Topic: How does the fine tuning argument support theism?

[lumberjohn]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?  How does the fact that there is human life in the universe make it any more probable that there is a God?  Isn't it just as likely that if there were a God, he/she would create a lifeless universe?  Or a universe with an entirely different form of life than humans? 

Theists always claim when explaining the existence of evil that we can't claim to know the motives of God (in fact, the message of the book of Job seems to be that none of us can understand those motives and shouldn't even try).  So then how is it that they could claim the existence of human life (and a universe finely tuned for such life) is consistent with those motives?

And if the relatively brief (in cosmological terms) existence of humans were the ultimate goal of God, then what was going on the 13+ billion years prior to the emergence of humans on the scene? Why wouldn't the universe have been tuned to produce humans right away?

[ting-bu-dong]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?

It doesn't. The observation that the universe is capable of supporting life is not at all extraordinary because the conditional probability of that happening given that life is around to make the observation is 100%.

[amysrevenge]

I always thought that this one was about adding benevolence to an pre-assumed watchmaker God.  If you assume that God created the universe, the fact that there are humans in it means God is good, or some such.

[jomike]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?  How does the fact that there is human life in the universe make it any more probable that there is a God?

Paley's Watchmaker argument, essentially.  Modern, sophisticated versions of the argument such as that used by William Lane Craig invoke modern cosmology, physics, and biology.

How to defend the fine-tuning argument just like William Lane Craig

if you’re not clear on the fine-tuning argument, click here and read Walter Bradley’s exposition of it....

...The argument goes like this:

    The fine-tuning of the universe to support life is either due to law, chance or design
    It is not due to law or chance
    Therefore, the fine-tuning is due to design

What does it meaning to be fine-tuned for life?

Here are the facts on the fine-tuning:

    Life has certain minimal requirements; long-term stable source of energy, a large number of different chemical elements, an element that can serve as a hub for joining together other elements into compounds, etc...

a) The strong force: (the force that binds nucleons (= protons and neutrons) together in nucleus, by means of meson exchange)
    if the strong force constant were 2% stronger, there would be no stable hydrogen, no long-lived stars...
    if the strong force constant were 5% weaker, there would be no stable stars, few (if any) elements besides hydrogen....

b) The conversion of beryllium to carbon, and carbon to oxygen

    Life requires carbon in order to serve as the hub for complex molecules, but it also requires oxygen in order to create water....
    If you mess with these forces even slightly, you either lose the carbon or the oxygen.

...Either way, you’ve got no life of any conceivable kind.

Those such as Craig who regard the anthropic principle as a circular non-explanation, and the idea of the multiverse as an absurdity conjured by atheistic cosmologists as an obvious attempt to deny the possibility of a Creator, find the fine-tuning argument compelling.

[lumberjohn]

As Vic Stenger and Lawrence Krauss have recently pointed out, the universe is not "finely tuned" for any sort of life.  There are ranges for many constants that could plausibly allow for some form of life.  So the "poker hand" analogy seems especially off base since many hands other than a royal flush would work.  Perhaps our definition of life is even too narrow. 

But the more significant question, it seems to me, even if you spot them the poker hand analogy, is how does that imply a designer God?  If the entire purpose of creating the universe was that there would be life (and in particular for the Judeo/Christian religions, a tribe of people living in ancient Israel over 2,000 years ago), why the long prologue and immense amounts of wasted space?  Why is the vast majority of the universe inhospitable to life?  The constants could surely have been tweaked further to allow for life everywhere, which is what I would define as a royal flush.  Our universe is more akin to a pair of twos.

[andrewclunn]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?

Multiverse theory suffers from infinite regression as emergence is based on the need for simple rules to exist.  So Multiverse theory explaining away the improbability of a universe with life brings about issues of a primary mover.

[teethering]

As Vic Stenger and Lawrence Krauss have recently pointed out, the universe is not "finely tuned" for any sort of life.  There are ranges for many constants that could plausibly allow for some form of life.  So the "poker hand" analogy seems especially off base since many hands other than a royal flush would work.  Perhaps our definition of life is even too narrow. 

