Don't worry, you didn't miss it.

All I got was that patterns are inherently interesting, with the implication that our universe has patterns but if the universe were different than it is, it would not have patterns and/or would not be interesting, so therefore something, so therefore fine tuning.

Demonstrate that our universe is more "inherently interesting" than other conceivable universes? Not attempted.

Do you really think that the concepts of "fine-tuned" and "designed" are substantially different? Fine-tuned carries connotations of design, and in some ways is even stronger than designed (designed with precision). Both also carry connotations of intention and suggest the existence of a fine-tuner/designer.

If you still think these are substantially different, then there's probably very little more you can say about fine-tuning that I'm going to find meaningful.

A royal flush has the capacity to be both fine-tuned and not fine-tuned. It can be the result of chance and it can be the result of intention. This is obvious.

I didn't need to create a different example, it just made things much more obvious. But since you insist:

Suppose you change your formula from being an inverse square to an inverse cube. You now need to change the units on G in order to get units of force. But when you do this, you then need to look at the Einstein Field Equations (general relativity) because those depend on G as well. So those units now need to be adjusted. Except that it's not one equation, but really 10 equations that need adjustment (fortunately, they're all of a similar form). And now you've changed the energy-momentum tensor, which means you've got to now look at Maxwell's equations in GR and then also check the impact of changing these equations with the other Maxwell's equations, and continue to make adjustments from there.

And none of this even looks at whether the changes that were made make anything a proper generalization or special case of anything else. It's far from obvious that changing Newton's equation for gravity will be a proper special case of Einstein's equation.

Naive physics is simply insufficient to have this conversation. You can't make an arbitrary change the type you suggest without needing to completely rewrite a huge amount of physics. It's not nearly as simple as you think it is.

Fair enough. The concept of "pattern" is clearly something that's over your head.

This has already been answered. Matching symbols is intrinsically interesting. Sequences of objects are intrinsically interesting, regardless of which symbols you're matching. Even if you want to deny the meaning of the rank of cards, flushes are still more interesting than random assortments of suits.

The real question is "What is your model?" When we use a mathematical model of cards with which we do probabilities, we don't care about all of those other things. So this is all nonsense that's irrelevant to the concept of modeling cards from a mathematical perspective. And since we're talking about mathematical models, this is all pointless gibberish.

I stated precisely what I mean. If you can't even take two precise concepts and follow them, you should just give up on the conversation now.

It's as if you think that if you keep rambling that you think that it counts as advancing an argument. I at least give you credit this time for trying something different instead of endlessly repeating yourself. You at least came up with a different picture (still flawed, but at least different).

But this still doesn't argue anything in particular against the fine-tuning argument. You're still holding the NUH-UH position that says that no matter what, you can't conclude anything about the universe. That's ultimately going to be an unsuccessful argument no matter how you slice it. It's like arguing with a skeptic. They will continue to grasp at anything at all that they think supports their argument in order to maintain that they're relevant in the conversation.

Please find the physicists who speak out about the claims and look at their specific objections. Their objections have little to do with the calculations behind the fine-tuning arguments. They do not reject those parts of the claim. Rather, they reject on various "philosophical" grounds. For example, they try to explain it away using a multiple universe hypothesis. Or they posit (similar to Sklansky) that there are unknown logical connections between the parameters so that they aren't to be seen as independent values.

Perhaps the ultimate confusion of metaphor with fact of the matter.


PairTheBoard

This is a good idea for lots of reasons.

Also might be valuable to read this debate on the anthropic arguments:

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/smolin_s..._susskind.html

..especially the final Letter by Susskind. ( feel free to skip all of Smolins side of the debate as it is summarized well by opponent. IMO ). It is not specifically about fine-tuning in fact I am sure both sides agree that fine-tuning is on. Interestingly, Susskind has stated elsewhere that the only explanations for fine-tuning are multiverse or theism ( He is not a theist ).
The alternative idea that the many constants of the standard model and cosmology will all be derived theoretically looks hopeless at this point ( see Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory).

One other thing, Sklansky's idea that fine-tuning is like winning a lottery with 12 number picks instead of 6, or whatever, illustrates the actual situation much better that some other examples. Some sort of explanation is required other than someone had to win.

