Fine Tuning And The 1 Universe Objection

[@goldenspirit9224]

Your objection to the objection to fine-tuning seems to misunderstand what was originally objected to, something further implied by your question towards the end of the video, regarding what having more than one universe would even entail and how it would be relevant to the topic at hand. The objection to the precise fine tuning of the universe and its laws, has to do with the nature of probabilistic statements, and their relation to precision. Probability relies on inductive reasoning and infers claims based on statistical evidence, observable patterns, data trends, and the likelihood of occurrences in a given set of data to be identified and predicted. Precision refers to the quality of data to be measurably close or similar to other data. In this case, the data we are referring to is the universe, its constants, and the necessities for life. The claim of the fine-tuning argument is that the universe's constants are so measurably similar in value to the necessities for life, that it would be more probable for a creator to have meticulously designed them, stacked the cards in a sense, compared to it occurring for some other reason, or no reason at all. This argument links precision to probability, but the two cannot necessarily be linked. The qualities of the universe precisely matching the necessities for life, does not equate to improbability for the universe's qualities to match up with the necessities for life. Life having specific necessities, and the universe precisely fulfilling them, does not inherently entail improbability, as we are not given any data set, trend, or observable patterns off of which we can judge probability. Your understanding of probability, that propositions become improbable with more things that have to go right for them to occur, apparently makes everything at all astronomically improbable. By your judgment, it should be astronomically improbable that any mountain still exists, as every single nanosecond that passes, is another nanosecond or something went right for the mountain to stay there. All 8 billion humans did nothing to come together and topple the mountain, which is miraculous, and infinitely improbable. Yet, the trend that we see is that humans don't destroy mountains, and that mountains stick around for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. So my objection, to your objection, to my objection, is that probability is based off of observable patterns in datasets, not in the amount of propositions that apparently have to go right for something to occur. That would be precision, not probability. Since there is no trend, pattern, or statistical evidence that we can pull from a set of universes, not even our own, not even one universe, it would be impossible to make a probabilistic judgment on a theory of origin.

[@Establishing_Truth]

I would respond by saying that divorcing precision / narrow ranges from probability is impossible, meaning my understanding of probability is correct after all.

[@goldenspirit9224]

@Establishing_Truth One set of data, the universe's constants, closely matching another set of data, the necessities for life, with little to no deviation, tells us nothing of the probability of that precision occurring. Even though the range of deviation is considerably narrow, we cannot claim it is improbable, regardless of its precision, unless we have other universes to compare it to. In order for us to determine the theoretical probability for anything, there must be a data set from which we observe trends or patterns and their frequency, to then gauge how statistically likely it is for that trend or pattern to apply to the specific data we're looking at. In this case, we're looking at the universe's suitability to support life, compared to the probability of it being able to support life. The essence of the fine tuning argument is that it is improbable for the universe to be suitable to support life, due to it being suitable to support life. This fails, because it being suitable alone doesn't equate to suitability being rare or improbable. If many things are suitable for some process to occur, that does not mean that it is improbable for those many things to be suitable. In order to come to that determination of improbability, there would have to be some larger set of potential conditions that we're looking at and observing to find patterns or trends. For example, if we had a thousand universes, and 999 of them were totally barren and dead, you could say that it is statistically improbable for this specific universe to have the qualities necessary for life. However, if you only have a sample size of one, you cannot gauge the probability of that one doing something. For instance, take a human who runs a mile. They take hundreds or thousands of steps each mile. Every one of those steps had to be precisely taken the way they were taken, with precise balance, coordination, and direction for the mile to be completed. But one cannot make the determination that it is improbable for this human to run a mile, due to the amount of steps they have to take precisely. The precision of the steps themselves is irrelevant to determining the probability of the mile being successfully run. The precision does not equate to probability. If we wanted to determine the probability of the mile being run, we would have to take a look at the variables, and then observe patterns or trends in the miles run by this individual runner. If we see that they've attempted 10,000 throughout their life, and they have failed at 9,999, then we can come to the determination that it is unlikely for them to succeed in running a mile, due to the trends and patterns. But we can't do this with just one mile alone. In fact, the only thing we could reasonably infer from them having run 1 mile, is that they would be able to do it again. This is a similar dynamic to the constants of the universe and the necessities of life. Every constant of the universe being Fit for the necessities of life, regardless of how precise they are, is not evidence of improbability.

[@Establishing_Truth]

@@goldenspirit9224 What you're describing is impirical probability. I'm describing theoretical probability, which is also a valid way to determine probability.

[@goldenspirit9224]

​@@Establishing_Truth I'm not aware of any formula or method of determining probability that doesn't rely on inductive or abductive reasoning, and trends or patterns in a larger data-set. For example, what is the theoretical probability of drawing four specific cards, out of sixty in a deck? What is the theoretical probability of landing on heads, out of a two sided coin? The theoretical probability of these events occurring can be determined, only when we know the possibilities, and can recognize the potential patterns, in order to predict the outcome. We assume, for instance, that every card in the deck has the same likelihood of being drawn. We assume that both heads and tails have the same likelihood of being landed on. These are examples of patterns, that we recognize and apply to our predictions. There is no such data available for determining any probability of the universe's constants aligning perfectly with the needs for life. We have no other universes to identify how many of them support life, how common or rare it would be for the constants to align with life's needs, or any other information about it at all. There has to be other possibilities, with a recognizable pattern to them, in order for us to determine such a probability.

[@Establishing_Truth]

​@@goldenspirit9224 Suppose we have a dartboard with many possible targets but only 1 of them is ideal. Would we be able to determine the probability of hitting the intended target without the need for additional data?