The Anthropic Principle of a Fine Tuned Universe, which looks at all the constants in our universe — the speed of light and gravity being just two — and notes that if these were just one one-hundred-billionth different, we would have no universe as we know it and no life. The principle seems to suggest that the entire universe is directed toward our existence; the most simple explanation for this is that there is an Intelligence who created our universe in order for us to exist. How do you respond to this argument? Does it at least make an agnostic out of an atheist?
Posted: February 10th 2011
donsevers www
Hold on. What is simple about an intelligent creator? Proposing one only adds another giant layer you have to explain. It solves nothing and creates many more problems.
If fine-tuning is the case, it is a puzzle. But like all puzzles, it doesn’t help to say “God did it”.
All knowledge comes from three sources:
1. Regressive. Why X? Because of W. Why W? Because of V.
2. Circular. Why X? Because of Y. Why Y? Because of X.
3. Foundational. Why X? Because of Y. Why Y? Just because.
One version of the Designer argument is regressive. If you want to say that unlikely things like the universe need a designer, then that designer would need one, too.
Of course, you can use a Foundational approach and say that the Designer doesn’t need a Designer. But then we could just skip a step and say that the universe didn’t need a designer.
Either way, such arguments don’t show the need for God.
Posted: March 10th 2011
bitbutter www
The anthropic principle is “the philosophical argument that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it”.
We know that the universe, which is vast and almost entirely deadly to human life, has the qualities necessary to temporarily sustain a tiny pocket of humanity. To conclude from this that 'the entire universe is directed toward our existence’, is quite a stretch.
Here’s another possibility: Life as we know it (including human life) is part of the universe, it evolved according to the constraints of the universe. So rather than thinking of the universe being 'for’ life, it makes more sense to think of life as fitting the universe.
Douglas Adams has a good answer to your question:
Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?’ Who made this? – you can see why it’s a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there’s only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he’s probably male’. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?’ Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely’ and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.
This is rather as if you 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!’
Posted: February 14th 2011
logicel
As Dawkins said, “There are no (fine-tuning) knobs to fiddle.” Life was shaped by the universe; the universe was not shaped so certain life can be made.
Posted: February 13th 2011
Steve Zara www
If the constants were different, the universe would be different, for sure. But why should that lead us to any conclusions at all?
Our common-sense everyday ways of looking at things falls apart when we are dealing with things such as the origin of a universe. Phrases like “if these constants were different” don’t make any sense, because time probably gets very complicated at the start of universes. I’m sorry if that doesn’t help much with your question, but I have to point it out – some questions don’t make much sense. I’ll try and illustrate how strange reality is in this way: If some theories are true, the smallest units of the universe are things called Strings, vibrating bits of energy. On the scale of strings, the universe is virtually empty. If a String was the size of a person, the nucleus of an atom would be the size of a galaxy! The universe is almost all very cold, and very dark, and very empty, as you can see from the above. Life is just one particularly complex arrangement of the almost-dead embers of the Big Bang. How is that “tuned for life”?
Even if we were to consider the universe tuned, it certainly isn’t tuned with us in mind. All the stars will die out in a thousand billion years. But that is only an inconceivably small instant in the likely future existence of the universe. Black holes will dominate the universe for up to 10^100 years. Their presence does not mean the end of life, indeed civilizations can get far more energy from black holes than from suns. If they exist, those beings will be the true inheritors of the universe, with our existence being an utterly insignificant time by comparison.
Finally, even if the universe did look tuned, that is no reason to believe in a god. If it was tuned, we would surely want to look at how that happened. We don’t get any answers to 'how’ questions from religion, do we?
Posted: February 13th 2011
SmartLX www
Most atheists are agnostic anyway, me for one. They admit they don’t know whether there’s a god, and they allow for the possibility. They’re still agnostic atheists, though, because not being able to rule something out doesn’t mean you have to believe in it.
If the fundamental constants of the universe were different, of course the universe would be different, but perhaps not as different as you’d think. The gravitational constant, for example, would have to differ by a factor of 3000 before stars couldn’t form. Any lesser change than that and while you’d have stars and planets of different sizes, there’d still be a “Goldilocks zone” somewhere in the cosmos where life could form.
