smart people disagree with you, and they’re not kooks, you should not think the odds that they’re right are on the order of the odds of hitting the same atom thrown randomly across the known universe three times in a row.Second, you might bite the bullet and simply deny that this would be evidence. This is very hard to seriously maintain when one thinks vividly about the case.Imagine the partisans of each theory entering the room, neither having been informed of the value of the parameter. The first one predicts that it will be one of a hundred specific 120-digit numbers the other has no guesses. You read off the digits. After digit five, the partisan of the first theory has narrowed it down to just one possible remaining number, and goes on to correctly predict the next 115 digits. The partisan of the other theory has no expectations, being continually surprised by each passing digit.Surely, in such a world, you should update in favor of the first theory! That is because their theory renders some otherwise extremely unlikely phenomena insanely unlikely, while the other theory does not. And, of course, whether this is evidence doesn’t depend on whether you actually bother bringing the partisans of the theory into the room, and have them guess the constants values.
>>18451083Now, again, I am not saying that you have to give up atheism in light of fine-tuning. I am merely claiming that if you say fine-tuning has no explanation, that the constants taking on such an astronomically improbable value is purely a matter of chance, and there’s nothing more to be said about it, then something has gone badly wrong in your reasoning. You will have to eat the hit on a coincidence on the order of hitting the same atom thrown across Earth three times in a row and then winning the lottery twice. Most alarmingly, you have abandoned Bayesianism!When analyzing fine-tuning, I often feel like people go into debate mode and become too unwilling to concede ground. They often start endorsing extremely speculative proposals in physics https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/35831 that physicists don’t take seriously to avoid giving ground. It is perfectly fine to admit that some fact is a bit surprising and poses some evidence against your worldview. I admit that about the fact that the world is filled with evil is evidence against theism.
>>18451086I hope I have built up some credibility when analyzing theistic arguments. I do not think that all of them are good. https://benthams.substack.com/p/arguments-for-god-tier-list?utm_source=publication-search In fact, of William Lane Craig’s common arguments for theism, fine-tuning is the only one I think has much force, and most I regard as dismal failures. But fine-tuning is really puzzling, and if you don’t feel that something weird’s going on, then I think you’re fundamentally missing the force of the challenge.
>>18451087Here’s what I would say about fine-tuning if I was an atheist. First of all, atheists have a pretty good explanation of fine-tuning in the form of a multiverse. Second, theism doesn’t explain it as well as people naively think, because God could create life in myriad ways. He could create direct, joyous, disembodied minds, or make any arrangements of matter conscious, or create directly by miracle. So when you combine these factors, fine-tuning is only moderate evidence.Now, to be clear, I don’t agree with this line. I both think fine-tuning isn’t that unlikely https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works given theism and a multiverse given atheism is very unlikely. But it doesn’t strike me as crazy, and it doesn’t require warping one’s assessment of how probability works. I’m worried that people, in an attempt to resist the fine-tuning argument, often endorse extremely implausible things, and this makes their worldview make a lot less sense.So go in for a multiverse, or deeper physics, or some expansive naturalistic alternative like axiarchism. Just don’t say fine-tuning is brute! That explanation is wholly untenable, and trying to maintain its tenability risks infecting the rest of your probabilistic reasoning and distorting the plausibility of your worldview.
>>18451075Evolution is fake
bum
Isn't this juat an argument from incredulity with extra steps?
>>18451074Philosophers really shouldn't try to do physics
>>18451550Thats funny because the author of this article has spoken with physicists about fine tuning and he agrees with him like Luke Barnes who has a background in physics and philosophy, he’s a lecturer in physics in Australian university https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v-IqXOsVso4https://philpeople.org/profiles/luke-a-barnes https://letterstonature.wordpress.com/luke/
>>18451089>theism doesn’t explain it as well as people naively think, because God could create life in myriad ways.On a similar line of thought, I'm a little confused what is actually supposed to be explained by theism here. The epistemically improbable thing that we're confronted with, as you explained, isn't that life exists or that the physical constants of the universe permit life (which they must do if we're here), it's that they wouldn't permit life if some of them were very slightly different. But how is this evidence of theism? Does theism predict that God would create a universe that wouldn't permit life IF some things were very slightly different than they actually are? Why? Does it make such a universe more likely? How? The only way I can think of is if theism makes the universe more unpredictable in general, raising the probability of just about any unlikely thing. That does seem like it might be the case, but it would seem fishy to invoke a hypothesis that does that to explain something weird.
>>18451550Physicists should stay out of philosophy. Almost every significant scientist and mathematician up until very recently was a polymath who had a deep understanding of philosophical concepts. And I mean, very recently. This intellectual philistinism is a disgrace, and shows the declining moral and social character of scientists in the West.