Dave

Which one is the metaphor? Modern physics makes
naive reality look more like the metaphor and Platonists will argue
that mathematical structures necessarily exist as part of reality.

Just asking for clarification.

We have this for the fine-tuning argument or heuristic:

Notice that nowhere in the argument do you see the term "fine tuned". In particular, the argument does not assert that the Universe is "fine-tuned".

The argument looks a little awkward to me in this form. Trying to see exactly how the argument is working I suggest this rewording of it. I believe the rewording is logically equivalent. If it's not I'd like to know why.


"It's unlikely that the parameters of our universe were the result of chance *Because* they must have fallen within a narrow range for life as we know it to have formed."


Call that the "narrow parameter range for life" argument rather than "fine tuned argument" if you prefer.




PairTheBoard

I don't think I like the words interesting and meaningful, because they require context. It's difficult to know whether we are using the same or different context when we use these words. In a universe devoid of life and consciousness, would you feel that the pattern of a snowflake is meaningful or interesting? If so, to whom? To what? And in what context?

It seems to me, that a better word to describe what you're really talking about (or what you mean?), is coincidence. It would be a remarkable coincidence if every hand were dealt all one suit. But a coincidence necessitates at least a 2nd event. It requires a comparison. If you stopped for gas this morning and saw that pump #3 was out of order, so you pulled up to pump #5 and put 14.3 gallons in your car totaling $32.61, this would not be remarkable. However, if I told you that the EXACT same thing happened to me, including pump #3 being out of order, and the exact total, etc., we could certainly call it a coincidence.

We can call an all suited hand meaningful (as you put it), only because we know how mathematically improbable it is. Would your hypothetical gas station stop be mathematically improbable? Of course not. It only becomes interesting upon learning of my 2nd and identical event. Before that, each of our fueling stops were nothing out of the ordinary.

So am I wrong to apply this same logic to the universe? It may very well be remarkable that the universe is tuned exactly as it is. But I do not find this overly impressive, because one thing is for sure.. If it weren't tuned this way, we wouldn't exist to have this conversation.

I guess what I'm saying is that there is no other context with which to view things. Yes, patterns are interesting to us, but they require comparison and conscious minds to recognize them. Are they meaningful? Well, faces in the clouds are interesting too. But how can they be meaningful if no one is around to assign meaning? Ditto for all suited hands (I think)..

Let me first note that I after you got mad that I wasn't using your "framing", I asked you to give whatever framing you want, and to make it clear to us (since mrmr doesn't know either) whether you even think the universe is or is not fine tuned, and why. You completely ignore this. Vintage Aaron.



You seem to be getting quite confused about the different parts of the argument. I carefully delineated these in the part you quoted (but seemingly ignored). There is a descriptive claim about the universe that I labeled UM. And there is a causal claim about the universe that I labeled AW. Together the argument is that if UM, then AW is likely.

What you are doing here is using "fine-tuned" anonymously with "result of intention". Now I'm going to quote you here and see if the word "intention" comes up anywhere:

While I agree with PairTheBoard that this is very poorly worded, you started with an observation about the universe, that changing the parameters a bit means life can't form. I don't know what you want to call universes that have this property. Often they are just called fine-tuned. I called them having UM.

So when I asked whether my toy universe was fine-tuned I - as I asked in the previous post and you ignored - was asking if it had the property UM. Do you think this is the case?

Again, I'm working from your "description". The observation of the universe YOU gave is a fairly objective one: small changes in parameters prevent life as we know it. We can speak far more objectively that the universe has this property than that it has the property of design which - unlike the description you gave for fine tuning - I suspect you won't be able to provide even a good description.

At the end of the day, I am still unsure what the disagreement is. It seems like you want to try and nitpick everything I say (and are doing a pretty bad job at this). But I am not sure what if any actual difference there is on our conceptions of the concept of fine tuning.

Just lol. I explicitly stated I was making a modification in the "newtonian world" and changed newton's equation and your response is to be "LOLOLOL but GR would change too!" Well no **** sherlock, but I wasn't talking about the GR model of the universe, now was I?

