An invitation for Al Moritz to explain fine tuning

[wmw]

Indeed, God is knowable from reason alone.

I’m having some difficulty understanding what you’re getting at…

Yes, there seems to be too little understanding and more agreement than is recognized.

Of course there are physical laws, and constants which gives us a mathematical model of the big bang and subsequent events. Did God create the laws and step back to relax (and only intervene when Al approves of it), or does God continuously, personally, and in real time (so to speak) maintain order in the universe in such a fashion that this order appears to us as “natural laws including fine tuned constants?”

This is a thread about the constants of the Models. Please start a “Is God relaxing?” thread to discuss this.

Again, I’m having trouble following you…but I’ll add that God created us to give him glory and praise. Looking at the universe and saying “WOW!” is giving praise by showing appreciation of his creation whether looking through the lens of mathematics, or the lens of “artistic beauty”, etc. Really. The bottom line is God Did It. Scientifically, the details are irrelevant. Theory X or theory Y. Who cares? Theologically, however, it is important to realize why God does it or did it.

Yes, there are WOW! moments about the Laws of Physics etc., but this is an over stressed view to the point that many in our culture regard scientifically derived models as the measure to decide if God exists. Because people do hold it in high esteem it is good to use this to show that this view doesn’t make sense. Still, I go further with another view that God doesn’t play with Math quite as we do and that we drag down our image of God when we imagine him playing with man made math.

I don’t accuse anyone of purposely trying to drag God’s image down; It’s just a let’s go along with this poor view and show that the fine tuning argument exposes it as the poor view that it is. Using Math just as Paul instructed to be all to all to win over a few. I just caution that we need to keep the LARGER VIEW that God is really bigger than this.

And…our mathematical models of reality are only models, not the reality itself. A painting of a horse, not actually the horse. A user manual for how the computer works, not the computer itself.

The universe will eventually end, and the natural laws with it. But God’s love is eternal.

More agreement, Praise be to God!

 

[Al_Moritz]

Al, I’m no philosopher, but what you’re saying sounds awfully similar to Thomism to me. Would you agree with that? What do you think the major differences are?

Yes, it is Thomism. As far as I know, there are no differences.

As I said above in my discusssion with Ricmat.

Even though God appears to intervene rarely in the natural order, He is necessary as the sustainer of the created world. Study classical metaphysics (Aquinas) and you will see why that is so. It is also a ‘de fide’ article of the Catholic Church. In that sense, God is constantly active in the natural order as well, even though not in an obvious ‘interventionist’ manner. This alone excludes a deist view.

 

[Al_Moritz]

THAT’S THE DEIST VIEW.

See above.

For you, it seems that the laws of nature stand above God.

If you really think that, you show that you continue to completely fail to understand my position which, by the way, is in line with mainstream philosophical thinking within the Catholic Church (but you cannot see that, given your apparent lack of knowledge of Thomistic philosophy).

 

[Al_Moritz]

A very interesting perspective.

I have two comments at present: Firstly, I can fully appreciate the role of pain in a purely naturalistic context, as an indication of trouble to a sentient organism that has the opportunity to act to prevent pain and any further complications that may arise from it. But this makes much less sense in a universe overseen by a fundamentally good and compassionate deity - especially when one considers the sheer extent of suffering present, as a matter of course, in the natural world.

Why does it make less sense?

From the link:
reasonablefaith.org/animal-suffering1

*When I have discussed the question of the pain and suffering of animals with Christian scientists, they almost always explain it like this: “Animals feel pain and suffering because without such pain and suffering they would be unable to avoid injury! Pain is the body’s warning system!” Is that a good response? Might pain and suffering be necessary for embodied organisms to avoid injury?

You might think not. After all, couldn’t God simply wire us so that when we are in the presence of some physical danger, a light flashes in our eyes or a sound arises in our ears that warns of the danger? Wouldn’t that be good enough to keep us from harming ourselves? Perhaps you will be surprised to find out that we know the answer to this question, and the answer is: no. Many Christians have read a book by a missionary physician, Paul Brand (The Gift of Pain), who worked with leprosy patients in Asia for many years. Among the effects of leprosy is that it leaves patients without the ability to feel pain in their extremities. As a result of this, they repeatedly injure themselves (or ignore injury, as Brand found when he learned that some deterioration was caused by rats who would nibble patients’ hands and feet at night without their knowing it). Brand tried to fix this problem by creating pressure sensitive gloves and shoes that would warn people when their bodies were in danger. He tried using battery packs that would cause a light to come on or a sound to appear in the ear. But the only thing that worked was a device that would cause a powerful shock in the underarm (one of the few sites not affected by the disease). Indeed, even when he created such a device, people would disconnect it in order to complete a task that would otherwise shock them! This gives us powerful reasons for thinking that animal pain and suffering might be an unavoidable consequence of creating embodied organisms that live in a law-governed world.*

