Brilliant video, thanks for posting. I would only add that even if one were to adopt the God Hypothesis in order to explain physical constants, this would be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. Logic would necessitate a probabilistic assessment of God's existence and nature, something which would seem astronomically unlikely. A further leap would be needed to vindicate any conformity to specific doctrine. Theists will have their work cut out....
well done BB.. well done indeed, now i'm not normally one to pat people on the back since i am Danish, but you effectively chisesled away the faulty bits of the fine tuning argument and then in the end showed well how all that was left was guesswork that the theists don't even have the education to follow through on evidently, as there are no 'creation cosmological science centers' or such :P
There may also be the counter that the argument is probabilistically flawed: "the likelihood that the universe is fine tuned given there's a god is high so since the universe is fine tuned the probability of god is high." this is wrong because you have a reversal of a conditional probabiltiy with insufficient information to reverse it.
I guess you've heard this before and wondered whether it was a seperate issue or a result of the unproven premises you mentioned?
"If life is special in an absolute sense" That's because you're a nihilist :) In honesty I think most people think that there are special features about conscious life able to make morally significant choices that inanimate things like minerals do not have.
"I think most people think that there are special features about conscious life able to make ..."
I'm sure you're right. But of course a common feeling among biological life forms that biological life is somehow special doesn't mean that biological life is in fact more special than any other kind of phenomenon.
if gravity constant was stronger for 10^-60 the universe would collapse, and there would be no stars, no rocks, no nothing. I think this is quite special.
"if gravity constant was stronger for 10^-60 the universe would collapse, and there would be no stars, no rocks, no nothing. I think this is quite special."
You might be right if P1 P2 and P3 were true. I showed in these two videos why assuming their truth is not warranted.
the important thing on which your argument hangs on is that we are noting special, if that is so then any kind of set of constants is arbitrary because it leads to "nothing special".
But my claim is that we are special. I back this claim with the fact that we are far more harder to make and sustain in the universe then some X name mineral. I think its a good assumption that any kind of life in the universe is more special, or of more value because its rarer then some kind of mineral.
The "specialty " of life in the universe does not depend on your earlier premises.
Either we are special or we aren't. If we are, then these set of constants are also remarkable to appear.
If we aren't special then these set of constants are nothing special in the universe.
I think we first need to ascertain the "specialty" of life, or is life something special. I think that the debate without this question answered is pointless.
"the important thing on which your argument hangs on is that we are noting special,"
Far from it. The fine tuning argument needs five premises to be true in order to succeed. The two videos explain why at least four out of those five remain open questions.
Assume that life, or this universe is special in some way.
Then the special mechanism that made the mechanism that made the universe is also fine tuned to produce this "special" universe.
If bowling alley that is made so that it makes "special" solutions of universe more probable then its highly likely that bowling alley is also fine tuned.
The main question is are we special or are we not. But i think that at this and my previous point point we disagree :D
Assume that life, or this universe is special in some way.
Then the special mechanism that made the mechanism that made the universe is also fine tuned to produce this "special" universe.
If bowling alley that is made so that it makes "special" solutions of universe more probable then its highly likely that bowling alley is also fine tuned.
The main question is are we special or are we not. But i think that at this and my previous point point we disagree :D
"But my claim is that we are special. I back this claim with the fact that we are far more harder to make and sustain in the universe then some X name mineral."
That's far from a fact, it's pie in the sky guessing.
To support this claim you need to show that no universe could exist which includes a structure/system/artifact (eg. a mineral) who's existence is more sensitive to cosmological constants than life is. That's a very tall order.
hm this reminds me when theist says to atheist that he needs to prove that God does not exist.
I think that the burden of proof is on you in this case. I think you are turning some things that are generally accepted truths into questionable things, like the specialty of life in universe.
Life in any kind of universe will probably always be more complex then a rock in any kind of universe. Mainly because life is made partially out of minerals.