You seem to have missed the point entirely, though. The point was that in the fine tuning argument we are changing our models of the universe a bit. I see no a priori reason why the only allowable change is to vary certain empirical constants but are going to complete disallow changing the structure of the equations themselves. It is saying we allow one type of change to our models, but not another type of change. Of course I don't suggest proposing models with internal contradictions (as your laughable made up example did). And it is perfectly fine to illustrate this point in the simpler Netwonian model of the universe without you coming in with but but but but GR. My goodness.

Conversing with Aaron is and always will be an exercise in ignoring - or just mocking, as I do - his attempts to litter every conversation with unrelenting condescension.

Notice that in this Sleeping Beauty Paradox, Beauty can make the Bayesian probability calculation based on the result of 752,233 for her roll of the million sided die because She knows something about the prior probability of heads to begin with.


PairTheBoard

Right. This is something that I've been honing down with uke. Patterns are interesting or uninteresting depending on the context.

Coincidence carries a different type of connotation that's exactly the opposite. If we say that X and Y both happening are coincidence, we're already denying the possibility that they're actually related.

Gas station stop? Maybe my brain is tired, but I have no idea what you're referring to.

This is the type of argument that doesn't allow us to say anything meaningful besides "it's just the way it is." Again, that's a perfectly valid way to view things. But many people find that explanation to fall short because it can kind of be used whenever you want to use it and it denies the application of the mind to consider connections. It functions kind of like a god-of-the-gaps argument in that it says that there's no further meaningful inquiry into the question because of a fiat claim.

If a tree falls in a forest... ?

Not too far away from your question is the question of whether primes would exist if the human mind did not conceive of them. We view math as attaining certain types of transcendent properties to the point that we would expect intelligent life from other parts of the universe to comprehend it. Are prime numbers interesting only because they're interesting to us? Does the universe contain interesting patterns as part of its fabric, regardless of human (or other intelligent) interaction with them?

I can go with this rewording if you want.

I'm not arguing whether I believe the universe is fine-tuned. You would note that if you were actually paying attention, I'm arguing that mrmr's presentation doesn't accurately reflect the fine-tuning argument. There's a big and obvious distinction between the two.

I'm sympathetic to the viewpoint that the universe is "fine-tuned" in some sense. But I don't believe that the fine-tuning argument proves this. I've been very clear about what I believe the fine-tuning argument does and does not do.

I assume you mean synonymously. And you still don't seem to understand the distinction because it's quite clear that you're talking about something different. I'm not claiming that they're synonymous, though they're certainly related.

You're doing much harm to the fine-tuning argument by trying to force it to overstate its position. Fine-tuning is a heuristic. It doesn't draw a formal conclusion based on a deductive pattern of thought.

If you tell me your universe has that property, then what am I supposed to do other than repeat back your hypothesis to you?

Mostly, it seems you're trying to force the argument into a particular mold which doesn't appear to accurately represent the argument.

No. But if you're going to ignore the coherence between models as being a meaningful reason why you can't arbitrarily change exponents around and pretend it's equivalent to altering constants that retain coherence between models, then you're just being dumb.

Who cares about a priori reasons? I'm giving you an a posteori reason why random alterations to the equations isn't a good way to try to adjust the parameters. The naive thing of treating physics equations as if there are no units involved doesn't reflect how physics is done in reality. So if you want to play with toy models that don't generalize and become incoherent with each other, I don't see why I should care.

I already told you I didn't read your exchange with mrmr. If there is something critical there, you can quote it, because at this point I have almost no idea what it is you think the fine-tuning argument does or does not do, or what the "some sense" you find yourself sympathetic to. Amazing to me that when asked your view you say you agree in "some sense" without any attempt to elaborate on what that sense actually is. Just a great example of how absolutely terrible you are at advancing a meaningful conversation.

Given a complete lack of any actual content in your entire post, let me try this: Recall how I carefully delineated between the two ideas going on, the descriptive property UM and the causal property AW. Do you believe our universe has the descriptive property UM, namely that small changes in fundamental parameters eliminate life as we know it?

From the beginning, I have suspected that we don't actually have any disagreement, and your unending tendency to try and create silly objections to other people without offering any substantive position of your own is the only reason why it isn't obvious we agree. I suspect we both agree that the universe has the property UM. And I suspect (given how you don't think the fine-tuning argument proves the universe is fine-tuned) that, like me, you don't find persuasive the argument that the property UM means AW is likely. And that this is also true for my toy universe. If I am not wrong, it is amazing to me that you have done everything in your power to hold onto the pretense of having a conversation while avoiding actually saying so.


