Some versions of the Fine Tuning Argument for God's existence remark that our existence is too improbable to be the product of chance - that it's absurd to attribute it to luck. Is it? Consider how these two cases differ:
1. Mary is lucky to be alive! She was on a flight to Detroit, and the plane crashed killing 98 of the 100 people on board.
2. John is lucky to be alive! Had his parents not had sex on that particular day, uniting that specific sperm and ovum - he wouldn't be here. The same is true of each of his parents, as well as every pair of ancestors throughout biological history. Consider the odds that JOHN would come to be!
Mary beat the odds, a 98% mortality rate. The reason she happened to live could be analyzed in terms of exactly where she was seated, the nature of the crash, the planes structural differences from one part to another, etc. Similarly, the 98 people who died were unlucky that they weren't sitting in the exact right spot.
Did John beat some odds? If he did, they were astronomical: consider how many potential sperm-egg combinations could possibly have occurred over the course of history. Can we say that the people that DIDN'T emerge are unlucky? It seems to me that something that doesn't exist can't be considered to be lucky or not-lucky. It seems therefore that John couldn't lose, because losing means not existing.
We could say that John is lucky in some sense, but not in any analyzable sense. Therefore no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from it. This seems similar to the "luck" of our improbable existence that is the result of the (presumed) low probability fact that the structure of the universe happens to be life permitting.
Thoughts? — Relativist
We could say that John is lucky in some sense, but not in any analyzable sense. Therefore no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from it. This seems similar to the "luck" of our improbable existence that is the result of the (presumed) low probability fact that the structure of the universe happens to be life permitting. — Relativist
Sure, the denominator of the probability is still finite - but it's so large that it makes it surprising that any actual person is alive. On the other hand, it's imminently reasonable that SOME people exist. This is the tension. It's erroneous to apply this to individuals to "prove" they shouldn't be expected to exist, because we should expect SOME people to exist.The "probability" of John being born as a result of chance circumstances is a rather iffy concept: you have to make a pretty arbitrary choice of random variables and their distributions in order to estimate it. But at a stretch one can perhaps make some sense of it. — SophistiCat
Lots of people think the FTA is the very best way to prove God. I don't think so, and that's why I'm pondering this issue.The way Stephen Hawking put it in "A brief history of time" if over X time you roll a trillion sided die a trillion times you'll eventually roll an 18 if you desired to roll an 18.
I don't think probability is the best way to argue for religion. — christian2017
The way Stephen Hawking put it in "A brief history of time" if over X time you roll a trillion sided die a trillion times you'll eventually roll an 18 if you desired to roll an 18.
I don't think probability is the best way to argue for religion.
— christian2017
Lots of people think the FTA is the very best way to prove God. I don't think so, and that's why I'm pondering this issue.
Hawking's right, but for the sake of discussion, I'm assuming there is exactly one roll of the dice - where each die represents a fundamental constant, whose many sides are the possible values it can take. My take on it is that there are no preexisting players who "win". Each roll is as likely as any other, and the consequences of a roll are irrelevant. The consequences are the sorts of thing that exist in the universe. These consequent existents weren't players, any more than were WE players in the procreation lottery. — Relativist
Yes - that's one way to address it, but it depends on the assumption that there is some sort of infinity of possibilities (infinite past, infinite space, infinite universes). That can be debated, and I'm tired of theists claiming I'm using the multiverse as a means to "escape" the obvious conclusion ("god").The notion of luck is rendered irrelevant if adequate time is available and by "adequate" I mean time in terms of googol years or larger. Even events with near-zero probabilities will actualize given the right amount of time, no? — TheMadFool
Yes - that's one way to address it, but it depends on the assumption that there is some sort of infinity of possibilities (infinite past, infinite space, infinite universes). That can be debated, and I'm tired of theists claiming I'm using the multiverse as a means to "escape" the obvious conclusion ("god").
My issue seems more straightforward - cutting the FTA off at the knees. Assume one universe: the "luck" of our existence is meaningless - no conclusions can be drawn from it. — Relativist
Sure, the denominator of the probability is still finite - but it's so large that it makes it surprising that any actual person is alive. On the other hand, it's imminently reasonable that SOME people exist. This is the tension. It's erroneous to apply this to individuals to "prove" they shouldn't be expected to exist, because we should expect SOME people to exist.
In terms of the FTA, life (or intelligent life) is one sort of existent, but there infinitely many sorts of existent. So IMO the analogy holds.
I'm wondering if this can be described mathematically. — Relativist
This seems similar to the "luck" of our improbable existence that is the result of the (presumed) low probability fact that the structure of the universe happens to be life permitting.
