This line of reasoning more or less mirrors the original (and thoroughly falsified) ID argument that humans (and their environment) seemed designed, not natural. Natural selection put an end to that.
Same with human life (or life in general): it’s a consequence of the way the world happens to be.
Of the way this planet happens to be, which is a big part of why the trope of humans populating the galaxy is nonsense.
This seems to have nothing to do with the modern fine tuning argument, since different (random) worlds would not evolve complexity at all, as opposed to merely different complexity.
That doesn’t imply the world was designed this way for the purpose of creating (human) life.
The argument, in its pure form, makes no mention of humans, only sufficient complexity for observers to arise. But the argument is most frequently wielded by the theists, many (most?) of which very much presume the universe is all about humans.
No, the same reasoning applies to the universe as a whole: the existence of life is dependent on (and a consequence of) the way the universe happens to be: it is life permitting (which just means that life could possibly appear somewhere/sometime in it’s vastness).
The same reasoning applies whether it’s discussed in terms of observers, life, intelligent life, or human life.
Again, my point is that FTA enthusiasts are pointing to something that is a consequence of the way the universe happens to be, then noting that different values for the constants would have made the consequence impossible, and then making the leap, therefore the constants were chosen by a designer to achieve that consequence. It’s non-sequitur.
It’s also non-sequitur to conclude therefore there must be a multiverse. The existence of life (and/or the complexity of a life-permitting universe) is not a valid reason to conclude there is a multiverse. If there is a multiverse, it’s existence would need to be inferred from theory that points to it (some hypotheses entail this, such as many-worlds interpretations of QM).
John Earman makes this point in his paper, The Sap Also Rises. SAP=the Strong Anthropic Principle. In particular, see section 4.
I’d like to propose a different perspective — a snack for thought — on the "mathematically precise initial conditions of the Big Bang beginning of our Cosmos. To me that sounds like the setup of a computer program with variables and constants. There are at least two ways to establish such targeted parameters : infinite trials of arbitrary (accidental) settings, or an intentional selection of controlling numbers based on foreknowledge or prior experience.
FTA may be a logical argument for a Bible-God, who said of his creation : “…behold, it was very good”. But, what if Life is just a stepping stone to Mind, and the current human mind is just one stage of Sentience? Fine-Tuning may be a sign of Intention, but not of end-point Specification. If my car was “tuned” like the evolving world, after a million miles, it might need another tune-up. Instead, the Cosmos seems to be cruising along, even though one spark plug, homo sapiens, skips a beat from time to time. Maybe the human mind is just one stage on the path to something else, something better.
Since the world is not “all good” why assume that the “God” is Good, as opposed to Evil? Instead, merely talented at programming a dynamic functional world, like a Terrarium, with all the necessary elements for Life and Mind. Maybe the point of this evolving world is not just an Edenic Paradise, with living creatures, but an ongoing Process of gradual Emergence. And the Process must produce biological Life before psychological Mind could emerge.
Yes. God could have given the gift of Mind to Giraffes or Possums, instead of Apes with four hands. Perhaps the “design” of humans was somewhat arbitrary, because like Quantum physics, it combines deterministic Causation with indeterministic Chance1. In the past century, we learned that, what we think is Real, Particular, & Actual is also Ideal, Holistic, & Theoretical (Probablistic). Maybe, it’s the Process that was Designed, not the end-product.
Yes. Life from non-life, or from infinite alternatives, seems to indicate specification. The notion of Constants assumes a Deterministic process. But Evolution seems to be somewhat Random, and focused on Fitness. But fitness for what purpose? What are the rules for Selection that weed-out the unfit? Maybe the Mind behind Evolution had a less specific and more general target in mind. Unlike the instant creation of Genesis, evolution is a roundabout and indirect way to reach an ultimate goal.
Yes. Maybe that’s because the “fine-tuning”2 of the Big Bang program’s initial set-up3 and limiting laws was intentionally incomplete & open-ended4, leaving room for eons of variation, to explore all possibilities (a “search algorithm”) before settling on an un-pre-determined outcome. Unlike the Genesis God, the Programmer of Physics did not limit the creation process to “let there be Life”.
Hence, “God” did not “have” to make us in any particular way. Instead, She seems to be experimenting with a full range of possibilities. And 14B earth-years later, the final output is still an open question. Besides, perhaps — as A.N. Whitehead postulated — it’s the Process, not the End, that is important : the process of living and being and experiencing both good and evil. This is not a revelation. Just something to think about.