>>18452249The best evidence scientists lack morals is that so few scientists are vegans, abortion abolitionists or intactivists
>>18452218>>18451531I’d comment these objections on his article and see if he responds I am still new to this https://benthams.substack.com/p/fine-tuning-clearly-needs-explanation?triedRedirect=true
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>>18452516it’s a free blog that doesn’t even require you to sign in to read
>>18451074How is the universe "finetuned" for life? It's almost entirely empty space, and from the tiny bit that isn't empty space, it's mostly dark matter which only has measurable gravity, and from the tiny but of ordinary matter, it's still mostly hydrogen and helium, and from the tiny bit of heavier elements, it's mostly in completely inhospitable galaxies, stars and planets, and from the tiny bit that's "alive" on Earth, it's mostly just plants and microbes? How is the universe not finetuned for vacuum instead, with everything else being a minor impurity?
>>18451075>That’s about the odds of throwing an atom-sized dart across Earth and hitting the same atom three times in a row, then winning a one in a million lottery twice in a row.We don't know enough about the actual shape of the probability distribution to make comparisons like this.>>18451080>we can reasonably say that such a pattern is unlikely unless continental drift happenedBecause we understand the dynamics of the diffusion of species, and of the structure of the Earth and its implications for what plates are, and how they relate to each other. We don't have that understanding for universe-formation, without which we are greatly constrained in what we can say about development and probability.
>>18451074survivor bias, if there are a million universes and only 1 suitable for life, the conscious beings would exist in that 1 to perceive it and think about it and reach the conclusion they are special snowflakes
>>18451083>The first one predicts that it will be one of a hundred specific 120-digit numbers the other has no guesses. They do no such thing. If you're positing an immortal human soul at all, you already believe that supernatural phenomena happen reliably. And if you believe in a being outside of reality, with the ability to entirely generate it, then that being (especially if it's literally omniscient and omnipotent) can literally shape it in any way they want to, including any configuration constants, to produce literally any result. Or even if there were some inherent connection between certain values and outcomes, such that 2 + 2 can not ever equal 'fish,' the creator could surely shift the system around those values, no matter their specific values, to achieve any result. >the odds of the cosmological constant falling in the range that gives rise to life and complexity without needing direct divine intervention surely aren’t astronomically low. It's also silly to phrase it as 'giving rise to life,' given how many layers of reality and contingency exist between fundamental constants and life on Earth existing. Even with reality shifting in such a way that, say, the stars and galaxies as we know them can never exist or exist only in radically altered form, the fate of one tiny clump of dust orbiting a nondescript star would be of astronomical irrelevance.
I'm too retarded to have any proper input, but have a bumphttps://youtu.be/RaHBZrPU9xg?si=k1_PoaeF9HZwjAoPhttps://youtu.be/m60BPejaWas?si=jnFjkb2NIuMyPRGRhttps://youtu.be/oIva_60l3ww?si=f64L-f63sxq1IMgVhttps://youtu.be/P-nh5trFtyY?si=_djXQtJbDStsUkRs
>>18452218> But how is this evidence of theism? They're ultimately asserting that, in Bayesian terms, P(God|life-supporting universe) = P(life-supporting universe|God) * P(God) / P(life-supporting universe) P(naturalism|life-supporting universe) = P (life-supporting universe |naturalism) * P(naturalism) / P(life-supporting universe). P(life-supporting universe) normalizes out. They would argue that P(life-supporting universe|God) ≈ 1 (of course God would make a universe that can hold life, He can't have just the angels worshipping Him). P(God) ≈ P(naturalism). P(life-supporting universe|naturalism) ≈ 0 (if constants were different by infinitesimal amounts, then the universe would be altered in a way which would preclude life and naturalism as we currently know it provides no widely accepted explanation of why we have the values we observe). Thus P(God|life-supporting universe) ≈ 1 >>> P(naturalism|life-supporting universe) ≈ 0.Of course, there are a lot of other assumptions packed into it, like God creating the universe through supernatural means (so you can't ask mechanistic questions about that, or ask why the near-impossibility of the values is not a challenge for God), but then letting it function entirely via natural processes from that baseline (otherwise the values of constants would be irrelevant, because God could just magick them to work, which would actually be a more solid proof of existence, if we saw and rigorously validated observations that could not be explained even theoretically through naturalistic means).
Still don't understand how theism, is a theory, or how it predicts this
The chances of God having exactly the desire to cause our world, instead of something else, seems vanishingly smallthis cries out for an explanation! With God, anything is possible. So it's not like there are any constraints, the chances are infinitesimal Why did God do this, instead of something else?Clearly God is fine-tuned to cause the data we're trying to explain
personally i think that either the universe has a specific reason for being way that it is (ie: false vacuum decay is a dip of stability) or, yes, we did just really get super lucky. after all, if the universe is cycled (big if), then eventually it will end up with us statistically speaking. (but, in the end, does anyone truly know why we are here? maybe god just felt like it one morning lol)
>>18451074Fine tuning is entirely explained by a multiverse
>>18453637>Fine-tuning is entirely explained by a concept just as fantastic, if not more fantastic than God
>woah isn’t it crazy we exist in one of the only places that could support life>woah isn’t crazy there’s only ice in cold placesNot really.