But the more significant question, it seems to me, even if you spot them the poker hand analogy, is how does that imply a designer God?  If the entire purpose of creating the universe was that there would be life (and in particular for the Judeo/Christian religions, a tribe of people living in ancient Israel over 2,000 years ago), why the long prologue and immense amounts of wasted space?  Why is the vast majority of the universe inhospitable to life?  The constants could surely have been tweaked further to allow for life everywhere, which is what I would define as a royal flush.  Our universe is more akin to a pair of twos.

Let me devil-advocate at this for a bit.  The counter-argument to this is basically "god moves in mysterious ways", which normally is a lame cop-out, but in this case I think would have merit.  In order to understand "why this way" for any design you have to know the final goal.  If you accept that there's evidence of fine-tuning (which you shouldn't) and if you accept that such fine-tuning implies design (which you shouldn't) then asking "why so badly designed" is premature.  We can presume then that intelligent life was a part of the overall design, but what the whole thing looks like could remain a mystery.

In my view the best counter-argument for fine-tuning is that there's no basis on which to argue about the odds of any feature of the universe being the way it is.  We know only one universe and we have no idea how likely or unlikely it is that it would turn out the way it is.  We can't even begin to speak intelligently about it,

My favourite analogy for this, and I've used it on these forums, is to ask what are the odds of a die coming up 6 when it's rolled?  If you answer 1/6, you're wrong.  I haven't told you anything about the die.  It could be a 20,10,6-sided die.  It could be a 6-sided die that is weighted in such a way that odds of it coming up 6 are higher or lower.  What we know about the origins of the physical laws of the universe is very much like what you know about the abstract die, that is nothing.

[teethering]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?

Multiverse theory suffers from infinite regression as emergence is based on the need for simple rules to exist.  So Multiverse theory explaining away the improbability of a universe with life brings about issues of a primary mover.

I don't see how multiverse brings about the issue of prime mover, it simply doesn't address it.  But it's not meant to address it, it's meant to answer the question of seeming fine-tuning, an alternative simpler explanation that would remove the need for design.  But the acausal cause remains a question for both the fine-tuned universe and the multiverse, they share this problem.

[andrewclunn]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?

Multiverse theory suffers from infinite regression as emergence is based on the need for simple rules to exist.  So Multiverse theory explaining away the improbability of a universe with life brings about issues of a primary mover.

I don't see how multiverse brings about the issue of prime mover, it simply doesn't address it.  But it's not meant to address it, it's meant to answer the question of seeming fine-tuning, an alternative simpler explanation that would remove the need for design.  But the acausal cause remains a question for both the fine-tuned universe and the multiverse, they share this problem.

Not really.  The fine tune argument requires a designer or tuner, so the issue of primary mover is a non-issue as it requires such an entity to exist.  This is separate from multiverse theory in that a designed universe is not bound to the same principles or laws as it's host universe / designer.  The founding rules of our universe could be abstractions completely disconnected from any prior basis or logic.  With an emergent universe (as with multiverse theory) our present universe's laws exist in a direct causal relationship to a pre-existing set of rules.

[teethering]

Can anyone explain to me how the "fine tuning" arguments supports theism?

Multiverse theory suffers from infinite regression as emergence is based on the need for simple rules to exist.  So Multiverse theory explaining away the improbability of a universe with life brings about issues of a primary mover.

I don't see how multiverse brings about the issue of prime mover, it simply doesn't address it.  But it's not meant to address it, it's meant to answer the question of seeming fine-tuning, an alternative simpler explanation that would remove the need for design.  But the acausal cause remains a question for both the fine-tuned universe and the multiverse, they share this problem.

Not really.  The fine tune argument requires a designer or tuner, so the issue of primary mover is a non-issue as it requires such an entity to exist.

That's not an explanation, that's simply assuming your conclusion.  You end up exactly where you start, needing something to cause the existence of the designer.

  This is separate from multiverse theory in that a designed universe is not bound to the same principles or laws as it's host universe / designer. The founding rules of our universe could be abstractions completely disconnected from any prior basis or logic.  With an emergent universe (as with multiverse theory) our present universe's laws exist in a direct causal relationship to a pre-existing set of rules.

