You still seem to be very confused about the basic delineation I made ages ago which perfectly resolves your various quotes. There are two different things going on, and you back to back quoted the two different things and seemed surprised that they are different. One more time for the slow students:

Firstly, there is a descriptive property. I called this property UM. The wiki/talkorigins definition is functionally same. As is the premise of your "description". Namely, a universe is fine tuned for life if small changes to fundamental parameters make life as we know it impossible. This is a perfectly fine and totally standard definition and you haven't found anything wrong against it.

Secondly, there is the Fine Tuned Argument or FTA as I labeled it which argues that given how the universe appears to be fine tuned (ie has the descriptive property) - the "state of the universe" in the philosophyofreligion quote - then the causal property that it came from chance seems unlikely.

See the difference? Yes the word "fine tuned" get's used in both, but one is a definition of a descriptive property, and one is an argument for a causal property given the descriptive property.

Okay, so is there any identified problem with a "definitional approach"? Of course not. It is a perfectly fine definition (rather unlike the definition of design). We can state that yes the universe is fine tuned because yes it has this descriptive property (as you agree). But this isn't trying to be the "fine tuning argument" as you keep conflating. We can then proceed from agreeing that the universe is fine tuned to asking whether or not this means it is likely to have formed by chance, which is what the fine tuning argument is.

What you are doing is a third thing still. In your cards example, you are using "fine tuned" in a way that is close-to-but-apparently-not-synonymous with "intention". As in, something is fine tuned if it has some form of causal property, very different from the above definitions where we call a universe fine tuned if it has a descriptive property.

There are two major problems here. Firstly, unlike defining a universe being "fine tuned" based on whether it has the descriptive property that is relatively objective, one can't actually answer the question of whether a universe is fined tuned based on whether it has this causal property unless, of course, one knows this answer. It's a definition, but not one we can test the way we can go out and actually test whether our universe does or does not have the descriptive property. Perhaps the reason you don't like a "definitional approach" is that the way you are using the word (which is implicitly making a definition). Secondly, this usage just isn't standard. When people say a universe is fine tuned, they are referring to the descriptive property, in fact I've never heard it used your way. The wikiquote and Davies (see below) are both clearly using it the descriptive way, but I quickly checked the first page or two of google of "fine tuned universe" and every result is using a descriptive property - not a causal - property. I can quote if needed, but defining "fine tuned" based on a causal property is highly nonstandard.

I don't really care if you respond to the stuff beneath, but do try to give an actual thoughtful reply to the above.


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Clearly there was intent to order the cards in this way special way from the manufacturer, even if they didn't know how that special order would be used. You haven't made intent go away in your example, just shifted the agency of where the intent occurs. There is still someone intending to create this interesting pattern, even if the second agent (the innocent card dealer) is unaware they are dealing out a pattern someone intended to be interesting. Remember, this is the only way you have managed to separate your use of "fine tuned" from "intentional"...and what you are doing here is at best a very small step away.



I'm going to quote him again since you still missed it: "[the universe is] fine-tuned for the essential building blocks and environments that life requires"

His points about biophilic universes aside, he clearly agrees with the framing that fine tuned is a descriptive property of universes. Indeed, he thinks our universe IS fine tuned, just that it is fine tuned for the essential building blocks of life, not specifically for life itself (which I agree with). Just lol at his use of quotes making you think he agrees with you. Absolutely hilarious.




Close, but no, you still haven't figured out what it means to model the universe. The newtonian model of the universe means there is no GR in the model. This isn't proposing the universe itself has changed. It is just one (among many) models of the universe. As we know, it turns out to be a pretty good model, but not as good as GR. However, for the point of simple illustrations in threads like this, it is absolutely fine to work within the Newtonian model of the universe and not the GR model of the universe. And guess what, it is very plausible that at some point in the future there will be new models that supersede GR. At no point have I suggested making a contradiction between different models - that's just stupid. If you want to make the same point I made but in the GR world go ahead, you can change GR instead. I'm amazed that this elementary point is still confusing you.


Indeed. And how do they come up with new models? Do they just vary the constants in the existing models? Or do they come up with models that have different structure? When they are trying to make a theory that matches known observations, or other theories that well model a set of observations, do you think they might, oh I dunno, try a variety of different structures to see what works?

Playing around in this manner is how physics has worked for centuries. Imagine the Newtonian era physicist who first thinks of the question of what kind of distance dependence gravity might have. Such a physicist more insightful than you might note something about the distance dependence of the surface area of concentric spheres and think there was something interesting going on there. Or they might try and write down orbits for something like 1/r^3 or 1/r. They might look up at our solar system and note that their orbits are well matched with 1/r^2. And so on. Today, if the only way you know how to argue against this proposition is to say "you have to change GR too" you should really take your physics degree off the wall.