1. In quantum physics, determinism (the idea that all events are strictly caused by prior states) is fundamentally challenged by the introduction of genuine chance. Rather than being a clockwork universe, the subatomic realm is described by probabilities, where outcomes are governed by fundamental uncertainty rather than hidden knowledge. Google Search
4.An open-ended program is an educational, software, or developmental activity without rigid rules, fixed answers, or a single predetermined outcome. These frameworks empower users to explore, innovate, and problem-solve at their own pace using a variety of creative methods. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=open-ended+program*
The fine-tuning argument strikes me as not actually getting what it wants. The idea is that if the universe were “tuned” slightly differently, then life would not occur - hence the universe is set up exactly so that life can happen.
But we can’t know this. Given a universe that was tuned slightly differently, structures such a hydrogen atoms might have been impossible. But wha the argument requires is that given a different tuning, no structure could result. Do we know this? Couldn’t a different tuning simply have resulted in a different structure - one without hydrogen perhaps, but perhaps with some other block from which life could be built?
So it seems to me the argument is inconclusive.
Three issues:
The argument attempts to extrapolate from our universe to other possible universes. One cannot make an valid extrapolation from a single datapoint
The argument slides from “life as we know it could not exist” to "life could not exist at all"
There remains the possibility that as one tunes the constants systematically, there appear islands of ordered structure with different constants. see
Yeah, I completely agree and think we have no clue what kind of emergent behavior could have been possible. The issue I see is it would be hard to have any emergent behavior if the universe instantly collapsed on itself. But yeah, overall, I agree, and also make this argument against theists. This post was just exploring another possible refutation to the argument.
That’s one thing, and another is that if they were different then things like stars could not have formed. It’s hard to imagine how there could be any kind of life without a persistent source of heat.
If we were to be charitable, we can interpret it as arguing that the number of “configurations” that support the existence of observers of some kind is vastly outnumbered by the number of “configurations” that don’t.
Luke Barnes, a physicist who is also a proponent of the the deistic Fine Tuning Argument, rebuts Stenger in this lengthy paper. Specifically to your point, he makes this statement:
“however many ways there are of producing a life-permitting universe, there are vastly many more ways of making a life-prohibiting one.”
He supports this with an analysis of a range of possibilities. I don’t claim to understand the physics, but I accept the conclusion stated in that quote: life is unlikely, if we consider variations to the various fundamental constants.
So I don’t think this is a fruitful way to counter the FTA. IMO, the best approach is to challenge the premise - that the universe has been fine-tuned for life. There’s an implied assumption that life was a design objective. I acknowledge that if a creator wished to produce a life-permitting universe, she would have had to carefully choose the fundamental parameters. But if there is no creator, then it just means that life is a consequence of the way the world happens to be (fundamental parameters are what they are). Had they differed, there would be no life. So what?
I also would not jump to the conclusion that a multiverse is needed to account for life, for the same reason. Just assume there is one universe, and that life is an unintended consequence of the way the universe happens to be. One should not assume randomness - the fundamental constants are, as far as we know, CONSTANTS. Perhaps some quantum-level symmetry-breaking could have led to different “constants”, but we don’t know that - it’s pure speculation. The existence of life is not a good reason to consider that.
This is intuitively correct. Two things: this does not validate the move from “life as we know it could not exist” to "life could not exist at all"; and there remains the impossibility of extrapolating from our single datapoint.
But yes, “fundamental parameters are what they are” - it is what it is. There need be no further explanation, and certainly the leap to a deity is fraught with inconsistency.
Barnes makes the (IMO, plausible) assumption that to be life-permitting, a universe must have the capacity for complexity to emerge and persist. He argues that among the (allegedly) possible worlds with different fundamental constants, that capacity would be rare.
We don’t know why the world is as it is, and we don’t know if there actually were other worlds are even physically possible. Brute fact is at the bottom of reality (even if there’s a god, there’s no reason for the god having the characteristics it has). So it may very well be that these 20-odd constants have their values as brute fact.
I agree with this, but it’s irrelevant to the FTA, which says the universe is designed for at least complexity. Any arbitrary tuning not only fails to produce observers, it even fails to produce say matter.
Yes, the original argument said that Earth was fine tuned for us, which is getting it backwards. We’re evolved to the environment at hand, but it’s still an environment heavily optimal for our kind of life, namely liquid water, carbon, energy, and stability. The counter to that argument is that there are multiple planets, all different. It’s a multiverse of planets, so of course the optimal ones are far more likely to produce observers. There are so many planets that not only are there other observers out there, but there are other humans as well.
I think you’re reading too much into the vocabulary. Perhaps a better phrasing is:
The physical constants could have been otherwise
The vast majority of alternatives do not support life
Therefore, it is very unlikely for a universe that supports life to have come into existence by chance
Therefore, it is very unlikely that this universe came into existence by chance
Therefore, is is very likely that this universe came into existence by intention
The first challenge against the FTA is to argue that (1) is false.