Same is true of the relationship between the multiverse and "whatever caused the multiverse to come into existence".  It's turtles all the way down for whatever you posit as the explanation for our universe's features.  There's nothing special about the Creator explanation that actually answers the question of "what created the Creator" in a way that isn't equivalent to what you can answer for "what created the multiverse".

[lumberjohn]

Let me devil-advocate at this for a bit.  The counter-argument to this is basically "god moves in mysterious ways", which normally is a lame cop-out, but in this case I think would have merit.  In order to understand "why this way" for any design you have to know the final goal.  If you accept that there's evidence of fine-tuning (which you shouldn't) and if you accept that such fine-tuning implies design (which you shouldn't) then asking "why so badly designed" is premature.  We can presume then that intelligent life was a part of the overall design, but what the whole thing looks like could remain a mystery.

But if you're using the nature of the design as evidence for the existence of a designer, then I think "why so badly designed?" is a perfectly good argument.  To use a Paley-esque example, assume I found a rock formation containing marks that could plausibly be argued as consistent with the roman numeral four.  On certain days and in certain conditions, a shadow just touches on the "four" at exactly four o' clock in the applicable time zone.  Am I justified in saying that this must have been designed as some sort of "clock" because it occasionally can be observed to tell the correct time?  Would it not be a valid refutation to say that this "clock" doesn't tell the correct time most of the time and thus would be a very poor design for a clock?  Doesn't that make an alternative explanation more likely?

It seems as though theists' arguments rests on three assumptions: 1. there is life in the universe; 2. the conditions of life are so rare that you wouldn't expect them to occur randomly; and 3. you would expect God to create a universe hospitable to life.  I agree with your cogent refutation of assumption 2.  But I think it is equally valid to point out that if the goal of the hypothesized designer were to create a universe hospitable to life, he did a poor job of it.  The actual nature of the universe thereby rebuts the existence of such a designer.

[andrewclunn]

Let me demonstrate with an example.

Imagine that there is a probablistic universe, which is not explicitly causal.  All actions and results are probable in nature rather than causal.  Now within that universe a being exists that creates a region where the probability of certain outcomes happening consistently that it acts (for all intents and purposes) as a casual universe.  In such a fashion a causal universe may exist that is not itself reliant on causality.

now one could argue that perhaps pockets of this virtual causality might emerge without a designer and therefore no designer is needed, however that is not the assertion of multiverse theory.  Mutliverse theory states that several (if not all) possible casual universes exist, so that by virtue of our observing our universe, we know that we must just happen to exist in one that permits life.

The reason why a designer in a container universe is more probable than endless universes emerging within a container universe?  We already know that consciousness can arise, but have no evidence for multiple parallel universes.

[teethering]

Let me devil-advocate at this for a bit.  The counter-argument to this is basically "god moves in mysterious ways", which normally is a lame cop-out, but in this case I think would have merit.  In order to understand "why this way" for any design you have to know the final goal.  If you accept that there's evidence of fine-tuning (which you shouldn't) and if you accept that such fine-tuning implies design (which you shouldn't) then asking "why so badly designed" is premature.  We can presume then that intelligent life was a part of the overall design, but what the whole thing looks like could remain a mystery.

But if you're using the nature of the design as evidence for the existence of a designer, then I think "why so badly designed?" is a perfectly good argument.  To use a Paley-esque example, assume I found a rock formation containing marks that could plausibly be argued as consistent with the roman numeral four.  On certain days and in certain conditions, a shadow just touches on the "four" at exactly four o' clock in the applicable time zone.  Am I justified in saying that this must have been designed as some sort of "clock" because it occasionally can be observed to tell the correct time?  Would it not be a valid refutation to say that this "clock" doesn't tell the correct time most of the time and thus would be a very poor design for a clock?  Doesn't that make an alternative explanation more likely?

If you don't posit a specific (Christian god, for instance) designer, then I don't think this argument works.  Suppose, for instance, that one of the prerequisites of the design is that it creates doubt in whether it was actually designed or not.  Without knowing more about the goal of the design it's hard to tell whether it's good or not.