I think you miss his point, how do you know that the gravitational constant COULD be stronger. How do you know that it is'nt stronger in a million billion other universes, but just right in ours?
Rabidape brought up an interesting point about this as well. No matter how narrow the range between possible gravitational constants able to support life, there is literally an infinite number of possible gravitational constants that could indeed support it.
" there is literally an infinite number of possible gravitational constants that could indeed support it."
erm the whole point of fine tuning argument is that there is no infinite number of possible constants that could support life. Or you could say the interval of possible constants that could support life is very narrow on the scale of all possible constants.
Look at it this way: If somewhere someone who is a stranger to you won the powerball loto, would that be surprising to you? No of course not. However if YOU won the powerball it's "Amazing and special." Why is it more amazing and special when you win it? Because of your perspective, it's the only difference. Your being alive is the coincidence, not that life exists. Life only SEEMS special to us because we are alive. This in no way needs to diminish our appreciation of it though.
life is not special because its my perspective but because its complex , fragile and hard to maintain.Your analogy is faulty, it compares the point of view of 2 equivalent organisms, there is nothing in universe that can be compared to the complexity of life and i dont mean necessarily human life, but rather DNA molecules or simple cell organisms.
no matter how complex any kind of mineral or a star in some other universe is, life in that universe made out of that minerals will be more complex.
No... it's not. For your counterargument to work you would have to show that in any universe with different constants than ours, nothing as "Complex, fragile and hard to maintain" as life could possibly form. You know this how?
Look, if our universe is 'fine tuned' for life, it's tuned pretty freaking poorly. Life is something like 1/3 of one trillionth of the mass of this planet, and this is the only known place in the solar system we have it. That's fine tuned?
But WHY is it funny that it can support life. If it can't be any different than it currently is, then the odds of it being able to support life are 1:1, and completely unsurprising.
On the Rabidape point, reread what I wrote. Between any two real numbers, no matter how small the difference, there is an infinite range of numbers. So if the constants can vary, there is still an infinite number of possible universes that life as we know it could exist.
the width of the interval for beneficial constants is infinitesimally small compared to all possible numbers
( interval of possible beneficial constants ) / (all possible numbers) = 0
like 3/ infinity =0
or
any limited interval / infinity =0
interval of possible beneficial constants has infinite number of possibilities but the chance that exactly any number from this interval will be chosen is 0
i am amazed in the manner in witch people are trying to dodge this argument.
You ignore my first point. You have to be able to show that the constants could have been different before you can say "Isn't amazing that they weren't different?"
why could not they be different? They are just numbers
charge of proton 1.6*10(exp)-19 supports life as we know it, almost any other charge does not. This is incredible coincidence.
if there is a mechanism or a reason that alows only for this number of charge to be possible isnt it odd that the reason that alows only 1 solution for charge alows for life to?
The numbers are not the constants themselves. They are our mathematical representations of the constants. To the universe the charge of an electron is the charge of an electron, the universe doesn't care about our math. It's just a construct for us to represent it in a way we can understand.
You're saying "Look, how unlikely, the universe flipped the coin a million times and it always came up heads!"
I'm just saying that we haven't looked at the coin to see if it's the same on both sides.
and btw you need to prove that there could be only one or few possible solutions for cosmic constants because there is not reason, no reason whatsoever to think now that current cosmic constants are the only possible numbers from the infinity of numbers.
constants are just numbers and for now they are treated as constants independent on anything, and thus its reasonable to assume that constants can be any real number from 0 to infinitty.
This was great! But I think every discussion about fine tuning should contain a reference to particle physicist Victor Stenger: search for . . .
stenger monkeygod
. . . Among the first hits should appear his work about the argument, a BASIC program/CGI script to find your own set of viable constants (it's not terribly hard), and a PDF paper where he presents an example: a stable universe with hydrogen atoms 7 cm in diameter.
Are you talking specifically about a 'state of play' for the fine tuning argument for god?
The pattern that seems to emerge so often speaks for itself i think: theist presents an argument/challenge, atheist rebuts it, presents counter challenge, silence.