---

So you think God should not have created a law-governed world, and instead miraculously intervene all the time, as the Great Policeman leaving nothing to His creatures? Do you think it would fit a fundamentally good and compassionate deity to keep His creatures like puppets on a string in that manner?

Secondly, you mention the transitory existence of species; undoubtedly, there are those who consider extinction to be a mark of failure, but I am not one of them! The arising and extinction of species is all part of the natural progression. But if the human species is part of this natural progression - arising, flourishing and then becoming extinct in our turn - then that certainly does not square with the idea of a god who is focused upon human fulfilment, especially for those (generally theistic believers, from what I’ve seen) who claim that a lack of eternal existence renders all experience ultimately pointless.

Why does it not square with the idea of a God who is focused upon human fulfilment? We do not forever perish, we have eternal life, even when our earthly existence comes to an end.

 

[Trurl]

Yes, they do know.

Your whole paper is based upon a few claims.

One is a scientific claim: “if certain values of the universe would be different, chemistry would be impossible”. This is an extremely weak claim - which values? how different? Is there somewhere a properly executed, peer-reviewed paper, which would enumarate exactly which values are considered important, and how much variance is “allowed” which would result in the development of chemistry?

Who selected those “important” constants? On what grounds?
What is the tolerance limit for those constants?
How “precise” should those parameters be? 10%? 1%? 0.0000001%? Just what is “fine”-tuning?

See this article by cosmologist Luke Barnes

I did. He simply claims (gotta love these “claims”) that we do “theoretical physics”. Well, I agree that theoretical physics allows you to set up certain hypotheses, but where were the experiments to verify those hypotheses? Nowhere. It is touting a hypothesis as a verified theory. In other words, sheer baloney.

Of course the problems do not stop here.

The next major problem is the “basic premise”: that the natural approach: “the universe simply exist, its values are what they are” is discarded for its lack of “explanatory power”. Of course! The universe is the base entity which makes explanations possible. It needs no explanation. Brute facts cannoit be “explained”. I could see some people who would argue that the value of “pi” or the value of “e” points to a “designer”, since they are so precise that any deviance would make us unable to calculate the circumference of a circle…

Third, comes more “hand-waving”, this time a poor understanding of mathematics, namely probability theory. It is ridiculous to point to a phenomenon, which has a very low probablity of ever happening, and declare: “it is soooo improbable, that the only sensible explanation is design”. I can point out an event, which had a probability of 10[sup]-1000000[/sup] and yet it happened. This number has not a measly few hundered zeros after the decimal point, but a mind-boggling one million zeros. Does it point to a designer?

Finally, the whole concept of “designed” presupposes that some things are “natural”, or undesigned, in other words, They simply ARE, what they are". Without having something to compare to, the “apparent” design stays always “apparent”. What are these undesigned “things”? How do you know that they are undesigned?

So, it is all smoke and mirrors. Sorry, bud you wasted a whole lot of time on writing a useless paper. And I wasted a whole lot of time reading it.

 

[Trurl]

But He is personally involved, all the time.

Let me repeat from above:

Even though God appears to intervene rarely in the natural order, He is necessary as the sustainer of the created world. Study classical metaphysics (Aquinas) and you will see why that is so. It is also a ‘de fide’ article of the Catholic Church. In that sense, God is constantly active in the natural order as well, even though not in an obvious ‘interventionist’ manner. This alone excludes a deist view.

Right on. It is the official teaching. Now the funny thing is that God was either unable or unwilling to create a universe which would sustain itself without constant “sustenance”. In other words, the “apparent” laws of the universe, those constants are not really contants; without God’s perpetual sustaining attention, the all the universe would just disappear into nothingness.

There is another corollary to this. When a human wishes to perform a violent act, like shooting someone, God is either a willing or unwilling participant in the act. He maintains the bullet’s atoms in one piece, guides it on its trajectory, and finally makes sure that it will penetrate the victim’s body and kills him. Now, if God is a willing participant, then he is equally guilty of the act. If God is an unwilling participant, then we have a very strange scenario: “the almighty God is forced to perform something contrary to his will”.