The second is to argue that (2) is false because there are infinite alternatives that support life, and that their cardinality is equal to the cardinality of the infinite alternatives that do not support life.
The third is to argue that (4) and (5) are invalid inferences, perhaps by appealing to multiverse theories; although it is improbable that any given universe supports life it’s not improbable that at least one of many supports life, and as per the anthropic principle ours must be one such universe.
The fourth is to argue that (5) simply passes the buck, as we must now ask how there existed a finely-tuned intelligence with the finely-tuned power to intentionally create a finely-tuned universe.
The paper @Materialist references somewhat addresses this:
It is sometimes objected that we do not have an adequate definition of ‘an observer’, and we do not know all possible forms of life. This is reason for caution, but not a fatal flaw of fine-tuning. If the strong force were weaker, the periodic table would consist of only hydrogen. We do not need a rigorous definition of life to reasonably conclude that a universe with one chemical reaction (2H → H2) would not be able to create and sustain the complexity necessary for life.
It’s exactly the same fallacy. The complexity is a consequence of the way the world is. It treats that consequence (complexity) as a design objective.
Consider this: It’s tautologically true that, for any consequence (C)–
P(C|design) > P(C)
This reads: the probablity of C, given design is greater than the base probability of C.
That does not mean that everything should be considered designed! It omits the probability of a design(er). The FTA omits that consideration - it indirectly takes God’s existence as a given. So I would agree, that if there is a God, it is more likely than not that he wanted a complex universe. But to use this reasoning to conclude God exists is circular reasoning.
It’s a consequence of the way this world is. FTA attempts to explain why the (not this) world is the way it is.
Agree. A cell phone is probably designed, but mostly because we didn’t just find one, we designed it. But a shark for example, despite being insanely improbable, is not likely deliberately designed. Refined yes, but not deliberately refined.
I don’t think the argument is begging. It simply notes that C is super improbable (not like an improbable losing lottery ticket, which is what a shark is, but the winning one, the diffence between ‘the’ and ‘this’ above). It presumes the lottery is rigged by some agent since nothing else explains the one winning ticket getting picked. One can choose to call that agent ‘God’ or whatever you like. It could also conclude us being a simulation being run by some other world for whatever reason.
But how else can you explain the lottery being rigged? So the designer exists is the conclusion, not something begged.
The argument falls apart when one presumes that the winning lottery ticket was chosen in a single draw. If there are a zillion tickets with only one winning one, it isn’t at all contradictory to say the winning ticket exists just as much as the losing ones, with none of them being chosen at all. Hence the standard rebuttal to FTA.
Yes, and the FTA-enthusiast’s explanation is rooted in the tautology I discussed: P(C|design) > P(C).
The lottery analogy is a good one. Imagine a real-world lottery with 1,000,000 contestants (one ticket each). Let’s say the winner is John. The FTA-enthusiast notices that John’s win is surprising, because he only had a 1/1,000,000 probability of winning – so he concludes it was rigged.
This is nonsense, of course, because EVERY contestant had the same 1/1,000,000 probabilty. So we should not be surprised that the winner had this low probability -it’s not evidence of rigging.
So why does the FTA-enthusiast jump to the conclusion the universe-lottery was rigged? I suggest that it’s because they know that the winning universe is more likely if it was intended than if it’s pure chance.
Here’s an example of a FTA, a version formulated by Luke Barnes:
1. Naturalism is non-informative with respect to the ultimate laws of nature.
2. Theism prefers ultimate laws of nature that permit the existence of moral agents, such as intelligent life forms.
3. The laws and constants of nature as we know them are fine-tuned—vanishingly few will produce intelligent life.
4. Thus, the probability of this (kind of) universe is much greater on theism than naturalism.
In so many words, he’s saying: a universe that can produce intelligent life has a higher probability of existing if it was designed by God than if it happened by chance. It’s true, but it depends on the assumption that there is a God. The argument doesn’t provide evidentiary support for design anymore than does John winning the lottery constitute evidence of rigging. To use this argument to “prove” God strikes me as implicit circularity because God’s existence is a background assumption; it’s not questioned or analyzed.
Yes, however the rebuttal to this rebuttal is that there’s no good evidence that there is a multiverse — that we only have evidence that there is one universe — and so a better comparison is a lottery with just one ticket and a very low chance of winning were its numbers picked at random.
The FTA-reasoning is that if this ticket wins then it’s more likely that the numbers weren’t picked at random than that they were, and that if the numbers weren’t picked at random then they were picked by God because only God would have had the power to pick the numbers.