Since youtube makes it quite easy (usually) to see the replies to a vid, maybe that's already enough.
I was just thinking of having that information (stored in many videos across YT) collated and a "state of play" report produced. Maybe so things that need to be repeated can be and other things that are settled can be left as such (assuming anything ever does get settled)
It's like the claim that Carbon is somehow miraculous for life when Silicon can form many of the same kinds of analogous chemicals at higher temperatures.
Silicon, Sulphur, Flourine.. on some planet somewhere...
All you need is a) Constants that allow for the production of increasingly heavier elements. b) Production of energy that life can tap easily. If this is also how heavier elemrnts are made, so much the better. c) The eventual creation of environments where (a) and (b) can combine and nurture life. d) Sufficient chemical complexity that interactions can form chemical machinery.
Given those, life is possible. Maybe not life as we know it, but life nonetheless.
"a number that somebody HAD predicted in advance".
Even then. Did you ever see Derren Brown's show with the horse betting. It showed footage of this woman getting anonymous tips on horse races and winning every time. What had actually happened is that he had picked thousands of people and sent them all alternative outcomes, and he ended up showing us the footage only of the one woman who happened to be the inevitable one who got the right choice every time. (more...)
Silly atheist... you concede that if someone had predicted a specific outcome before an event, then it would be reasonable to desire an explanation for accuracy of the prediction.
Well... God obviously predicted life before he created it... so... PWNED! :-)
It should not contain 'emergence of life as we know it'. A more meaningful definition might be 'emergence of conscious entities'.
Given a hypothetically vast range of constants we must suppose a vast range of potential, and unknowable, physical processes (e.g. chemistry). To defend P5 it must be shown that none of these could produce consciousness, in some form. That is, of course, impossible.
Brilliant video, thanks for posting. I would only add that even if one were to adopt the God Hypothesis in order to explain physical constants, this would be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. Logic would necessitate a probabilistic assessment of God's existence and nature, something which would seem astronomically unlikely. A further leap would be needed to vindicate any conformity to specific doctrine. Theists will have their work cut out....
Epistemofo 1 year ago
well done BB.. well done indeed, now i'm not normally one to pat people on the back since i am Danish, but you effectively chisesled away the faulty bits of the fine tuning argument and then in the end showed well how all that was left was guesswork that the theists don't even have the education to follow through on evidently, as there are no 'creation cosmological science centers' or such :P
GronTheMighty 1 year ago
Good video! Some nice points.
There may also be the counter that the argument is probabilistically flawed: "the likelihood that the universe is fine tuned given there's a god is high so since the universe is fine tuned the probability of god is high." this is wrong because you have a reversal of a conditional probabiltiy with insufficient information to reverse it.
I guess you've heard this before and wondered whether it was a seperate issue or a result of the unproven premises you mentioned?
jatherobot 2 years ago
"If life is special in an absolute sense" That's because you're a nihilist :) In honesty I think most people think that there are special features about conscious life able to make morally significant choices that inanimate things like minerals do not have.
facilisdescenus 2 years ago
"I think most people think that there are special features about conscious life able to make ..."
I'm sure you're right. But of course a common feeling among biological life forms that biological life is somehow special doesn't mean that biological life is in fact more special than any other kind of phenomenon.
bitbutter 2 years ago
oh come on
if gravity constant was stronger for 10^-60 the universe would collapse, and there would be no stars, no rocks, no nothing. I think this is quite special.
niinja2 2 years ago
"if gravity constant was stronger for 10^-60 the universe would collapse, and there would be no stars, no rocks, no nothing. I think this is quite special."
You might be right if P1 P2 and P3 were true. I showed in these two videos why assuming their truth is not warranted.
bitbutter 2 years ago
the important thing on which your argument hangs on is that we are noting special, if that is so then any kind of set of constants is arbitrary because it leads to "nothing special".
