the weak antropic principle

[Hermit]

Fine tuning, huh? The mention of it always reminds me of the puddletropic fallacy Douglas Adams used to destroy it.

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

And what Rum said.

[Svartalf]

By the way... is the intended title of the thread "antHropic" or "Entropic"?

[PsychoSerenity]

I don't think the argument was ever meant to prove that the environment is not designed. I've never seen anyone write out "Therefore the environment is not designed" before you, spinoza, and if they did, then you are correct that they are wrong. What the argument does prove however, is that no amount of "fine-tuning" can ever prove that the environment is designed.

[mistermack]

paraphrasing:

The evidence for fine-tuning is so overwhelming that many are lead to believe that the universe must be designed.

Quite wrong. The evidence for fine tuning is zero.
The evidence is that the universe could have taken billions of different forms, but it had to take just one. And this is it.
That's not fine tuning.

It's like saying that the Sahara is fine-tuned to produce Timbuktu. Or that the Atlantic was fine-tuned to produce Hurricane Camilla. They're not fine-tuned. Something had to happen, out of billions of possibilities, and something did. That's all.

[Pappa]

The weak anthropic principle is just a truism that carries no meaning whatsoever.... and certainly has nothing to say about whether the universe was designed. The strong anthropic principle is another story, but only retarded people take it seriously.

[spinoza99]

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.

[spinoza99]

The weak anthropic principle is just a truism that carries no meaning whatsoever.... and certainly has nothing to say about whether the universe was designed.

Agreed, but try telling that to Lawrence Krauss.

The strong anthropic principle is another story, but only retarded people take it seriously.

I mostly read atheist authors so it's been a while since I've seen the SAP articulated.

[mistermack]

What I object to the the phrase "fine tuned".
Tuned means that a set of circumstances came about because of a PROCESS restricting parameters to a narrow set. (That process being natural or intelligent).
Just because parameters fall within a narrow set that produce one result or another, that doesn't mean that there was a process to produce that. It can happen without any process. There could be billions of narrow sets of parameters possible, producing all kinds of different results.
What we have just happened. There is no evidence of any PROCESS that produced what we have.

So a "fine tuned" universe is most certainly without any evidence whatsoever.

[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.

[Tero]

I did not get it.

Anyway, the subatomic particles rule the world and they are self assembling. You do not have to do anything to them.

[PsychoSerenity]

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.

YOU're interested in knowing whether the universe is designed or not. Susskind is making no comment on that here. All the anthropic principle says on that matter, is that "fine-tuning" is meaningless.

[mistermack]

And it's not even tuning. Tuning suggests a tuning process, or a tuner.
The word is totally wrong for what's being described.

And the arrogance is breathtaking, that what we see is the only way that an intelligence can arise.
That's like tadpoles in a puddle saying that if it wasn't for this puddle, no tadpoles could ever have existed. Just because YOU can't imagine it, it doesn't mean it isn't happening in some other way.

[FBM]

At about 38:00 into this discussion is an interesting and compelling exchange about the anthropic principle.

[mistermack]

At about 38:00 into this discussion is an interesting and compelling exchange about the anthropic principle.

I think that Susskind argues for multiple universes, because it's a prediction of string theory, which is his own "thing".
It's not really necessary to explain the "apparent" find tuning.
If you win a lottery of a billion-to-one odds against, you don't need to explain it by theorising that there were thousands of other winners, that you weren't told about, and you were just one of them.

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

[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.