Remember, though, I wasn't proposing doing physics. I was making a point about the fine tuning. For physics, we want models that describe our universe well. For fine tuning, we are taking models that are similar in some regard yet describe universes very different from our own. Your position is that the ONLY models allowed are ones where the constants differ but there is identical structure. This seems unnecessarily limiting. Saying it is arbitrary is true but not an effective criticism. That is what we are talking about, making arbitrary changes to the model of the universe and asking why our universe is the way it appears to be and not one of the many other (arbitrary) possibilities out there. It is just that you want to restrict the possibilities to this one set and I see no reason why we ought not consider ones where, say, the forces operate somewhat differently as well. Your only objection is a slippery slope to something like "no mathematical model at all!". Is there nothing between "only allow constants to change" and "no model at all"?

I agree with your view which emphasizes the difference between the descriptive property of being "fine tuned" and the inference drawn from that by the fine-tuning argument. It seems to me the crucial question is, to what extent if any is that inference justified.

I think the Royal Flush poker hand analogy is more apt if the dealer is omitted and you are just "viewing" the Royal Flush with no information about the circumstance under which it came into your view. Furthermore, it's stipulated you know that the only poker hand you have the capacity to view is a Royal Flush.

Assume you have knowledge of the game of poker, the 52 card deck, card rankings, and poker hand rankings. So you recognize a Royal Flush as the highest ranked poker hand.

So you can simply define a "fine-tuned" 5 card poker hand to be one that's ranked highest. Or if you want a closer analogy to a "fine-tuned" universe, define it as a 5 card poker hand where relatively few changes can be made to the hand which keep it recognizably the same kind of poker hand. e.g. zip, 1 pair, 2 pair, trips, straight, flush, ..., Royal Flush. Under this definition you can even say a Royal Flush is objectively the "most" fine tuned poker hand.

Working with this analogy the question then becomes, "what inferences can you reasonably draw about how you came to be viewing the AKQJT of spades?

I'd be interested in your opinion of my analysis of that question below. Aaron W seems to be having trouble understanding it.


PairTheBoard -
"Certainly you can consider other possible poker hands. You can consider the space of permutations on a deck of 52 cards. You can consider what seems like a natural probability function on that space of permutations, e.g. Each equally likely. And so you can consider under that probability function there is a small probability for a Royal Flush to be situated for your view.

But what heuristic can you infer based on those considerations when realizing you have no idea of the circumstances under which the Royal Flush you have in your view got there? Would you suggest the inference that it's unlikely it got there by chance? What chance? The chance described by the probability function you decided to consider? Or might you suggest that some other probability function on the space of deck permutations is more likely? Or might you suggest the inference that the poker hand you have in view is one among many and happens to be a Royal Flush because that's the only poker hand you have the capacity to view?

Or might you suggest that no inference is reasonable about how the Royal Flush you have in view got there because you have no information about the circumstances under which it came into your view? Of course if you suggest this you will have to answer to an Aaron W who will accuse you of rejecting the principle of reevaluating when provided further considerations."


PairTheBoard

Indeed. We hadn't managed to get to that, being stuck on much more basic issues of confusing the definition of a "fine tuned universe" and the "fine tuning argument". Maybe one day we will get to the actually interesting stuff...

Sorry, I don't follow. Like if 23445 is dealt I can't view it, I can only view it if it is royal flush? Wouldn't that assume that if I can indeed view the hand with probability 1 it is a royal flush since I can't view anything else?

Sure. If I may improve on this slightly, I'd suggest that we consider all poker hands where we allow small variations such as changing the suit or number on a single card by one. Then, relative to the standard hand ranking, the royal flush is very finely tuned in a way that 2468T 4 suits isn't. As in a small change to the former reduces it from the best hand to A high or a pair, while a change in the bottom at best turns it from T8 high to T9 high, both weak hands. So in this sense, the royal flush is more sensitive to large changes in rank than the latter...it is more "fine tuned".

Firstly, let's note that in practice the inference isn't particularly interesting. As in, if I'm at a home game and the host deals this to himself the first hand, I just have to compare my computation for the chance of a royal flush in a vacuum, and my estimation that the host would cheat. Knowing that dealers cheat regularly (hey, for fun I once dealt out AA vs KK vs 27o for me and an AK222 board on the first hand before returning all chips), we can estimate the chance that it was a cheat.

