Fine tuning?

Interesting. The only link I can think of right now would the fact that (along with there being many other examples of apparent fine tuning) the physical relationship of the Earth and the Sun is apparently fine tuned for life on Earth, where this fine tuning inevitably leads to the requirement of Intelligent Design of it all by some supremely intelligent agent(s).

Fact?  Proven?  I won't derail the thread so here is a link to my argument.

https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-fine-tuning

Interesting. The only link I can think of right now would the fact that (along with there being many other examples of apparent fine tuning) the physical relationship of the Earth and the Sun is apparently fine tuned for life on Earth, where this fine tuning inevitably leads to the requirement of Intelligent Design of it all by some supremely intelligent agent(s). This conclusion of there necessarily being a supremely creative and intelligent Agent or agents at the beginning of things in turn leads to the conjecture that this physical reality and Universe must be in effect a materialized great Thought, and that the substance of reality must ultimately be consciousness. Leading to Idealism as a philosophy of mind.

Fine tuned ways in which the Earth’s relationship to the Sun is favorable to life:

The Earth orbits the sun within a tight “habitable zone” where liquid water can exist on the surface throughout the year. That is highly statistically unlikely for a planet. If Earth were slightly more distant from — or slightly closer to—the Sun, a stable water cycle would be impossible.

The Earth is near the inner edge of the circumstellar habitable zone (which allows a planet to maintain the right amount of liquid water on the surface). If  the Earth were just 5% closer to the Sun, it would be subject to the same fate as Venus, a runaway greenhouse effect, with temperatures rising to nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Conversely, if the Earth were about 20% farther from the Sun, it would experience runaway glaciations of the kind that has left Mars sterile.

Also, small changes in the orbital tilt of our planet around the Sun, or minor variations in the tilt of Earth’s axis, would disrupt our climate. If Earth had a slower rotation speed, our days would be too hot and our nights too cold to support life; shorter, and the wind speeds would be too extreme.

There is just the right right Earth mass which (in conjunction with the particular existing distance of the Sun, and the Sun's existing radiative output) allows our planet to retain the right type and right thickness of atmosphere for nurturing life. If the Earth were smaller, its magnetic field would be weaker, allowing the existing solar wind of our star to strip away our atmosphere,  slowly transforming our planet into a dead, barren world much like Mars.

Also, there is the strange coincidence that we have periodic total eclipses of the Sun by the Moon, with all the parameters determining the eclipse seeming precisely calculated to occur at the precise Earth historical moment when it could help mankind in developing astronomy.

The above was quoted from another thread.

In an unfathomably huge universe with countless trillions of stars, many with their own solar systems, it is almost inevitable that these conditions will appear somewhere, even by chance alone.

The above was quoted from another thread.

In an unfathomably huge universe with countless trillions of stars, many with their own solar systems, it is almost inevitable that these conditions will appear somewhere, even by chance alone.

Possibly, but Smolin - who last I checked is no friend to ID - did note that it seems inadequate to use chance to explain Cosmic Fine Tuning (cited in this article by Goff on fine tuning and consciousness):

Some take the fine-tuning to be simply a basic fact about our Universe: fortunate perhaps, but not something requiring explanation. But like many scientists and philosophers, I find this implausible. In The Life of the Cosmos (1999), the physicist Lee Smolin has estimated that, taking into account all of the fine-tuning examples considered, the chance of life existing in the Universe is 1 in 10^229, from which he concludes:

In my opinion, a probability this tiny is not something we can let go unexplained. Luck will certainly not do here; we need some rational explanation of how something this unlikely turned out to be the case.

A tiny probability is not an impossibility - not a lot of luck needed - and I think the author is underestimating the sheer scale of the universe.  Secondly, life could have evolved in relation to the circumstances rather than specific circumstances having to be necessary for life.

A tiny probability is not an impossibility - not a lot of luck needed - and I think the author is underestimating the sheer scale of the universe.  Secondly, life could have evolved in relation to the circumstances rather than specific circumstances having to be necessary for life.

I find it hard to begin to state how arrogant and just plain wrong that response is. You think that the author is underestimating yet the author (and those he quotes) have written several books on the subject so we could assume at least an understanding of scale, even if we disagree with conclusions. But it is not only fine tuning - everywhere we look there are stupendous improbabilities, from the so-called "goldilocks", life-friendly eco-system on this planet to the chances of the complex DNA molecule happening by accident.

I would suggest that you read some of these arguments against random chance before declaring that you have a better understanding of scale than those who are explaining the likelihood (or lack of it) of blind chance.

A tiny probability is not an impossibility - not a lot of luck needed - and I think the author is underestimating the sheer scale of the universe.  Secondly, life could have evolved in relation to the circumstances rather than specific circumstances having to be necessary for life.

I don't understand what you mean when you say not a lot of luck is needed?

Those seem to be vanishingly small odds. This isn't to say Smolin is insisting there is a Designer, he has his own ideas of how to account for those odds. Even Goff, who wrote the Aeon essay, isn't exactly arguing for the kind of Designer the ID folk would argue for.

I do think Smolin, as a physicist, has a good understanding of the universe's scale. I guess Goff - the philosopher who quotes Smolin - may not...but while my math is rusty I don't know if the universe's size can get around the issue of the odds involved if we assume the constants are the same everywhere. [I'd have to go back and look over the arguments for/against Boltzman Brains maybe....]

I guess one could argue the constants are not the same across the universe, admittedly I can't recall the level of evidence that would support such a claim.

I also wanted to add, they're beginning to reconsider how big our universe is, and just began to consider this year that it may be smaller and more finite than we think. I posted a thread about it a while back. But either way, I think fine tuning is way less goofy sounding than a lot of these other theories they have for it. It's not impossible that our observable universe is all there is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w9R_foNLrg&t=327s

I have trouble seeing how our finite universe could be the limit of existence.

Existence that is accessible to us, sure. But the entirety of existence to me suggests an infinite space?

Reminds me of the saying , words to the effect of….”isn’t it amazing how the puddle of water exactly fits the hole in the road”.

I'm sure our more maths-physics minded persons can correct me if my thinking is off...but was playing some board games with friends and the question of a good shuffle of game cards came up.

With genuine randomness an event like matching suits largely being concentrated in a deck is possible, but the more plausible explanation is that the shuffling was done poorly.

This is the basic reasoning I use for Cosmic Fine Tuning that I think is in line with what Smolin says. Yes, randomness *could* be the cause for the lining up of cosmological constants but this should not be our go to explanation.

I realize there are mathematical, philosophical, and scientific considerations at work here that go beyond a mere board game but I thought maybe taking a more relatable case might make my position more clear.