But my claim is that we are special. I back this claim with the fact that we are far more harder to make and sustain in the universe then some X name mineral. I think its a good assumption that any kind of life in the universe is more special, or of more value because its rarer then some kind of mineral.
niinja2 2 years ago
The "specialty " of life in the universe does not depend on your earlier premises.
Either we are special or we aren't. If we are, then these set of constants are also remarkable to appear.
If we aren't special then these set of constants are nothing special in the universe.
I think we first need to ascertain the "specialty" of life, or is life something special. I think that the debate without this question answered is pointless.
niinja2 2 years ago
"the important thing on which your argument hangs on is that we are noting special,"
Far from it. The fine tuning argument needs five premises to be true in order to succeed. The two videos explain why at least four out of those five remain open questions.
bitbutter 2 years ago
I disagree.
Assume that life, or this universe is special in some way.
Then the special mechanism that made the mechanism that made the universe is also fine tuned to produce this "special" universe.
If bowling alley that is made so that it makes "special" solutions of universe more probable then its highly likely that bowling alley is also fine tuned.
The main question is are we special or are we not. But i think that at this and my previous point point we disagree :D
niinja2 2 years ago
I disagree.
Assume that life, or this universe is special in some way.
Then the special mechanism that made the mechanism that made the universe is also fine tuned to produce this "special" universe.
If bowling alley that is made so that it makes "special" solutions of universe more probable then its highly likely that bowling alley is also fine tuned.
The main question is are we special or are we not. But i think that at this and my previous point point we disagree :D
niinja2 2 years ago
"But my claim is that we are special. I back this claim with the fact that we are far more harder to make and sustain in the universe then some X name mineral."
That's far from a fact, it's pie in the sky guessing.
To support this claim you need to show that no universe could exist which includes a structure/system/artifact (eg. a mineral) who's existence is more sensitive to cosmological constants than life is. That's a very tall order.
bitbutter 2 years ago
hm this reminds me when theist says to atheist that he needs to prove that God does not exist.
I think that the burden of proof is on you in this case. I think you are turning some things that are generally accepted truths into questionable things, like the specialty of life in universe.
Life in any kind of universe will probably always be more complex then a rock in any kind of universe. Mainly because life is made partially out of minerals.
niinja2 2 years ago
I think you miss his point, how do you know that the gravitational constant COULD be stronger. How do you know that it is'nt stronger in a million billion other universes, but just right in ours?
Rabidape brought up an interesting point about this as well. No matter how narrow the range between possible gravitational constants able to support life, there is literally an infinite number of possible gravitational constants that could indeed support it.
cyxgun 2 years ago
" there is literally an infinite number of possible gravitational constants that could indeed support it."
erm the whole point of fine tuning argument is that there is no infinite number of possible constants that could support life. Or you could say the interval of possible constants that could support life is very narrow on the scale of all possible constants.
niinja2 2 years ago
Look at it this way: If somewhere someone who is a stranger to you won the powerball loto, would that be surprising to you? No of course not. However if YOU won the powerball it's "Amazing and special." Why is it more amazing and special when you win it? Because of your perspective, it's the only difference. Your being alive is the coincidence, not that life exists. Life only SEEMS special to us because we are alive. This in no way needs to diminish our appreciation of it though.
cyxgun 2 years ago
life is not special because its my perspective but because its complex , fragile and hard to maintain.Your analogy is faulty, it compares the point of view of 2 equivalent organisms, there is nothing in universe that can be compared to the complexity of life and i dont mean necessarily human life, but rather DNA molecules or simple cell organisms.
no matter how complex any kind of mineral or a star in some other universe is, life in that universe made out of that minerals will be more complex.
niinja2 2 years ago
No... it's not. For your counterargument to work you would have to show that in any universe with different constants than ours, nothing as "Complex, fragile and hard to maintain" as life could possibly form. You know this how?