What you probably mean is something more philosophical where we somehow just stumble upon the royal flush in nature without human interference so we are not making estimates on human nature, we are trying to determine what this signifies about the universe that somehow this royal flush has manifested before us.

In this case, I think I lean toward the "no inference" answer. If we assume that the universe could have been such that any hand was presented towards us, then indeed we would have to conclude that a royal flush was unlikely. But we don't know that the universe could have presented the rest of the hands, so we can't conclude this. Who knows, maybe showing a royal flush is a fundamental property of the universe, deduced from simple axioms of physics. This seems rather ridiculous when spoken in terms of poker hands, but here "royal flush" is just a place holder for "interesting pattern" and there are rather interesting patterns in the universe (like that it is described by relatively simple models) that do seem fundamental.

It is a reasonable analogy for the fine-tuning argument, I suppose. As in, if you presuppose that the universe is selected from the set of universes with variable constants on the same model, life forming universes are indeed a trivially small subset and the conclusion that our universe arriving by chance is unlikely is valid. But the conclusion is entirely bought in the premise.

I think it's important that the dealer is omitted and we instead simply find ourselves "viewing" a Royal Flush [b]with no information about the circumstances under which that Royal Flush came into our view.[b]

That makes it analogous to us finding ourselves viewing a universe which works in a way that makes life as we know it possible. But we have no information about the circumstances under which the universe we are viewing came into existence.

The stipulation that we know the only poker hand we have the capacity to view is a Royal Flush is analogous to our knowing that the only type of universe we have the capacity to be living in to view is one that works in a way that makes life as we know it possible.

I think we can stipulate that poker hands have recognizable patterns and that a Royal Flush is "fine-tuned" analogously to a "fine-tuned" universe in that there are only 4 ways a poker hand can be a Royal Flush compared to the numerous number of ways a Zip Hand can be formed. Without worrying too much about further details that should be analogous to the narrow parameter range for a carbon based life type Universe.

In my view the key stipulation is that we have no information about the circumstances under which the Royal Flush we find ourselves viewing got there. It's the same as our situation in this Universe.


PairTheBoard

Ah i see what you are saying. Yes, i agree. If we stumble upon a metaphorical royal flush in nature we cant assume that there is a range of possible card deals and we just happen to live in the universe which exhibits the royal flush. All we can say is "hey, thats a pretty pattern!".

Typically when we see an interesting pattern in nature we try to understand how that pattern occurs, is there perhaps some interesting physics that results in this pattern occuring? So for instance, if we note the rather pretty pattern of things spinning around other things in the universe we get to move beyond saying "thats a pretty pattern" and can write down laws like conservation of angular momentum and so forth. And we can see that systems of objects that dont obey conservation of momentum cant happen under this model. But here, since you havent provided any of this, we cant model the royal flush occuring, we cant know that other hands our possible to be dealt, and cant move beyond ghe "thats pretty" observation.

Not exactly. In my previous post I explained that the game of poker is known to you as well as the 52 card deck and the ranking of hands. But Aaron W insists that it's the pattern that's the thing so I'm only pointing out that poker hands do have naturally recognizable patterns - except for Zip hands. So recognizing that the Royal Flush you're viewing is the best poker hand implicitly contains an analogy to Aaron W's desire for seeing a pattern.

We are viewing a Royal Flush. It's not metaphorical, we didn't stumble upon it in nature and we do know there are a range of possible poker hands other than the Royal Flush we happen to be viewing. We just have no information what the circumstances were under which we came to be viewing this Royal Flush. But we do know that a Royal Flush is the only poker hand we have the capacity to view.

This is meant to be analogous to our viewing a Universe with the pattern of supporting carbon based life. We know the parameters for physical constants for the Universe we view and we know that slight changes to those parameters disallow carbon based life. We just have no information about the circumstances under which the Universe we are viewing came into existence. But we do know that the only type of Universe we have the capacity to view is one that supports carbon based life.

PairTheBoard

Having read it again, I must not see the point you're making.

You might suggest that, sure. You can deny all conjectural possibilities and hold to a strict reading of the data. I thought I was clear about that and I don't think I ever denied that anywhere.

I don't know what you mean by "actually test whether the universe does or does not have the descriptive property." The process of checking the property is an exercise in analyzing models. The entire conversation proceeds by the analysis of models. This may be why you're stuck on your arbitrary changes to exponents and such.

We can NEVER test the universe for the descriptive property because we don't have the ability to modify the physical constants in reality. We ONLY have access to the models.

You seem to be correct. I maintain that there are conceptual objections to the definition (among other things, the analogy with a deck of cards would define every straight flush to be fine-tuned, which I find to be objectionable). But you are correct that I am inconsistent in my language relative to norm, and so my objections on this basis are rescinded.