And this is an “official”, de-fide teaching. Now remind me, pelase, why do the non-cathoilcs reject these teachings?

 

[Trurl]

Pain is an absolutely necessary feature of nature. If you would not be able to feel pain, even terrible pain, you would die quickly because you would not feel what might kill you. In fact, children born with the abnormality of not feeling physical pain need to constantly be protected from themselves. Thus the idea that a world without pain would be desirable lacks rational foundation.

Well, considering that you claim to be a scientist, you sure seem to be unable to think “outside the box”. (What can one expect from the majority of the posters, if even the scientists display such an appaling lack imagination?)

Do trees feel pain? Having no pain receptors, they obviously do not. Is the ability to perform discursive thinking depend somehow on the pain receptors? Obviously not. They are performed in different parts of the brain. So it is perfectly rational to postulate a world where there are thinking agents who do not feel pain, and yet they have a very long life-span. The sequioya trees can easily live many thousands of years, and they are resilient to diseases, bugs, fire… their unnatural demise can only come from human hands. The trees also have a pretty decent regenerative abilities, losing a bew branches is not fatally detrimental to them. And they do not “fight” with each other, either. Yep, such a world would be definitely preferable to our “red in the tooth and claw” type of arrangement.

Maybe such a world would not be “exciting”, there would be no “burnt offerings, which are so pleasing to the nostrils of the Lord”, but there would be no pain. The Lord would just have to imagine the the stench of the burning flesh when he needs to feel it…

 

[Al_Moritz]

Well, considering that you claim to be a scientist, you sure seem to be unable to think “outside the box”. (What can one expect from the majority of the posters, if even the scientists display such an appaling lack imagination?)

Do trees feel pain? Having no pain receptors, they obviously do not. Is the ability to perform discursive thinking depend somehow on the pain receptors? Obviously not. They are performed in different parts of the brain. So it is perfectly rational to postulate a world where there are thinking agents who do not feel pain, and yet they have a very long life-span. The sequioya trees can easily live many thousands of years, and they are resilient to diseases, bugs, fire… their unnatural demise can only come from human hands. The trees also have a pretty decent regenerative abilities, losing a bew branches is not fatally detrimental to them. And they do not “fight” with each other, either. Yep, such a world would be definitely preferable to our “red in the tooth and claw” type of arrangement.

Maybe such a world would not be “exciting”, there would be no “burnt offerings, which are so pleasing to the nostrils of the Lord”, but there would be no pain. The Lord would just have to imagine the the stench of the burning flesh when he needs to feel it…

Trees don’t move.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Who selected those “important” constants? On what grounds?
What is the tolerance limit for those constants?
How “precise” should those parameters be? 10%? 1%? 0.0000001%? Just what is “fine”-tuning?

Several examples are given in the paper, including tolerances.

So, it is all smoke and mirrors. Sorry, bud you wasted a whole lot of time on writing a useless paper. And I wasted a whole lot of time reading it.

From your comment that I just replied to it seems you haven’t read it, but just quickly glanced over it.

Third, comes more “hand-waving”, this time a poor understanding of mathematics, namely probability theory. It is ridiculous to point to a phenomenon, which has a very low probablity of ever happening, and declare: “it is soooo improbable, that the only sensible explanation is design”. I can point out an event, which had a probability of 10[sup]-1000000[/sup] and yet it happened. This number has not a measly few hundered zeros after the decimal point, but a mind-boggling one million zeros. Does it point to a designer?

Perhaps you want to have a discussion with alll the atheist cosmologists who dismiss the chance proposal as fully inadequate and instead opt for a multiverse.

 

[Trurl]

Trees don’t move.

And what does have to do with anything? They live for a very long time, they do not feel pain, and a proper designer could equip them with a special nervous system to perform thinking, and thus they could be true individuals.

Several examples are given in the paper, including tolerances.

I am interested in a comprehensive paper, where there would be a reason presented, which constants are included, and why. And then the descriptions of the proper experiments to support the hypothesis

Perhaps you want to have a discussion with alll the atheist cosmologists who dismiss the chance proposal as fully inadequate and instead opt for a multiverse.