Sure. Borrowing your phrasing with my abreviations, the argument only was that AW is likely given UM. I don't think I ever suggested it was deductive. Very strange that you felt the need to say this.





I'm curious if you will ever actually be able to give a reason why it could not be the case that gravity has 1/r^3 dependency at newtonian scales. Yes of course GR is going to be different if gravity is different, but can you actually answer the question? Your only objection right now is "well ya it would change EFEs!". Duh. Nobody is suggesting making Newtonian physics incompatible with GR. I was just illustrating a point with the much simpler to understand and express ITT Newtonian model (and where there is no contradictions named by you). If you can prefer, you can consider any other consistent model slightly different from our own.

Unless your position is that it is impossible to propose any other physical model of the universe than our current one, you are still missing the forest for the trees here. My point is that considering other models should not be constrained to the identical model we have with simple changing empirical constants. Arguing that a particular change causes contradictions (see your made up example because you couldn't do it for mine) or that one might need to do other work if we are going to consider the expanded GR model too (when i was clearly talking about a newtonian model of the universe) just doesn't touch this point. Yes we need to avoid contradictions and yes complete models of the universe might take time to right down in entirety. But the point about alternate models of the universe nonetheless stands entirely untouched by you. Laughably untouched, I would add. Vintage Aaron making something up to (poorly) nit up about while ignoring the point entirely, untouched, even.

If you are in the business of asserting whatever you want without evidence or reasoning, why bother having a conversation about it?

Why is your opinion of what is interesting privileged over anyone else's?

You have completely ended any pretense of rational discourse when you write off everything I wrote on this topic with your "patterns are intrinsically interesting" reply.

Are your favorite jokes intrinsically funnier than the ones you don't like?

That is an excellent point. If your model of the universe is as vapid as your model of cards, that might explain why you think our universe requires a special explanation compared to hypothetical alternatives.

Victor Stenger argues in this presentation that the numbers touted by fine tuners are flawed. Some parameters are restricted by the laws of physics to ranges much narrower than apologists claim, and other parameters are much freer to vary than apologists give them credit for. He sites other physicists who have investigated and written on the topic. Go ahead and write him off now.

I'd suggest this joke is intrinsically funny.

I just meant that each of us encountering an out of order pump #3 and putting in the exact amount of gas as we did in our example at stations with the exact price per gallon would NOT be considered meaningful for either of us. It is only after we learn of the other's exact occurrence that it becomes interesting.

Perhaps people's brains just work differently like how some are creative, some not so creative, etc. For me, I'm not really interested in meaning. Again to parrot some scientists, 'why' questions are kind of dumb. Usually when someone asks 'why', what they really mean 'how'. For example, are you concerned with why the universe is the way it is? Or do you really want to know how it is the way it is?

Well I know we're on the same page, because I almost said the same thing -lol.

I used to be of the opinion that math/numbers wouldn't exist if we hadn't invented the language. Bunny had very strong arguments to the contrary. I'm still not sure I agree, but I think it's fascinating to think about!

o.k.

Suppose it had instead been found that there was no wiggle room at all for the parameters. i.e. The parameters needed to be exactly what they are. That would amount to the narrowest of ranges. Do you think the argument still sounds reasonable. Consider how it would look.

"It's unlikely that the parameters of our universe were the result of chance because they needed to be exactly as they are for life as we know it to have formed."

Before I'd ever heard of the fine-tuning argument this is what I thought the situation was. The universe being as it is allows for the formation of life. Does that imply it was unlikely for the Universe to be as it is? I don't see that at all. How could it be otherwise than what it is?


PairTheBoard

Well, if you didn't read it, I've completely summarized my position in this thread in that. So you don't really have any excuses.

The "some sense" is primarily an intuitive reading of data. I understand the intuition behind the claim, so that while I admit that the argument is incomplete, I tend to lean in the direction of the conclusion. For anyone who has analyzed their beliefs carefully, this type of move should be familiar. It's not hard to recognize arguments that are weak where you nonetheless tend to accept the conclusion.

Yes.

