Fine Tuning, Arguments For and Against

[mistermack]

I think you're "deliberately misunderstanding" what I write now, so I'm going to leave you to it. I can't be bothered clarifying what's already perfectly clear.
Cheers.
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[Coito ergo sum]

I think you're "deliberately misunderstanding" what I write now, so I'm going to leave you to it. I can't be bothered clarifying what's already perfectly clear.
Cheers.
.

Whatever. It's not that I don't understand you. It's that you don't understand either Big Bang theory, or what Stephen Hawking has said about this "finely tuned" concept. You obviously didn't read the paper by Hawking that I posted that explained what he meant by that.

[hackenslash]

Just thought I'd point out that the context in which physicists use the term 'fine-tuned' is completely different from that employed by cretinists. I don't like their use of the term, because it's woefully non-rigorous, but it does have some validity. When physicists employ the term, what they are referring to is the models, not the universe itself. In other words, they're saying that certain parameters have to fit within very specific limits for the models to be valid. One example of this is the inflationary model, in which certain parameters have to fit within a very narrow band of values to overcome the flatness problem.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

So you can't? Believers never can. I just wonder in a "fine tuned" universe why there is so much SHIT. Waste products, nothing more. (Some things have adapted to take advantage of that shit, but that's not an explanation of why it's there in the first place.)

It's nothing to do with this thread, though. I would start my own thread on shit, if I were you. You should be able to debate it with great authority.
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Still waiting.

[Coito ergo sum]

Just thought I'd point out that the context in which physicists use the term 'fine-tuned' is completely different from that employed by cretinists. I don't like their use of the term, because it's woefully non-rigorous, but it does have some validity. When physicists employ the term, what they are referring to is the models, not the universe itself. In other words, they're saying that certain parameters have to fit within very specific limits for the models to be valid. One example of this is the inflationary model, in which certain parameters have to fit within a very narrow band of values to overcome the flatness problem.

That was precisely my point, and why I linked to a nice long article by Hawking wherein he explains his use of the term, and the anthropic principle, which illustrates why mistermack has got it wrong.

[Trolldor]

A fine-tuned universe/ Fucking tosh. There is onthing fine-tuned about it.
Any physicists who say things 'have' to be a particvular way are fucking psuedo-physicists at best.
No, for things to be as they are requires the conditions to be as they are, but that's a circular set of circumstances. Nothing has to 'be' anhy way at all.

[MrFungus420]

Coito, what I'm getting at is that, if the physical constants being balanced like they are is such an unlikely arrangement,

Why is it unlikely? If the constants are a function of matter and energy, they could well be required to be as they are.

That is one point where the argument falls apart.

[MrFungus420]

So you can't? Believers never can. I just wonder in a "fine tuned" universe why there is so much SHIT. Waste products, nothing more. (Some things have adapted to take advantage of that shit, but that's not an explanation of why it's there in the first place.)

It's nothing to do with this thread, though. I would start my own thread on shit, if I were you. You should be able to debate it with great authority.

Seems to me to be a point against fine-tuning.

Why would a finely-tuned system require so much waste?

[MrFungus420]

And how about we get to the meat of the matter.

If they are "fine-tuned", in the creationist sense, then they were so tuned by an omnipotent god.

However, an omnipotent god could make life that could live in any environment or situation.

That makes the entire fine-tuning argument moot.

[mistermack]

I'm with you on the creationist front, I don't think anybody is going to be tempted to argue for that on this site.
However, fine-tuning doesn't have to be done by a creator.
Before Darwin, the religious would argue that there has to be a god, because how could something like a man exist without a creator. Then Darwin showed exactly how that could happen.
Man is fine-tuned, not by a creator, but by the evolutionary PROCESS. So is every other living creature. We are actually fine-tuned to survive and reproduce, by a blind unthinking process. So fine tuned things can and do exist, and need no god as an explanation.
Who could say that the peregrine falcon, or the cheetah, are not fine-tuned for speed?

Fine tuned is not a good phrase, because it implies a tuner, some sort of intelligence. But till someone suggests some better expression that doesn't have that taint to it, we are stuck with the phrase.
You could say highly evolved, I suppose, but that doesn't describe how superbly adapted these creatures are to a lifesyle of high speed predation.

I think the Earth is fine-tuned for life. Not by a creator, but by processes it's undergone, and by chance.
It's got a nice magnetic field that keeps out the worst radiation, it's got plenty of water, thanks probably to collisions with comets, it's just the right size to keep it's atmosphere, and just the right temperature because the water vapour keeps us warm, and all the variables seem to balance out to keep some of the oceans warm and liquid. And life has helped itself, by producing oxygen producing plants.
Some scientists believe that life is actually fine-tuning the climate of the planet, keeping it suitable for life. The Ozone layer is one example of this, but a case can be made for other processes too.

Anyhow, it should be clear that something can be fine-tuned without being created by a god. It can be fine-tuned by a physical process that takes place over time.
There is no reason why the Universe could not have undergone a physical process, over time, before the big bang, which fine-tuned it's properties in a way that would be extremely unlikely to happen in a simple creative bang from nothing.
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[amused]

Maybe 'fine tuning' is actually 'coarse tuning' to the degree that it's good enough. Our own DNA is the result of a massive kludge, why would the 'DNA' of the universe be any different? Seems to be the way things work around here. Good enough is good enough.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And how about we get to the meat of the matter.

If they are "fine-tuned", in the creationist sense, then they were so tuned by an omnipotent god.

However, an omnipotent god could make life that could live in any environment or situation.

That makes the entire fine-tuning argument moot.

Here comes the "la, la, la, la!"

Edit: Too late.