Changing other constants by only a little would indeed wreck all matter, but that doesn’t mean the current values are the only life-friendly ones. It may be that instead of varying one constant a little, you have to drastically change four of them at once to find another sweet spot. The sample space of all values (including negative) of the 4-6 major constants has not been tested fully, and until it has been the small hypothetical changes to individual values demonstrate little.
The fact that we are here suggests only that the current constants are suitable for life. Once you call them “fine-tuned” you assume that they were tuned; in other words you assume a tuner, your intended conclusion, before you begin to argue.
Posted: February 13th 2011
Paula Kirby www
How can it possibly be rational to conclude that the universe was fine-tuned for life, when we don’t yet know how life got started and therefore what conditions had to be in place for that to happen? All we know for sure right now is how life evolved once it had got started. And evolution will always work with whatever environment it is given, since evolution is about an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce in a given environment. Therefore the life forms we see must inevitably reflect the conditions prevailing in the universe they exist in – it doesn’t mean the universe exists in order to bring them about.
Our form of life evolved in the context of the conditions that prevail in this particular universe with this particular universe’s particular set of characteristics. Had those conditions been different, we can say that the forms of life we see around us today wouldn’t have evolved in the same way, but we cannot possibly say that they wouldn’t have evolved at all. Once life has got going – and we don’t yet know how that happens, so we certainly can’t say that only the set of conditions that happen to obtain in our universe can make it possible – then evolution will do the rest, adapting those life forms for the environments they find themselves in, whatever those environments happen to be.
Another point. When you say an intelligence created our universe in order for 'us’ to exist, what exactly do you mean by 'us’? Do you mean humans? Because if you do, that is a breathtakingly overblown assumption. Do you have any idea at all what a tiny proportion of the universe is suitable for human life? According to this link, 'recent measurements reveal that the Universe is at least 150 billion light-years in diameter’. A single light year is a distance of approximately 10 trillion kilometres. So all you have to do to arrive at the diameter of the universe is multiply 10 trillion by 150 billion. Now think about planet Earth, which is the only place we know humans can live.
Earth has a diameter of just under 13000 km. Do you want to work out what proportion of the universe that constitutes? The answer will be infinitesimally small.
And it gets worse. There is only one planet in this entire universe, so far as we know, where humans can survive. Yet even here, only a relatively small proportion of the planet consists of an environment that we are fitted for. Clearly we can only live on land, which immediately rules out 70% of the surface of the planet.
Even on land, we cannot survive in the highest altitudes, or the hottest temperatures, or the coldest temperatures. This reduces the area where we can survive even more. And yet you’d have us believe that the whole universe was created with us in mind? It’s a patently silly idea.
And it doesn’t stop there. Humans are only the pinnacle of evolution when viewed from a human perspective. But when it comes to swimming, a mere sprat is vastly better than we are. Perhaps the universe was created for sprat? When it comes to running, almost any mammal in the African savannah is faster than we are. Perhaps the universe was created for cheetahs? When it comes to flying, even a butterfly is miles ahead of us. Was the universe made for butterflies, perhaps? Sense of smell? Your dog’s sense of smell is far more sensitive than that of any human who has ever lived. Perhaps the universe was made for Fido? Sight? The eagle out-sees you many times over. Strength? Perhaps the universe was made for elephants? Stamina? Whales, swallows, salmon, migrating wildebeest – they all make us look like the merest weaklings.
And it gets worse still. The Earth is really dominated, not by humans, but by fungi and bacteria. They are the life forms that can exist almost anywhere, and in mindboggling profusion. If any life forms at all can be said to have absolutely mastered the planet, it is they. They even feed off us humans! If the universe really had been created with any particular life form in mind, then the sheer success of fungi and bacteria must mean that it was them. But as I explained right at the beginning: life evolves to fit the environment, whatever that environment may be. To claim that the universe (and therefore the environment) was created in order to produce any particular life form is absolutely to put the cart before the horse.
Posted: February 12th 2011
Mike the Infidel www
The most simple explanation for an unlikely universe is an unexplained non-physical supernatural all-powerful being? How does that work?
By the way, the universe may not be fine-tuned for life after all.
Posted: February 12th 2011