
Fine-Tuned Constants - ph4
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#FineTuneCons
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chousuke
To me, the mere act of calling the fundamental structure of the universe
"fine-tuned" sounds fallacious; it seems to assume that there's any sort of
tuning involved. It seems equally valid to assume that a random process exists
that happened to give rise to our universe. We don't know how long it took for
the universe to begin, or whether it's the only one, or even if the question
makes sense.

Lots of religious people like to use fine tuning to imply that there is a
designing intent behind the universe, usually completely ignoring the fact
that only a vanishingly small part of it can harbor life at all. Are we
certain that there aren't parameters which would produce even more life? What
about universes with an entirely different structure?

I also personally object to the notion that it's somehow acceptable to assume
a creator has to exist, but not acceptable to assume that the universe has to
exist; the latter assumption is much less far-fetched.

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nielsbot
Maybe there's a multiverse--an infinite series of universes, containing all
possibilities of existence, some with similar, slightly different constants,
others completely unrecognizable as a universe at all. And life exists because
we're in this one.

~~~
willis936
That is called the anthropic principle. The universe doesn't owe its self-
aware passengers any answers. It just is. It's up to us to characterize it,
and following logical paths that require baseless assumptions such as
"beginnings" and reasons for relative constants are not fruitful. You could
give up when it gets hard and just say "the reason the relative constants are
what they are is magic" (see: god of the gaps). That doesn't change the fact
that there is a deeper connection there that a more complete model would
explain the constants. Is 9.81 m/s^2 a constant of the universe? We have are
empirical constants that fit into our mathematical models. There is more work
to be done.

