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The Great Non-Sequitur
I wrote a rather long essay on “From Whence The Fine-Tuned Universe” and posted it as a page on PeakOilBarrel.com. However, I don’t think many people read the entire essay because I keep getting questions that I already answered in that essay. I will try to be a lot clearer in this post.
First, I must make one thing clear. The fact that the universe is fine-tuned is overwhelmingly accepted throughout the cosmological community. There are only three or four holdouts among the hundred or so that write books and papers as well as those who post YouTube videos on the subject. And even the tiny few, like Sean Carroll, who say that they are “not so sure” that the universe is fine-tuned, hedge their bets by positing the multiverse as a backup explanation when they are pressed with the overwhelming evidence of fine-tuning.
I will briefly go over the fine-tuning argument once more in an attempt to explain why it is so overwhelmingly accepted by the cosmological community.
First, there are the constants of nature.
These are just a few of the constants, there are several more. For instance, when hydrogen 2 is fused into helium 4 in stellar nucleosynthesis, 7 tenths, of one percent (.7%) of the mass is converted to energy. It has to be exactly .7%, not .6% or .8%.
Everything about stellar nucleosynthesis is fine-tuned. The carbon had to have the exact resonance it has or else there would be no carbon. Also, carbon, in stars is produced at the expense of oxygen and vice versa. Just the right amount of carbon and oxygen had to be produced else the universe would not have the characteristics it has.
And of course, there are the subatomic particles, the quarks, leptons, and bosons. The up quark had to have exactly two-thirds the charge of the electron but in positive instead of negative. And the down quark had to have exactly one-third the charge of the electron and also negative.
And there are others, many others. There is the cosmological constant, dark matter, dark energy, and all this had to be in the recipe for the development of stars, galaxies, and rocky planets with liquid water, at the Big Bang, half a billion years before it those it would all play out. It must be added that though there may have existed something before the Big Bang, this makes little difference. The universe as we know it began about 13.7 billion years ago at the Big Bang.
Okay, enough of this. The universe is fine-tuned. Anyone who cannot accept that simply has not examined the evidence. Or they have an accepted dogma in their worldview that blinds them from some obvious facts.
The following estimates are my own as I have done no scientific survey on the subject. I gleaned these estimates from the many books I have read and the hundreds of YouTube videos I have watched on the subject. But here are my best-educated guesses:
Percent of cosmologists who agree that the universe is fine-tuned: 95%
Percent who are “not so sure”. 5%
Percent of cosmologists who accept that the universe is fine-tuned, posit the multiverse as the explanation for the fine-tuning: 90%
Percent who believe their religions God did it: 10%
Percent who believe some kind of conscious entity did it but it has nothing to do with religion: 0%
Percent of YouTube internet atheists who agree the universe is fine-tuned: 0%
It amazes me how all those internet atheists know so much more about cosmology than the cosmologists themselves do.
Okay, just a quick overview of what seems to be the case here, though my estimates above may be off a little either way. But they are close enough to make a point. First, I will deal with the multiverse.
Approximately 95 percent of cosmologists agree that the universe is fine-tuned. Of that 95 percent, approximately 90 percent opt for the multiverse as the explanation of how the universe got to be so fine-tuned.
They assume that all the constants, particles, laws, and forces of the universe are random. Because if they are not random, that is if they are fixed, then the multiverse cannot be an explanation. So, if there are almost an infinite number of universes, then the odds are at least one of them will have all the right constants, particles, laws, and forces that everything would be just right for life to evolve.
That is obviously very bad logic. And it is unbelievably clear why it is bad logic. Bad logic because you do not just have to get one of the constants or particles just right, you must get them all right. For instance, the cosmological constant, called lambda, (Λ), is Λ=2.036×10−35 s−2. I am not going to even attempt to explain that to say that it is a very tiny, tiny, number. But it has to be almost exactly as it is else the universe would have either collapsed back on itself or been blown away before stars and galaxies could form.
Of course, if that number is simply random then in every universe it could be anything from zero to infinity. So, your chances of getting just this one constant right are one in infinity. But there are at least 50 other constants, particles, etc. that have to be found in that one very lucky galaxy. If the odds of getting just one of them right is one in infinity, then the odds of getting two of them right are one in infinity times infinity. And the odds of getting three of them right are one in infinity times infinity times infinity. And you multiply by infinity again and again for every additional constant, partial, or whatever you need to win this lottery. Obviously, you would never get them all correct.