Why do you think it's also true in your toy universe? You've gone from an actual universe with lots of data and lots of areas in which that connection could be made (not to mention a lot of first-hand experiences which would be impossible to quantify) to this hypothetical universe in which you give just a singular data point. And you expect that the same type of inductive reasoning could be applied in the same way? You surely aren't that bad at logic.

See above. If you treat the argument as if it is a formal implication (that the conclusion follows from the hypothesis in the same way all the time), then you're basically treating the argument syllogistically, just like a deductive argument.

I did. You just don't like the answer because it doesn't fit your preconceived notions. It could not be the case that gravity has 1/r^3 dependency at Newtonian scales because it isn't consistent with the rest of physics. If you don't think that's actually a problem, that's not really my concern.

It's really ironic because you're saying "nobody is suggesting making Newtonian physics incompatible with GR" yet you're making a move that makes that happen. So what am I to say to you?

You can propose any type of physics you want. I don't really care what physics you propose. But what you pose is a fundamentally different type of change. Why not just propose a hypothetical universe that doesn't conform to any mathematical laws at all? Why limit yourself to mathematical laws?

As I said, you can propose any type of changes you want. They just won't be meaningful in a productive way. There's such a thing as being too arbitrary. One should consider things that we know nothing about to demonstrate that we can't discover anything about something we know something about.

Right... it doesn't touch your point even though it addressed precisely the types of problems that arise by making completely arbitrary changes to the existing set of physical laws. Oh, I was only talking about *NEWTONIAN* physics, as if that's completely independent of GR and the two don't need to connect to each other. Why not just throw out all of physics entirely?

Right. We should also propose that instead of positive and negative charges, that there are five directions of charges. Maybe life will still be possible in that situation?

Naive assumptions lead to naive conclusions. If you want to play the game of naive argumentation, be my guest.

You had used your example to talk about coincidence. I was pointing out that the word "coincidence" has immediate implications that there isn't actually a connection. So I reject that coincidence is a good word choice to describe the situation. That's all.

I think both questions are interesting. I tend to find that particular perspective to be mostly about the scientists inflating their sense of self-importance.

Notice that this fascinating question isn't a really a "how" question.

This is probably where Sklansky was going, and it's a perfectly viable counter to the argument of fine-tuning. This carries a hint of the conversation about randomness that I had brought up at the beginning of this conversation.

This was also brought up earlier, with neeel. What will you allow yourself to say about things that *didn't* happen?

To be fair, mrmr also didn't think you answered the question, so I'm not exactly rushing to try to dig through pages of forums for whatever it is you think you are referring to if you can't even quote it. Again, this comes back to your consistent failure to advance a conversation.

Sure. If you believe that God created the universe you are probably going to accept the conclusion that God did indeed create - fine tune, even - the universe. GASP.

My suspicion seems to be correct. We both agree that the universe has the descriptive property, and we both agree continuing to the argument for the causal property is "weak" and "incomplete". You insist that I am framing this differently from you (despite me effectively quoting your position) but I don't actually see where this disagreement is. It seems we are left merely with this little quibble:
Why? It is by construction. The toy universe is defined to be one where a small change in the parameter leads to life not being possible. So it unquestionably satisfies UM. And since you don't agree that UM provides enough information to conclude that AW - the conclusion that the universe was formed by chance - likely for our universe, it certainly won't make it sufficient to conclude it is likely in this universe where we have even less information. This example was supposed to take like 5 seconds of thought to flush out the definition; amazing that you are still struggling with it.



Lol, except I haven't done this. I mean heck, we haven't even talked about the types of ways people argue from UM towards AW. So I have no idea how you are concluding that I am saying it is deductive. Keep trying to find something - anything - to disagree with, even if you have to make it up.

Lol, man you suck at reading. I'll quote myself: "Yes of course GR is going to be different if gravity is different...Your only objection right now is "well ya it would change EFEs!". Duh.". At no point have I ever suggested proposing a model of the universe that has internal contradictions. You made that up. Just like you made up your E=Mc^3 = 1/2mv^2. I have always agreed that at minimum we should propose models that are consistent. Sure, to make my point I used the Newtonian model of the universe because it is simpler to express and understand ITT, and guess what, in that model my suggested change is consistent. You could ask the same question in the GR model of the universe, of course, where changing how gravity works would change GR, but at no point have I ever suggested anything remotely close to changing just Newtonian physics and not GR.