Why should I? The multiverse theory - so far - is just an empty speculation. No one speaks of “chance explanation” here. The purported problem is not a problem at all, which needs to be investigated. And I see that you do not care to explain how to differentiate a “designed” feature from a “natural” or “undesigned”. Without giving an epistemological method to make that distinction the whole “design” argument just hangs in the air… even if it had any explanatory power, which it does not. After all to say that “an unknowable being using unimaginable means made it somehow happen” is as far from being an “explanation” as it can be.

 

[ManRay]

I would have to agree with Trurl - If you can’t define, and demonstrate the actual premise of. i.e. “fine tuning” as it relates to whatever it is you are talking about, well then the whole thing is a waste of time. The only way it makes sense is if the particulars of the universe model are so precisely in tune that the observations have to come into agreement with it. But there is no explanation as to why these values are needed, and why they aren’t intrinsically tied to a particular cultural understanding of place, and time. Something that would be so obvious doesn’t seem to lend itself to the reality that there are indeed a many differing and equally interesting presumptions.

 

[inocente]

home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/cosmological-arguments-god.htm

I would, however, suggest to read the entire article. It will be clear then why chance is such a ludicrous explanation that, while it is often brought up as possibility by atheists who have not seriously studied the issue, it is fully rejected by all leading atheist and agnostic cosmologists who did study fine-tuning.

It’s somewhat remarkable that while a naive person might expect science to have found direct definite evidence for God everywhere, none has ever been found. As Georges Lemaitre pointed out, God is completely hidden even in the big bang, the point where we might most expect to find evidence of a creator. Instead we can only point to interpretations, but atheists can just as rationally point to alternative interpretations.

Which for Christians implies that God absolutely refuses to be tested, and so all arguments which seek to turn Him into a scientific hypothesis are bound to fail (and saying this causes me to be metaphorically burnt at the stake surprisingly often ).

Imho the real answer here is that the impression of fine-tuning is simply a signal that currently a piece of the puzzle is missing and we have more to learn. Just as pi might seem stunningly fine-tuned at first, with more knowledge we realize it’s just the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In the same way, gradually everything currently called fine-tuned will be explained and the god of fine-tuning will be put out of a job.

 

[tonyrey]

I reason this basically to be the design argument. Something that theists have never been able to come to terms with regarding this argument is that you cannot objectively define what design even is across all the paradigm of viewership.

False! The Design explanation of the origin and subsequent development of the universe is that it has a rational basis rather than being an insignificant, purposeless and meaningless series of physical events which have occurred for no reason whatsoever.

 

[tonyrey]

Without giving an epistemological method to make that distinction the whole “design” argument just hangs in the air… even if it had any explanatory power, which it does not.

The “epistemological method” on which the Design explanation is based is that used by every rational being. It is the validity of reasoning without which **all **conclusions are valueless.

 

[Trurl]

If you can’t define, and demonstrate the actual premise of. i.e. “fine tuning” as it relates to whatever it is you are talking about, well then the whole thing is a waste of time.

Precisely.

1. There is no mathematical model presented to enumerate the variables which are considered to be the “deciding factors”. (Why those, and not others?)
2. Ther is no Kolmogorov space establshed for these variables, which would describe the extreme values for them.
3. There is no suggested distribution for these varaibles. (And a normal distribution would be very different from a Possion distribution)
4. No analysis presented to show if these variables are independent, or not.
5. And, of course there are no experiments which would show that different configuration truly would lead to “chemistry-less” universe.

In one word, we have an incredibly sloppy hand-waving. No foundation, but at the end the “magician” pulls out a paper-God from his top-hat, and says: “You see, this is the explanation!”. Do these people think that we are THAT gullible?

 

[ricmat]

Precisely.

1. There is no mathematical model presented to enumerate the variables which are considered to be the “deciding factors”. (Why those, and not others?)
2. Ther is no Kolmogorov space establshed for these variables, which would describe the extreme values for them.
3. There is no suggested distribution for these varaibles. (And a normal distribution would be very different from a Possion distribution)
4. No analysis presented to show if these variables are independent, or not.
5. And, of course there are no experiments which would show that different configuration truly would lead to “chemistry-less” universe.

In one word, we have an incredibly sloppy hand-waving. No foundation, but at the end the “magician” pulls out a paper-God from his top-hat, and says: “You see, this is the explanation!”. Do these people think that we are THAT gullible?

Out of curiosity, with all this missing information, how is it that scientists have formulated theories of how the universe began (big bang)?