It is a no-brainer that the multiverse is no answer to the fine-tuning problem. So where does that leave us? How did the universe get so very fine-tuned? Ignoring the science fiction explanations like it’s a simulation or a hologram, there were ever only three possible explanations. These were:
- Brute Fact
- Multiverse
- God-Like-Thing*
*The term “god-like-thing was coined by philosopher Dr. Jason Waller in his excellent book “Cosmological Fine-Tuning Arguments“. I like the term “conscious entity”, but I will go with Dr. Waller’s term right now.
I have already dispatched, I hope, the multiverse argument. That leaves “brute fact” and “god-like-thing. Okay, what is meant by “brute fact”.
A brute fact is something that cannot be explained. In other words, it is not an explanation at all, it is just a cop-out. It cannot be explained so shut up about it. There are brute facts in nature, that is, there are some things that cannot be explained. But the fine-tuning of the universe cries out for an explanation. One may claim that they have no explanation, but they cannot claim that there is no explanation. There is always an explanation for everything, whether that explanation can be known or not. And the fine-tuned universe can, in my opinion, be explained, simply by eliminating all the bogus explanations.
That the universe is just a brute fact is not an explanation. It is simply a confession of ignorance and a declaration that one does not really give a hoot. It is just telling the questioner to shut up and go away. In conclusion, the universe as a brute fact is not an explanation, just the absence of an explanation.
With the absence of brute fact and the multiverse as explanations, that leaves Dr. Waller’s “god-like-thing” as the only possible explanation left.
Now let me tell you about the greatest non sequitur of all time. It does not follow that this god-like-thing is remotely related to any god ever dreamed up in the mind of man. It does not follow that this god-like-thing built a man out of mud, and a woman from one of his ribs. It does not follow that this god-like-thing once decided to drown every man, woman, and tiny toddler on earth, save Noah and his family because they were all evil. That is they worshipped another god. And it does not follow that this god-like-thing created a torture chamber where he will torture you forever and forever for the horrible crime of not believing that bullshit.
Yet the theistic crowd is jumping on the fine-tuned argument as if they had just found Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat. It was the one thing they had been waiting for to prove their religion is true. And in dozens of YouTube videos, I have noticed that all scientists and atheists are playing right into their hands. The scientists are saying, “no, no, the multiverse explains the fine-tuned universe”, while the atheists are saying, “no, no, the universe is not fine-tuned at all”. They are both making the wrong argument. Arguing the multiverse or no fine-tuning at all is an argument they will both ultimately lose. They should just argue that this god-like-thing, or whatever one chooses to call it, has nothing to do with any religion whatsoever. That is the argument they would win.
Of course, this cannot possibly be a scientific argument. It is both unprovable and unfalsifiable. It is a philosophical argument. However, philosophically, it is not just the best argument we have, it is the only argument we have.
I will be posting a new essay on the fine-tuned-universe and related subjects, and there are a lot of related subjects, every ten days or so. If you would like to be notified via email whenever I post a new post, please email me at DarwinianOne@gmail.com. All emails will be sent BCC, (blind carbon copy), so no one else will see your email address.
Just a few short points I’d like to add on what is a good post.
1) Web – people assume that all those fine tuned components/constants are separate when of course they cant be, they are all interlinked / related. Each one affects the other. They are like a web. Because the nature of everything is that it is connected. The planets in our solar system are connected. Our solar system is connected to the milky way etc. How exactly all these mathematical constants are connected would require further examination but remember mathematics is the study of relationships/ ratios between matter. Another argument against the multiverse theory.
2) Time – We are restricted in our investigation by time. We are analyzing a snapshot of the universe during our time. In the future as in the past, our galaxy may be no more.
3) Actually thinking a bit more on this – – instead of infinite universes you have infinite time, wherein anything really is possible. So Infinite Time Theory rather than Multiverse Theory makes more sense.
No, that makes no sense at all. We do not have infinite time. We have 13.7 billion years, give or take a few million. That is not an infinite amount of time, that is a very finite amount of time.
Actually we do have infinite time. Assuming the big bang is true, what was there before it ? Infinite time.
One possibility that I like is that the universe is a cycle. But a cycle that keeps repeating infinitely still requires infinite time.