Your objection is just entirely empty. Just lol that you think you can win this point. Your stubborn need to try and win when you have entirely and irrevocably lost is beyond hilarious.

Sure, sounds great. I don't think such hypotheticals are amenable to the fine tuning argument the way slight changes in the structure of the models is, but sure it is an interesting question why it is indeed the case that our universe can be describe so well by mathematical laws.

There is a middle ground between "absolutely no changes allowed except varying empirical constants" and "just guessing anything willy nilly". I'm not sure you are aware, but theoretical physicists for centuries have proposed ranges of models and then gone on and seen what predictions they make that we can verify, and so forth. The undergraduate exercise of playing around and seeing what orbits different powers for r in newtonian gravitation result in is precisely such an example. Heck, even in the EFE, Einstein originally added the cosmological constant was an added term that was effectively a fudge factor to make static universes. You are basically trying to shut down this entire endeavour because omg arbitrary help help!

At the end of the day, the fine tuning argument for God is just one more weak, incomplete and if I may add, just bad argument. It seems you agree. Maybe one day a theist will come up with a compelling reason to believe that God made man, not the other way around. But I'm not holding my breath.

Every universe has life.
Every universe has life that develops consciousness.
Every universe has life that develops consciousness to the point of seeking and questioning about its own origins.

I thought you didn't read the exchange. What question do you think he's referring to? You asked me what I was arguing, and I told you:

What about this is unclear about what I'm arguing about? Shall I quote myself saying the same thing several other times? Okay.

Shall I continue?

It's like you're not even trying.

It's fine with me if you don't understand what it means to be sympathetic to an argument.

What's the struggle? I gave you the answer "possibly" about 50 posts ago. And then you went around in a bunch of circles trying to force that answer to become "yes" or "no." And now here we are, we me still on the answer of "possibly" and you're saying I'm struggling? Since you like me quoting myself to you, here's me saying "possibly."

Tell me how my answer of "possibly" fits into the framework that you've presented of what I'm saying.

It's hard to say that I "made that up" when I'm pointing out what's necessary for physics equations to be acceptable. Yes, you may naively change exponents to be whatever you want them to be. But that doesn't mean that what you get is meaningful or useful. Physics operates on consistency.

Consistent with what? How are you even using that word?

But I showed you how changing Newtonian physics in the way you've described breaks GR. Your units are screwed up. Not only are your units screwed up, but they're screwed up in a way that makes it not obvious that there's a non-arbitrary fix to it.

You can call it "empty" but you seem to be the one who doesn't understand that physics is screwed up if your units are screwed up. I started with the dimensional analysis example to help you see it, but at this point it's not even clear if you understand what dimensional analysis is. You saying "E = mc^3 = 1/2* mv^2" is a clear example of you not understanding what I'm saying. Because in real physics, I accept both E = mc^2 and E = 1/2*mv^2, but I don't claim that mc^2 = 1/2* mv^2.

As I said, naive physics isn't sufficient. If you can't even get past the basic concept of energy equations (note: plural) then I don't know how to help you.

"Slight" changes? You're still arguing from a position of not understanding basic physics. If you get the units wrong, the equations don't work.

Please tell me the difference between "just guessing anything willy nilly" and randomly changing exponents on equations.

Yes. I've taken undergraduate physics and have a degree in it. But the toy models aren't looking for any type of consistency with anything. It's just to make sure that one actually understands how to perform the requisite mathematics. And we often completely ignore the units. And a side point is often to notice how "selective" (in "some sense") the formulas are because arbitrarily chosen values do not create things like stable orbits.

I believe he also called it the biggest mistake of his life.

But you're losing the plot. You're trying to say that we can make these arbitrary changes to the equations and get "consistent" equations (whatever that means when you only have one equation and pretending that everything else works out), but then you're also noting that we use predictions that those equations make to guide how we do physics. And then you also want to take these rejected universes and say "But this shows that universes can be arbitrary in lots of different ways."

You would be much better off arguing to reject physics as giving us any insight into how other universes could work.

/uke pats himself on the back for a job well done.