The pattern is a 5-card royal flush. The "intention" by the manufacturer was not to create that pattern. No agent intended the straight flush to be dealt. But it was dealt as a consequence of multiple independent actions and decisions. Intention is not sufficient to explain it.

Right... you're just proposing a model in which all the units are screwed up. The fine-tuning argument doesn't even exist without more robust models and concepts. Yes, you may propose an inverse cube law. I never said you couldn't. I'm arguing that it introduces changes that are not consistent with how physics is pursued and therefore it's not really worthy of being considered as if it's a real model of the universe. There's a reason that we don't arbitrarily change exponents in the equations (which is what you're proposing as a meaningful alteration to the physics model). You screw up everything when you screw up the units.

What they NEVER do is propose that the fundamental constants of the universe have different unit structures. EVER. Indeed, when they come up with new equations, they use dimensional analysis as their GUIDE to getting meaningful equations. They don't just write down random equations that mess up the dimensions, which is what you are proposing is done.

This is just asinine. We're doing physics because physics is the foundational tool for arguing about fine-tuning. It doesn't even make sense to talk about fine-tuning without having a model of our actual universe. We're not talking about the fine-tuning of arbitrary universes, but the one that we have based on the models that we have. I couldn't care less if you proposed other models of the universe because we have no clue about how ANYTHING would operate in those situations. As I said, go ahead an propose models of the universe that don't conform to mathematical laws at all, because mathematical laws are unnecessarily limiting.

There are some modifications that make sense and some that don't. It doesn't mean that the ones that don't make sense aren't conceptually possible, but that they aren't meaningful and relevant in the same way that the ones that make sense are.

The bolded is precisely what was meant. The point is we can all readily agree that our universe does indeed have the descriptive property by noticing that for the model while its predictions with normal values well match our universe, when we change the constants in our models we get life inhibiting predictions. Indeed, it was why you agreed long ago that our universe had this property.

See? I predicted long ago that there wasn't actually any real disagreement outside of your Newtonian model silliness. I think given how very narrow your pushback now is, I think I stand proven true.


Fair enough. I don't see why that is objectionable though. I gave a for poker specific definition of the descriptive fine tuning property in a response to pairtheboard that indeed concludes that royal flushes are fine tuned as a descriptive property. The question of whether a fine tuning argument leading us to conclude intentionality is likely is still open. The only way I think it is problematic is if you still want "fine tuned" to have those connotations of intention opposed to connotations of patterns having narrow dependence on the variables, which as I understand it was your older and nonstandard definition now rescinded?



I think you are going to really struggle with a concept of intentional if you go down this road. Consider this example (manufacturer intentionally creates a pattern, dealer intentionally deal a hand but nobody is intending to deal a royal flush) and compare it with a normal example where a royal flush is dealt out from a well shuffled deck. Are both cases equally "unintentional"? There is certainly two people both intending patterns, but individually neither is intending the outcome, it is sort of a composite of two intentions*. It's a tricky concept, kind of like design, and rather unlike our descriptive property of the universe. If your want to define it very narrowly (so that this example is not considered intentional) then you are going to make it quite a bit harder for something like the fine-tuning argument to conclude intentionality being likely.

*one can take this composition of intentions business further. A blind knitter knits a scarf. A friend buys them a spool of multicoloured wool (you know the kind that changes colour every so many meters). The result is a scarf with an interesting pattern. Neither person intended this outcome. The friend didn't know it would be a scarf, the blind person had no idea what the colours would come out as. Is this intentional? If so, how meaningful is the fairly small jump from this example of the manufacturer/dealer intentional composition? See the problems that can easily arise going down this line of thinking?




Why do you think G has the units it does? The units of G are sort of unimportant standing on their own in the modified Newtonian model, they are intrinsically tied to the distance dependency. Indeed, if we were trying to come up with Newtonian gravity ourselves, we wouldn't answer what G is first. We would figure out the distance and mass dependencies, and the G would be whatever it needs to be to get the units of energy. So yes it is vacuously true that AFTER a fundamental constant is know and considered fundamental, nobody is going to change its units. But before we know what the units are, it is anyones game. Until we knew F=GmM/r^2, we didn't have arguments for what the units of G were.

Again, I ask you, can you explain to the Newtonian era physicist why it could not be the case that gravity was F=HmM/r^2 where H is G with new units? Saying "it has to match GR" is an entirely empty answer. Note that there are reasonable answers to this question, just not yet named by you.