Thoughts? — Relativist
One of my hobbies (or obsessions) is to debate theists on their Fine Tuning Argument for God (here's my current one - I'm called, "Fred"). I've read a number of papers, including the SEP article, and I've read debates and seen videos where its defended. I have observed that the most common rebuttal to it is the multiverse hypothesis. I don't think that's the best approach because it concedes too much - in particular, it concedes that life needs to be explained.There has been a lot of discussion along these lines. John Leslie offered a now well-known firing squad analogy: You face a firing squad of trained marksmen. Shots are fired, but to your immense surprise, you find that they all missed. Are you justified in inferring that the marksmen intended to miss? Leslie argues that a similar scenario in the case of the universe's fundamental constants suggests two alternative explanations: God or multiple universes. Objections have been put forward in terms of gambler's fallacy and observation selection effect, among others. You can find many such debates under the heading of anthropic reasoning (see also SEP entry on fine-tuning). Although I believe that the considerations that I gave above preempt any such debates with respect to the universe as a whole, I still think that they are instructive. — SophistiCat
I understand, but here's their perspective: the textbook laws of physics are our best guess at the actual laws of nature, so they are a reasonable basis for analysis.↪ Who says life can't adopt as many different forms as existent universes? Maybe life can exist in many possible universes. The "laws" of physics are based on models of our universe, not every possible universe. — Enrique
Proponents of the modern fine tuning argument accept that life in this universe is fully explainable. What they argue is that life-permitting universes should not be expected. This is because there are fundamental constants in the laws of physics (like the cosmological constant, the mass of the Higgs boson, the gravitational constant...) that appear to be "fine-tuned" for life: had any of these constants differed by even a small amount, such things as chemistry would not be possible (there would not exist atoms that could form chemical bonds). They argue that these constants are finely tuned to allow life.
As I just mentioned to Sophisticat, this assumes life was a target - a design objective. — Relativist
Agreed, but can you identify a relavent contradiction? — Relativist
The point is not that the universe is perfect for life, but that it is perfect enough for life to evolve even if individual organisms can suffer, while others of the species manage to procreate. And it seems to me you are interpreting FTA as necessarily part of a benevolent God model. This need not be the case. The problem is the utterly, incredibly low chance that a universe would be hospitable to life or even complex patterns at all. THAT is what shocked many physcists. And while few of them were theists, they suddenly felt they needed an explanation for why amongst all the seemingly possible universes this one balanced on a point where life could evolve. And, they, not advocates for a benevolent deity, began looking at reasons it might be like this. Answes included multiverses or at least a more extended universe where other conditions elsewhere that were not conducive to life also existed in parallel or at a distance from our neck of the woods. People who had no interest in proving a deity or believing in one found the conditions of the universe so strange they started to look around for possible explanations. Other people, outside these physicists, with other beleifs and paradigms also became interested in this issue. But extremely smart, non-theists, solidly within the scientific paradigm, were the ones who first felt there's a problem This is too radically unlikely. And for some it was precisely to ward off religious interpretations they rushed to find some other way of explaining this - such as a multiverse where different sub universes have different fundamental laws and constant. And some of them, despite not being theists, do believe in a strong version of fine tuning .. That for reasons unknown the universe IS tuned to make life.Well, it seems the FTA has a flaw. It claims that the universe is fine tuned for life as a whole but that would mean the universe was fine tuned for microbial pathogens as well as humans but these two examples of life are counterexamples of the universe being fine tuned for either. I mean microbial pathogens shouldn't exist if the universe were fine tuned for humans and humans shouldn't exist, with their antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and all, if the universe were fine tuned for microbes. — TheMadFool
You seem to be claiming there was an objective to "increase awareness, connection, and collaberation." Why think that?There is no reason to assume that life as we know it was the specific target. The creative process itself is open-ended, and not so much an application of power and influence from ‘above’ towards a specific design objective, but rather an interaction aimed at whatever increases awareness, connection and collaboration overall. It’s initially an unselfish and undirected process, exploring possibility and potential within material limitations. — Possibility
The claim is not that the universe is tuned for each specific type of life - that entails a complex set of objectives. It's just the broad claim that it seems "tuned" for life - because no kinds of life would be possible had the constants had different values.Well, it seems the FTA has a flaw. It claims that the universe is fine tuned for life as a whole but that would mean the universe was fine tuned for microbial pathogens as well as humans but these two examples of life are counterexamples of the universe being fine tuned for either. I mean microbial pathogens shouldn't exist if the universe were fine tuned for humans and humans shouldn't exist, with their antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and all, if the universe were fine tuned for microbes.
Since all life maybe reduced to such mutually harmful relationships, I would think twice before suggesting any fine tuning for life. Perhaps it has an evilish entertainment value as a paradox: the universe is fine tuned for life but not fine tuned for the living. — TheMadFool
Yes, and that's related to my Op. Consider the enormous (infinite?) number of possible things that would exist if other universes had existed instead of ours. Each type of thing had the same, infinitesmal chance of coming into being. Consider the odds against YOU coming to be, vs the enormous number of possible people that weren't so "lucky".I think the real hidden value that should be questioned here is why life is considered so different than other physical processes. — schopenhauer1
The claim is not that the universe is tuned for each specific type of life - that entails a complex set of objectives. It's just the broad claim that it seems "tuned" for life - because no kinds of life would be possible had the constants had different values. — Relativist
That's the problem in my opinion. Suppose the fine-tuned physical parameters for life are like a set of conditions imposed on a group of people. If these conditions didn't favor any one member of the group wouldn't it be the heights of foolishness to say the conditions favored the group as a whole. The exact logic applies the the fine tuning argument. — TheMadFool
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