It seems as though theists' arguments rests on three assumptions: 1. there is life in the universe; 2. the conditions of life are so rare that you wouldn't expect them to occur randomly; and 3. you would expect God to create a universe hospitable to life.  I agree with your cogent refutation of assumption 2.  But I think it is equally valid to point out that if the goal of the hypothesized designer were to create a universe hospitable to life, he did a poor job of it.  The actual nature of the universe thereby rebuts the existence of such a designer.

But creating a universe hospitable to life isn't even the Christian god's ultimate goal, it's just a necessary step.  What the real goal isn't revealed.  What I'm saying is that there's a difference between detecting design itself and detecting the goal of the design, you may do the former and not the latter.

[jomike]

As Vic Stenger and Lawrence Krauss have recently pointed out, the universe is not "finely tuned" for any sort of life.  There are ranges for many constants that could plausibly allow for some form of life

A theist would counter that there's hardly scientific consensus regarding which of the constants must be fixed as opposed to those that could exist within ranges (and, for the latter, how wide the ranges could be) in order for intelligent life to exist.  She might quote prominent scientists such as the astrophysicist Hugh Ross, among others, to support her argument.

But the more significant question, it seems to me, even if you spot them the poker hand analogy, is how does that imply a designer God?

If one believes that a) the universe we see is all there is -- no multiverse; b) it is the only universe that has ever existed (no Big Bang/Big Crunch eternal recurrence), and c) the possible combinations of physical constants that could support intelligent life are in fact as unlikely as they seem to be...

...if one believes those three things, it seems incredible that those critical initial starting parameters could have come together purely by chance.  A Plantinga or Craig would ask, incredulously:  We're believe that such an incredibly unlikely combination of constants somehow simply... occurred?  Isn't it vastly more likely they were selected by an Intelligence?  What a fantastic just-so story these atheistic scientists tell!  We'd as well believe a tornado could sweep through a junkyard and assemble a 747!

If the entire purpose of creating the universe was that there would be life (and in particular for the Judeo/Christian religions, a tribe of people living in ancient Israel over 2,000 years ago), why the long prologue and immense amounts of wasted space?  Why is the vast majority of the universe inhospitable to life?  The constants could surely have been tweaked further to allow for life everywhere, which is what I would define as a royal flush.  Our universe is more akin to a pair of twos.

"The Lord is inscrutable," the theist would say.  (Or words to that effect.)  "Anyway, for all we know, the universe may be crawling with life.  Some of it might even be intelligent.  That we haven't discovered it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

(BTW, as you mention Victor Stenger, he debated William Lane Craig on this very subject a couple years ago.  Really entertaining, and can be downloaded here.)

[teethering]

Let me demonstrate with an example.

Imagine that there is a probablistic universe, which is not explicitly causal.  All actions and results are probable in nature rather than causal.  Now within that universe a being exists that creates a region where the probability of certain outcomes happening consistently that it acts (for all intents and purposes) as a casual universe.  In such a fashion a causal universe may exist that is not itself reliant on causality.

Again, you posit your "being" where an alternative design-less explanation may posit acausal cause.  There's no explanation for where the "being" comes from, similarly to how the explanations have to stop somewhere for any competing theory.  There's no virtue in the "being" explanation, on the contrary, it posits the primary cause of literally unimaginable complexity.

now one could argue that perhaps pockets of this virtual causality might emerge without a designer and therefore no designer is needed, however that is not the assertion of multiverse theory.  Mutliverse theory states that several (if not all) possible casual universes exist, so that by virtue of our observing our universe, we know that we must just happen to exist in one that permits life.

The reason why a designer in a container universe is more probable than endless universes emerging within a container universe?  We already know that consciousness can arise, but have no evidence for multiple parallel universes.

There is no godly consciousness that I know of in existence.  All sorts of beings are intelligent in their own way, from bacteria to humans and none of them are capable of constructing or even understanding our universe.

Moreover the incredible complexity of intelligence that would be required to design the universe is a far less parsimonious explanation than an infinite series of universes.  That doesn't speak to probabilities, and you shouldn't describe either theory as more probable for reasons I've covered already, but in terms of Occam's razor positing a superintelligent omnipotent conscious being is a huge leap in complexity.