Fine tuning is looking at a large set of models of the universe. All the models, however, are related by the fact that they have the same structure as our own but with different constants. But we are absolutely talking about models that describe universes nothing like our own, one where life isn't possible. Is "changing constants" the ONLY way to come up with models that have some level of similarity to the one we use for our own? I don't think so. It is undoubtedly sufficient to conclude fine tuned. But there is nothing stopping the set of total models under consideration to be larger than just the "vary constants" models. Undoubtably you will want to throw out inconsistent models, or vacuous ones like "no math describes it" and so forth. But is your conjecture that there is exactly zero models in between these extremes of "vary constants" and "no math describes it"? I think so. Indeed, I think such playing around with different ideas of how the universe might work has a rich history and that if we only ever considered models of the universe that varied constants from the old models we would never have new models.

If something happens (you see a royal flush) and you know nothing else at all, then you can conclude nothing but that this something happened. Is your point more than this?

There is no data on the circumstances under which the Royal Flush you're viewing came into your view because it's stipulated that you have no information about the circumstances under which the Royal Flush you're viewing came into your view.

Its the same as our situation with the Universe. I considered the data you asked me to consider. But that data provides no information about the circumstances under which our Universe came into existence.

PairTheBoard

I assume you know a lot more. You know the game of poker, you know poker hands and their rankings, you know about the 52 card deck and you know that under a probability function with equal likelihood for every permutation of a deck there is a small probability of a particular permutation carrying a Royal Flush to say the top of the deck. Or put another way, you know there are only 4 ways to make a Royal Flush and numerous ways to make Zip hands. We also know that the only poker hand we have the capacity to view is a Royal Flush.

That's the data which Aaron W can point to when he accuses us denying all conjectural possibilities. Trouble is, that data carries no information about the circumstances under which the Royal Flush came into our view and it's stipulated that we have no prior information about the circumstance under which the Royal Flush came into our view.

So I'm not denying all conjectural possibilities based on that data. I'm only denying conjectural possibilities which depend on the circumstances under which the Royal Flush came into our view because with or without the data we have no information about that.

It's the same with our Universe and the same with the unwarranted inference drawn in the fine-tuning argument. When the FTA infers that it's "unlikely our Universe came about as a result of chance" I ask, "What Chance?". The Chance described by a probability function chosen by you for n-parameters on n-dimensional parameter space? Why that probability function when you have no information about the circumstances under which our Universe came to exist - with or without modeling data for parameters of our Universe.


PairTheBoard

I think it's more consistent to deny all conjectures that depend on information about the circumstances under which our Universe came into existence when we have no information about those circumstance - with or without the parameter modeling data. On the other hand, you insist only one conjecture should be allowed, the "unlikely to be the result of chance" conjecture. Meanwhile you deny the multiple Universe conjecture:

Considering that a carbon-life type Universe is the only type we have the capacity to view and considering that under a probability function of our choosing for n-parameters on n-dimensional parameter space there is a small probability of the parameters falling in the narrow range for carbon-life type Universes, it's therefore likely the Universe we're viewing is one among many and it's the one we view because we only have the capacity to view a carbon-life type Universe.


imo, Neither conjecture is warranted because with or without parameter modeling data we have no information about the circumstances under which our Universe came to exist. At least that's consistent. You on the other hand allow only the conjecture you favor and waving your hands reject the conjecture you don't like.


PairTheBoard

This is also why, in my estimation, the poker hand analogy is silly. It also leads to misunderstanding(s). Many analogies do.

Why there is something, and why that something is a universe that evolved a life form that contemplates itself and its surroundings and that struggles to understand the meaning of existence and life, are very interesting questions.

And, I don't know why, is the honest answer.

We will keep inquiring............

ya I agree. I think I agree with PairTheBoard's general point (that these arguments that something is likely is presupposing a specific probability function), but for the poker hand analogy we are so intuitively used to choosing precisely these kinds of probability functions it muddles the issue. If we see a poker hand we have knowledge of how cards are dealt from shuffled, how some dealers cheat, how manufacturers create the cards in pretty patterns. So in any real world example where we see such a royal flush we can estimate the probability that it came from a shuffled vs cheated deck based on our estimates of human behaviour and the like. What his thought experiment is really asking (I think, it still seems a bit weirdly phrased to me) is to blind ourselves to all this intuition we have about probability functions for royal flushes in our world in which case we are led to all agree that yes if we have no idea what the function is, we can't claim anything about it's likelihood.

If I were in a cave, looking at shadows projected on a wall. I would have no idea that there were things moving behind me casting the shadows or that there was a light or what a light, in this scenario even was....