 

[Trurl]

Out of curiosity, with all this missing information, how is it that scientists have formulated theories of how the universe began (big bang)?

Contrary to what the average Joe thinks, the scientists do NOT say that the universe “started” with the Big Bang. They simply maintain that the current form of the universe started when the singularity “exploded” - to use a very sloppy word for it, since it was not an explosion, but we have no better words to describe it. Our physics is inadequate to go into the singularity. So scientists will admit their ignorance, which is an intellectually respectable position, and do not try some off-the-wall smoke-screen “explanations”. Some physicists play with the idea of the “multi-verse”, but for the time being, it is just speculation. But at least they do not try to peddle it as something more.

Just to pre-empt a possible next question: only theists try to ask: “but how did the universe spring into existence from nothing”? The answer is, it did not. The questions: “what was before the universe?” and "what is outside the universe? and nonsensical questions. The universe simply “IS”. It is the ontological foundation of existence. Strangely, the theists are perfectly comfortable stating the very same things about their god. They see no problem with it. Of course postulating a god explains nothing. It raises a whole bunch of new questions: like “how did that hypothetical god perform the creation”? And then comes the mind-boggling answer: “this unknowable god, who has some unimaginary powers waved his invisible hands and made it magically happen”. And this is offered as an “explanation”! And the snake-oil peddler is astonished when his “cure-for-all” answer is rejected.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Right on. It is the official teaching. Now the funny thing is that God was either unable or unwilling to create a universe which would sustain itself without constant “sustenance”. In other words, the “apparent” laws of the universe, those constants are not really contants; without God’s perpetual sustaining attention, the all the universe would just disappear into nothingness.

There is another corollary to this. When a human wishes to perform a violent act, like shooting someone, God is either a willing or unwilling participant in the act. He maintains the bullet’s atoms in one piece, guides it on its trajectory, and finally makes sure that it will penetrate the victim’s body and kills him. Now, if God is a willing participant, then he is equally guilty of the act. If God is an unwilling participant, then we have a very strange scenario: “the almighty God is forced to perform something contrary to his will”.

And this is an “official”, de-fide teaching. Now remind me, pelase, why do the non-cathoilcs reject these teachings?

You appear to believe that classical metaphysics and the Catholic Church espouse occasionalism, the idea that God not just is responsible for sustaining the existence of everything at every moment, but that God also shapes the character of every being at every moment. The First Cause would shape everything at every moment as the sole power, and the existence of secondary causes would be an illusion.

Yet this is not the case. Created things, e.g. the laws of nature, act ‘on their own’ according the character that God has given them (so yes, there can indeed be physical constants), and according to the free will God has given humans, humans act on their own and are the ones morally responsible for their deeds. They can act freely against their intrinsic nature, sin and do bad things.

Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about these things under the heading:

Providence and secondary causes

306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of “subduing” the earth and having dominion over it. God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings. They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom.

308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God’s power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for “without a Creator the creature vanishes.” Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God’s grace.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Imho the real answer here is that the impression of fine-tuning is simply a signal that currently a piece of the puzzle is missing and we have more to learn. Just as pi might seem stunningly fine-tuned at first, with more knowledge we realize it’s just the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In the same way, gradually everything currently called fine-tuned will be explained and the god of fine-tuning will be put out of a job.

This objection is essentially dealt with in section 1.3.2. of my article.

 

[ricmat]

Contrary to what the average Joe thinks, the scientists do NOT say that the universe “started” with the Big Bang. They simply maintain that the current form of the universe started when the singularity “exploded” - to use a very sloppy word for it, since it was not an explosion, but we have no better words to describe it. Our physics is inadequate to go into the singularity. So scientists will admit their ignorance, which is an intellectually respectable position, and do not try some off-the-wall smoke-screen “explanations”. Some physicists play with the idea of the “multi-verse”, but for the time being, it is just speculation. But at least they do not try to peddle it as something more.

Quite the contrary. Scientists say all the time that everything, time & space included, started with the big bang, the singularity. They have elaborate theories of exactly what happened at 1 femtosecond, 1 millisecond, etc. How long inflation lasted, background microwave radiation, and all the rest. All this is predicated on the value of these constants that you say have no foundation. Scientists constantly remind us that the “latest finding” verifies the basics of the big bang theory and that it must be believed because it is science (or at least the science-du-jour).

So according to you, scientists have been misleading the public using smoke and mirrors with no foundation. Thank you for that clarification.