Fine Tuning, Arguments For and Against

[Feck]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ed3_1216586842

[mistermack]

Fine tuned FOR WHAT?

Fine tuned BY WHOM?

Well, I think that show's that you're missing the point entirely.
I am incredibly fine tuned. Fine tuned to SURVIVE AND REPRODUCE. Fine tuned by NOBODY.
I'm fine tuned by a non-thinking, non-caring PROCESS. Called evolution.
What I'm interested in is, is the Universe, like me, millions to one against, and if it is, what was the PROCESS that made it possible.
Then I would be able to answer the religious people who argue fine-tuning at me.
.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Fine tuned FOR WHAT?

Fine tuned BY WHOM?

Well, I think that show's that you're missing the point entirely.
I am incredibly fine tuned. Fine tuned to SURVIVE AND REPRODUCE. Fine tuned by NOBODY.
I'm fine tuned by a non-thinking, non-caring PROCESS. Called evolution.
What I'm interested in is, is the Universe, like me, millions to one against, and if it is, what was the PROCESS that made it possible.
Then I would be able to answer the religious people who argue fine-tuning at me.
.

You're not "fine tuned", you're simply the result of a process. You are a pitiful bag of protoplasm that barely survives on a good day.

[mistermack]

Feck, I like that guy you linked to very much. I've seen him on Youtube before.
But his bit about black holes, actually argues for fine-tuning. Not for us, for black holes. But it's STILL fine tuning. What does it matter what it's for?
It's fine-tuning I'm asking about, and that piece actually favours it.
.

[Feck]

Feck, I like that guy you linked to very much. I've seen him on Youtube before.
But his bit about black holes, actually argues for fine-tuning. Not for us, for black holes. But it's STILL fine tuning. What does it matter what it's for?
It's fine-tuning I'm asking about, and that piece actually favours it.
.

No you miss the point ,the point is that the fine tuning argument is back to front ,what about his point that the universe is not set up for humans it's needlessly complex and not to mention Big and deadly out there ? The fine tuning argument is just rubbish it's just like all those other pseudo rational reasons for god .like giving the super massive thing before the big bang the label of god and then saying that since there was something in the beginning and we have called it god then we have proved god exists ..... to say that because the physics has led to this universe being like it is and then saying that means the physics was Fine tuned to MAKE the universe like it is stupid .It implies intent by a god like power that's why they use it .

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Still waiting for an explanation of how defecation is "finely tuned."

[Feck]

Still waiting for an explanation of how defecation is "finely tuned."

Well have you not realised that your arse is fine tuned to produce the diameter turds it does ...see that's what the fine tuned argument says

[mistermack]

No you miss the point

Maybe, but I think you're missing mine too. I accept those points you made, I've got no interest in drawing religious conclusions from fine-tuning. But I would like to know if the universe is fine tuned, and if so, by what process.
Hawking hedged his bets a bit in that quote from wikipedia when he said "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." And rightly so. What he's saying is that the numbers are very finely BALANCED , which makes it LOOK as if they have been adjusted. Hence he used the word seem.
He's not claiming that they ARE adjusted by a being, but he's clearly saying that they don't look like they exist as they are just by chance. He used the words "very finely adjusted" for a good reason.
I personally would look for a process like evolution, for an explanation, if the Universe is as finely balanced as it seems.
Or multiple Universes.
.

[Feck]

go string theory

[Coito ergo sum]

Feck, I like that guy you linked to very much. I've seen him on Youtube before.
But his bit about black holes, actually argues for fine-tuning. Not for us, for black holes. But it's STILL fine tuning. What does it matter what it's for?
It's fine-tuning I'm asking about, and that piece actually favours it.
.

It matters, because all "fine tuning" really is saying is that the universe exists as it does, and if the fundamental forces were a different way then the universe would not exist as it does. If it were different, it would be different. It is the way it is, so it is the way it is.

FINE tuning implies that it is tuned FOR something. It's like fine tuning on a radio - it's being tuned to pick up 760AM and not 1470AM. The radio is FINELY TUNED to receive 760 AM unless you twist the knob to the right, and then it is FINELY tuned to receive 1470AM.

In theoretical physics, fine-tuning refers to the high specificity of parametric values in a model in order for it to produce the phenomena under investigation. This may refer to 'given' constants in the model that could *not* produce the phenomena if they had a different value, or to a model in which the physicist adjusts the values in order to make the model work.