We do not have infinite time since the Big Bang. It doesn’t matter if we have had multiple Big Bangs, it would still not lead to an accidently fine-tuned universe. See my last post http://thefinetuneduniverse.com/ where I try to explain why.
We have 13.7 billion years plus whatever amount of time before the Big Bang. The universe had to come out of something.
Owen, you still fail to understand. Whatever came before the Big Bang simply does not matter. The universe as we know it began with the Big Bang.
The necessary conditions for the Big Bang to occur are not relevant ?
No, that is not what I said. The necessary conditions, or what caused the Big Bang is what the debate is all about. If something existed before the Big Bang, or it did not does not change the fact that the universe as we know it started at the Big Bang.
So what came before the big bang does matter. In the same way that the numbers 1 and 2 matter to the number 3.
Owen, I never said it didn’t matter. If anything came before the Big Bang, then of course it matters. If nothing came before the Big Bang, then that matters as well. But that has nothing to do with the debate I am positing. The question is, “From whence the fine-tuned universe?” In other words, how did the universe get so fine-tuned? The Big Bang is as far back as we can go. We have to start there. And that is where I start with the debate. If you wish to debate what came before the Big Bang, then you must do it somewhere else.
I think one area where you could do more reading is the mathematics of infinity. Not all infinities are equal. To say that two infinitely small probabilities together have zero chance of both happening in an infinite set space is wrong. In mathematics there are hierarchies of infinities. In any case, who says that all these constants are infinitely variable, and are entirely independent of each other? There may be physical relationships between some or all of them that we haven’t discovered yet, or some may be quantized and can only take on a subset of real number values. I am no physicist, but I know just enough mathematics to know how little we know.
Ralph, I am well aware that are hierarchies of infinities. And yes, two infinitely small probabilities could happen. However, it is you who need to do some reading concerning infinity. That infinity comes in sets has absolutely nothing to do with my assertion that the multiverse is no answer to the fine-tuned universe. If you truly understood infinity that would be crystal clear to you. Yes, if something has one chance in infinity of happening, then it has a near-zero chance of happening. If two things must happen, each with only one chance in infinity of happening, it still has a chance but an infinitely smaller chance of happening. If three things must happen at the same time, each with only one chance in infinity of happening,… and so on up to fifty or more things happening, all at the same time??? Roger, if you still think that there is still a pretty good chance of that happening, then you definitely need to read a bit more about infinity.
You wrote: “ In any case, who says that all these constants are infinitely variable, and are entirely independent of each other? “
Ralph, I am not saying that! That must be the case else the multiverse is no answer to the fine-tuning problem. The multiverse advocates must assume that else they have no case.
If the constants, forces, particles, and laws are fixed, then the multiverse is no answer because each universe would be identical to every other universe.
I will have a new post out tomorrow, February 3rd, where I will explain infinity as well as the variability of the constants. Please check that and reply then.
The logical issue we face with concepts like God, Big Bangs, and Universes is that in order to create them there must be preconditions – that is who or what created them – then who or what created who or what, etc.- and this chain goes on forever and forever -perhaps far beyond human knowledge and comprehension to eternities untold.
While it is true that if you find something extremely fine-tuned you must imply that there was a fine tuner. But if that is as far back as you can go, then you must admit that you have no idea how this fine-tuner came into existence. The fact that you are ignorant of this fact does not invalidate all facts that followed it.
I agree with you Ron however I believe that is logical that in order to have the originating or very first – fine tuner- there must have been preconditions that allowed for its creation. So I am stuck again with a question – where did they come from and were they created by something? As it stands I have no idea how the first fine-tuner came to exist.
Terry, the question is which came first, mind or matter. Obviously one of them had to preceed the other. It is a philosophical question, not a scientific question.
Ron, I think this adds to the conundrum in that mathematics and science are schools of thinking whose origins can be traced to the philosophical schools of thought – skepticism, empiricism. pragmatism, existentialism, and so on. And there are no rules that I am aware of that would preclude the concurrent creation and existence of mind and matter. Perhaps it is all subjective speculations or simply beyond human comprehension – yet it remains as a never-ending source of entertainment if we don’t take it and ourselves too seriously. IMO.
Terry, I think we should take it seriously. In fact, there is nothing more serious than the nature of our existence. Of course it is a philosophical argument. But we can start by ruling out the very stupid stuff like the idea that “God wrote a book” and told us all we need to know.
A fine bit of reductionism there Ron! I’m looking forward to seeing where you go from here!