Look, if our universe is 'fine tuned' for life, it's tuned pretty freaking poorly. Life is something like 1/3 of one trillionth of the mass of this planet, and this is the only known place in the solar system we have it. That's fine tuned?
cyxgun 2 years ago 2
"I think you miss his point, how do you know that the gravitational constant COULD be stronger. "
well if it cant be stronger then its funny how the only possible constant for gravity for this universe is the one that supports life.
"How do you know that it is'nt stronger in a million billion other universes, but just right in ours?"
we dont, but i think multiverse theory also demands some kind of fine tuning...
still it would be unwise to exclude multiverse theory as an option.
niinja2 2 years ago
But WHY is it funny that it can support life. If it can't be any different than it currently is, then the odds of it being able to support life are 1:1, and completely unsurprising.
On the Rabidape point, reread what I wrote. Between any two real numbers, no matter how small the difference, there is an infinite range of numbers. So if the constants can vary, there is still an infinite number of possible universes that life as we know it could exist.
cyxgun 2 years ago
the width of the interval for beneficial constants is infinitesimally small compared to all possible numbers
( interval of possible beneficial constants ) / (all possible numbers) = 0
like 3/ infinity =0
or
any limited interval / infinity =0
interval of possible beneficial constants has infinite number of possibilities but the chance that exactly any number from this interval will be chosen is 0
i am amazed in the manner in witch people are trying to dodge this argument.
niinja2 2 years ago
You ignore my first point. You have to be able to show that the constants could have been different before you can say "Isn't amazing that they weren't different?"
cyxgun 2 years ago
why could not they be different? They are just numbers
charge of proton 1.6*10(exp)-19 supports life as we know it, almost any other charge does not. This is incredible coincidence.
if there is a mechanism or a reason that alows only for this number of charge to be possible isnt it odd that the reason that alows only 1 solution for charge alows for life to?
niinja2 2 years ago
The numbers are not the constants themselves. They are our mathematical representations of the constants. To the universe the charge of an electron is the charge of an electron, the universe doesn't care about our math. It's just a construct for us to represent it in a way we can understand.
You're saying "Look, how unlikely, the universe flipped the coin a million times and it always came up heads!"
I'm just saying that we haven't looked at the coin to see if it's the same on both sides.
cyxgun 2 years ago
and btw you need to prove that there could be only one or few possible solutions for cosmic constants because there is not reason, no reason whatsoever to think now that current cosmic constants are the only possible numbers from the infinity of numbers.
constants are just numbers and for now they are treated as constants independent on anything, and thus its reasonable to assume that constants can be any real number from 0 to infinitty.
burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise.
niinja2 2 years ago
This was great! But I think every discussion about fine tuning should contain a reference to particle physicist Victor Stenger: search for . . .
stenger monkeygod
. . . Among the first hits should appear his work about the argument, a BASIC program/CGI script to find your own set of viable constants (it's not terribly hard), and a PDF paper where he presents an example: a stable universe with hydrogen atoms 7 cm in diameter.
There goes fine tuning. :-)
leporidus 2 years ago
Exquisitely well argued - I will definitely be checking out that Drange paper linked in the sidebar.
TheBlackwaterDemon 2 years ago
*Very* nice videos.
shiningwhiffle 3 years ago
thanks very much shiningwhiffle. Great username.
bitbutter 3 years ago
Good video Bit.
Could you think about doing a video or a series about the state of play in this debate.
Listing the big players (arguments).
Talk about strengths and weaknesses.
List the rebuttal arguments.
A type of score card. Where are we at. Who's winning. What are the strong attacks or the weak rebutts?
Hmmm ... I thinking of this because I want these arguments/debates to go somewhere rather than round and round.
Just thinking really...????
Danmill23 3 years ago
Hi Dan, thanks.
Are you talking specifically about a 'state of play' for the fine tuning argument for god?
The pattern that seems to emerge so often speaks for itself i think: theist presents an argument/challenge, atheist rebuts it, presents counter challenge, silence.
