the weak antropic principle

[Coito ergo sum]

I don't know if he has some other argument.

Here is a quote from him.

A megaverse of such diversity is unlikely to support intelligent life anywhere but in a tiny fraction of its expanse. According to this view, many questions such as, “Why is a certain constant of nature one number, instead of another?” will have answers that are entirely different from what physicists had hoped. No unique value will be picked out by mathematical consistency, since the Landscape permits an enormous variety of possible values. Instead, the answer will be, “Somewhere in the megaverse, the constant equals this number; somewhere else it is that number. We live in one tiny pocket where the value of the constant is consistent with our kind of life. That’s it! That’s all! There is no other answer to the question.” Many coincidences occur in the laws and constants of nature that have no explanation other than, “If it were otherwise, intelligent life could not exist.”

We're interested in knowing the following: whether the universe is designed or not. The tautology that we must live in an environment fit for life does not provide evidence for or against the argument from design.

I don't think anyone said it does provide such evidence, except those advancing intelligent design theory. They say that the because the universe is structured in such a way that we/life exist(s), then it must have been designed since designs have a designer. Thank you for illustrating exactly why their argument is bollocks. Good show!

[Coito ergo sum]

We don't have access to all the other universes out there so we can't say much about how fine tuned this one had to be to enable life.

And there is no empirical evidence that any other universes actually exist. There are only mathematical equations that are internally consistent based on unproven, but rationally plausible, assumptions.

[mistermack]

The real answer is that someone had to win, we all had the same chance, but it was me.

To adapt your lottery analogy by looking at lotto it is not true to say that somebody had to win. Ever.

Someone always does in the end.

[Coito ergo sum]

The real answer is that someone had to win, we all had the same chance, but it was me.

To adapt your lottery analogy by looking at lotto it is not true to say that somebody had to win. Ever.

Someone always does in the end.

It's not so much that someone had to win, but that if you run the lottery machine, some combination of numbers will come up. There is a 100% chance that some combination of numbers will come up. There is a 1 in however many combinations chance that any particular combination of numbers will come up. All those chances add up to 100%.

[mistermack]

Saying that the Universe was fine-tuned for life, is like me saying that it was fine tuned for me.
If the object was intelligent life, then I've obviously fulfilled it.

If any of the fundamental constants had been different, I could never have existed.
The rest of you just got lucky. I should get more respect round here.

Once I'm gone, you will all be redundant.

[Robert_S]

We don't have access to all the other universes out there so we can't say much about how fine tuned this one had to be to enable life.

And there is no empirical evidence that any other universes actually exist. There are only mathematical equations that are internally consistent based on unproven, but rationally plausible, assumptions.

That's not my main point. We can't even really say how well hypothetical universes with constants and constraints set at random would have turned out.

[Hermit]

The real answer is that someone had to win, we all had the same chance, but it was me.

To adapt your lottery analogy by looking at lotto it is not true to say that somebody had to win. Ever.

Someone always does in the end.

The lotto game is meant to be analogous to the universe. Just like there may not be a winner in any one particular lotto game, it is conceivable that the universe had taken a form where no life could have possibly existed.

[mistermack]

The real answer is that someone had to win, we all had the same chance, but it was me.

To adapt your lottery analogy by looking at lotto it is not true to say that somebody had to win. Ever.

Someone always does in the end.

The lotto game is meant to be analogous to the universe. Just like there may not be a winner in any one particular lotto game, it is conceivable that the universe had taken a form where no life could have possibly existed.

That's my point too. It could easily have taken that form. Or maybe billions of other forms. But just like a lottery, eventually it has to take one form.

Where I think my lottery analogue fails a bit is that all lottery numbers are equally likely. The fine-tuned argument says that in the Universe lottery, some numbers are far more likely than others. And they are saying that the number that we DID draw, was an incredibly unlikely number.

I would think that that would be fair enough, if they could prove that this IS an incredibly unlikely format for the Universe. But there is so little known about how and why fundamental constants are what they are, or even what energy and fields actually are, that it's all pure guesswork and speculation.

And there is absolutely no justification for assuming that life of any sort was the purpose. Let alone just one species, on one planet was what the entire Universe was made for.
That's as silly as me claiming it was all set up just for me to exist.