In the fine-tuned universe, physics has noted the existence of 26 dimensionless fundamental physical constants which must have the precise value we observe them to have, or the universe would be radically different and probably not capable of supporting life. This may be interpreted naturalistically, but is often used as an argument to design.

When the model is our universe and the phenomenon under investigation is the existence of life, the high specificity of the constant values is sometimes referred to as the anthropic principle, which postulates that the values are what we observe them to be because we are living beings who would not exist to observe them at all if they were not highly specified to allow the existence of life.

[Coito ergo sum]

No you miss the point

Maybe, but I think you're missing mine too. I accept those points you made, I've got no interest in drawing religious conclusions from fine-tuning. But I would like to know if the universe is fine tuned, and if so, by what process.

What you're asking there is "I would like to know how the universe came to be like it is."

Hawking hedged his bets a bit in that quote from wikipedia when he said "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." And rightly so. What he's saying is that the numbers are very finely BALANCED , which makes it LOOK as if they have been adjusted. Hence he used the word seem.
He's not claiming that they ARE adjusted by a being, but he's clearly saying that they don't look like they exist as they are just by chance. He used the words "very finely adjusted" for a good reason.
I personally would look for a process like evolution, for an explanation, if the Universe is as finely balanced as it seems.
Or multiple Universes.
.

See the "anthropic principle" link from wikipedia I noted before. It explains this.

[Coito ergo sum]

Fine tuned FOR WHAT?

Fine tuned BY WHOM?

Well, I think that show's that you're missing the point entirely.
I am incredibly fine tuned. Fine tuned to SURVIVE AND REPRODUCE. Fine tuned by NOBODY.

Yes, fine tuned by nobody. And, if there is no "tuner" than we're not "tuned" in the sense of deliberately set a certain way.

That's the problem with the term "tuned" in that it implies that there is a "tune-er" (one who tunes). If you are acknowledging that there is no "tune-er" - nobody does the tuning - then I think we're pretty much in agreement.

I'm fine tuned by a non-thinking, non-caring PROCESS. Called evolution.

Whether you're fine with it or not is irrelevant, but I'm fine with it to. The universe came to be like it is through a process. Yes.

What I'm interested in is, is the Universe, like me, millions to one against, and if it is,

Nobody knows what the odds are. The universe may always have been, and never been created or destroyed, only changed in form.

what was the PROCESS that made it possible.

Well, even Stephen Hawking doesn't know that.

Then I would be able to answer the religious people who argue fine-tuning at me.
.

Yeah, you'd also win the Nobel Prize for physics. Nobody knows, yet.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Still waiting for an explanation of how defecation is "finely tuned."

Shit comes out tapered at the end. If it didn't, your arse would close with a snap. Sounds like fine-tuning to me.

[mistermack]

I agree that the expression "fine tuning" is part of the problem here, because it DOES give the impression that an intelligent tuner is implied. But I can't think of a better expression right now. If you look at a human, you know it's not just the result of random occurrences. It's too complicated for the atoms to fall that way, just by chance. Now we know what happened.
It could well be the same with the Universe. The fundamental constants seem to be far too finely BALANCED to be the result of chance.
To the religious, it implies a god. To me, it implies a process that brought it about.
It could be that this Universe is the billionth that has existed, expanded, and then collapsed, and each time it's renewed, what's left is more and more "fine tuned", or it could be that there are millions of parallel universes, all with different fundamental constants, so one like ours is not at all surprising.
Four billion years of evolution produced me.
What did it take to produce the Universe? We haven't got a clue, but there is no reason why it had to be a "big bang from nothing".
I favour a big bang from something.
.

[Thinking Aloud]

Compared to the age of the solar system, and the age of the galaxy, and the age of the universe, the time period that life has existed on Earth is infinitessimally small (and most of that time life was only microscopic).

I'm just going to be really pedantic and off-topic!

The universe is reckoned to be about 13.7 billion years old, and the solar system about 4.6 billion years old. Life likely started up around 4 billion years ago - the common ancestor is reckoned to date from about 3.5 billion years ago, but it was only a little over half a billion years ago that life went mad.

So in terms of the age of the universe, life has been around for between a quarter and a third of that. Complex life about 1/23rd of that.