Since youtube makes it quite easy (usually) to see the replies to a vid, maybe that's already enough.
bitbutter 3 years ago
No I kinda meant a more generalized approach.
I was just thinking of having that information (stored in many videos across YT) collated and a "state of play" report produced. Maybe so things that need to be repeated can be and other things that are settled can be left as such (assuming anything ever does get settled)
Just thinking really.
Danmill23 3 years ago
I see. I'll give it some thought, sounds like quite a time consuming project though!
bitbutter 3 years ago
It's like the claim that Carbon is somehow miraculous for life when Silicon can form many of the same kinds of analogous chemicals at higher temperatures.
Silicon, Sulphur, Flourine.. on some planet somewhere...
RyuDarragh 3 years ago
thanks!
bitbutter 3 years ago
Very nicely done.
hilbert54 3 years ago
Thanks hilbert54.
bitbutter 3 years ago
All you need is a) Constants that allow for the production of increasingly heavier elements. b) Production of energy that life can tap easily. If this is also how heavier elemrnts are made, so much the better. c) The eventual creation of environments where (a) and (b) can combine and nurture life. d) Sufficient chemical complexity that interactions can form chemical machinery.
Given those, life is possible. Maybe not life as we know it, but life nonetheless.
RyuDarragh 3 years ago
Yes, I didn't get into not-as-we-know-it life but there seems to be no reason to privilege the kinds of life we're familiar with, as the FTA does.
bitbutter 3 years ago
"a number that somebody HAD predicted in advance".
Even then. Did you ever see Derren Brown's show with the horse betting. It showed footage of this woman getting anonymous tips on horse races and winning every time. What had actually happened is that he had picked thousands of people and sent them all alternative outcomes, and he ended up showing us the footage only of the one woman who happened to be the inevitable one who got the right choice every time. (more...)
rozeboosje 3 years ago
To HER, of course it seemed miraculous. But it was an inevitable outcome given the setup of the experiment ;-)
rozeboosje 3 years ago
Yes i saw it, neat idea!
bitbutter 3 years ago
"the existence of the set of cosmological constants in our world is exceedingly unlikley."
We have an N of exactly one.
What can we say about the probability of the constants we observe in this one and only universe we have observed?
We can say only this: the probability is not zero.
The probability might be 1 or .99 or .5 or .00001. All we know is that the probability is not zero.
With an N of one, that's all we can say.
UnBeguiled 3 years ago
Quite so!
bitbutter 3 years ago
Craig refers to the "enormous improbability that the universe should possess such features".
Enormous? He has an N of one. All he can say is that the probability is not zero.
The probability might be high or low, but we need to observe other universes with their constants in order to make any probability statements.
Craig is just making shit up.
UnBeguiled 3 years ago
Silly atheist... you concede that if someone had predicted a specific outcome before an event, then it would be reasonable to desire an explanation for accuracy of the prediction.
Well... God obviously predicted life before he created it... so... PWNED! :-)
LennyBound 3 years ago
i accidentally proved gods existence?? DOH epic phail!
bitbutter 3 years ago
Good video.
I think P5 can be challenged easily enough.
It should not contain 'emergence of life as we know it'. A more meaningful definition might be 'emergence of conscious entities'.
Given a hypothetically vast range of constants we must suppose a vast range of potential, and unknowable, physical processes (e.g. chemistry). To defend P5 it must be shown that none of these could produce consciousness, in some form. That is, of course, impossible.
pknvdw 3 years ago
Thanks pknvdw.
"I think P5 can be challenged easily enough.
It should not contain 'emergence of life as we know it'. A more meaningful definition might be 'emergence of conscious entities'."
Yes, agreed. Just another way that FTA overstretches itself.
bitbutter 3 years ago
Apologies: this is the second one of a pair, the first is still uploading.
bitbutter 3 years ago
its about time you made a new video.
tooltime9901 3 years ago
wtf is the can of tuna for?
theOvin2 3 years ago
the fine tuna argument :D
sum1unxpected 3 years ago 2