¶1That presumption that the the relevant quantity could take a big range of values is completely pure a priori it has no basis in a scientific judgment. >> Hi guys, today I want to respond to Josh Mid's argument for finetuning. He thinks that this is one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God. So I think it's important to to go deep into the topic. So basically the idea is that there are about 30 fundamental constants that are involved in the equations that describe the behavior of this universe.
¶2And the argument is that if any one of those constants will be slightly different even by a little bit and suddenly the universe will have no life and will be not able to support life at all. So it would be basically like a a giant black hole or a soup of hydrogen or you know stars would last very little wouldn't they wouldn't last enough long enough to to make heavier elements and stuff like that. So basically the the the idea is that well the odds the the life perian range of these constants is so small that the odds that just by chance the universe happens to have constant with those values is really low but this is something that is very expected under theism. So this is very very strong evidence for theism. Right?
¶3Okay. So I'm going to respond to that today. But before we do that, I want to say that fine-tuning is by far one of the arguments that it is make the most mistakes when responding to. like it is make a lot of a lot of mistakes on this and it's actually way more difficult to respond to to that that some of you may think. For the first part of the video, I'm going to actually agree with Joe and I'm going to go over the the bad responses to the finetuning argument.
¶4I'm going to so that you stop making these mistakes when responding to the argument. Then I'm going to tell you about my approach to fine-tuning which is similar to Victor Stanger's approach and at the end we're going to talk about the multiverse response. So okay so what are some of the mistakes that atheists make here? First the portal analogy. This is a very popular one.
¶5Basically, it says that okay, if there's a puddle that is in a in a specific hole and the puddle thinks, oh my god, this hole was made like exactly for me, right? But the puddle obviously doesn't realize that he adapted to the hole, not the other way around. So the argument is that if the constants of the universe had been different, then life will somehow be different as well. Right? Okay, this argument doesn't work.
¶6Why? Because it's what they're saying is that if the constants were different, then the universe would be a giant black hole or just a bunch of hydrogen or or something like that. And it's easy to see that no life at all could evolve if this had been the case, right? You cannot say, oh, a different kind of life will have evolved or adapted to that. No, that that's not going to happen, right?
¶7So, this is a really bad argument. The analogy was very clever at first but it it doesn't work. Another one is saying that the constants are necessary right or they they go and ask like how do you know the constants could have been different. I think this kind of misses the point in a way but because even if the constants are necessary, you can ask but why why would it be the case that still the constants that happen to be necessary lead to life right so what are the odds that the necessary ones just happen to lead to life instead of leading to love not life right so I just don't think that this solves the problem like you cannot Use this for any coincidence you can imagine. Like imagine that we find an arrangement of stars that says I am God.
¶8I love you. Right? You cannot say okay maybe that arrangement was necessary like why would specifically that arrangement be necessary right? It's like no this doesn't really work. So another thing another response is that to say that the probability the range of probabilities of the constants is unknown and you cannot calculate probabilities if the range goes to infinite.
¶9Let me give you an example for let's say the mass of the electron right let's say it has the value of five for example and if the maximum range was like 0 to 100 you could say okay there was a a 1% chance that it will be between five and six for example right something like that but we do not know if it actually is it can it go to 100 or can it go to infinity we don't know that so it could actually it may it could be infinite Right? What you want to say there is that because it could be infinite well then there is no way to calculate the probability of of the value being between five of six for example and therefore like this is supposed to invalidate the finetuning argument. I mean of course not if anything this the possible values going to infinite is much worse for the makes things much worse for the atheist. And there is a good analogy. Imagine that there's a fly on on that wall, right?
¶10Imagine that I take a needle, right? Just hit the fly. You will say like, okay, what are the odds? What were the odds of me hitting the fly? If I threw the needle randomly, you could calculate that by taking the total area of the wall, taking the area of the fly and the and then just doing the the the ratio, right?
¶11then you will know. Okay, but but here's the thing. What if the wall is infinite? Now, at that point, it becomes impossible to calculate the probability of hitting the fly because you will always get a zero. But imagine that the one is infinite.
¶12Does that mean that if I hit the fly with a needle that this is somehow less impressive? Of course not. Right? So that that's not the case. Miles Donah made this analogy which I I thought it was very clever in a in a conversation with my channel about the finetuning argument.
¶13Another argument the atheist make is saying that way gold could have made life without fine-tuning. He could have made life in a universe where the the constants are not fine-tuned for life. Right? He could have made a spiritual life. He could have make electrons that feel love.
¶14Right? stuff like that and I mean like yeah sure I mean it doesn't you're right it doesn't directly follow from God exists to he's going to want to make life specifically by fine-tuning the constants right but it's it is at least kind of plausible that he would want to do it like this right and that's all that the the needs for the argument to work right because what the the is saying that the probability of this constants being like that just by random chance is like one in a in five trillion or whatever and you cannot say that okay the odds of if there is a god the odds of him wanting to make a life by fine-tuning the universe is like one is also one in five trillion I don't think so right there could be some possible reasons why god wants to make life by by fine tuning the constants for example if there are conscious beings that and they are in a universe where the constants are not fine-tuned for life to exist. They may later investigate this universe and they will realize that the constants were not leading fine-tuned for life and they will infer that there must be a supernatural cause for their existence. they will realize it for example they they will realize immediately that God made them for example and maybe God wants to avoid that for for example so that's why God wants to make give like at least the appearance of of some kind of natural law and order right so that's just one possibility of why would God want to make life by fine-tuning the universe so this doesn't work another argument is that God himself will have to be fine-tuned right because he also has like many parameters he could have decided many possible universes right he has to finetuned to make this universe I think this misunderstands a little bit what the argument is saying or first of all the are going to deny that god has like three parameters that are like tunable he's they're going to say he's perfectly simple I disagree with that I think god in in their worldview they will have to have some contingent elements like he you will have to have the desire to make specifically this universe. I think that's a problem for them.
¶15But even even leaving that aside, let's say God has to have some contingent elements to he will have to desire to make specifically this universe. But it doesn't matter because this universe like let's say God had had the desire to make humans with blue hair, right? Well, then what would happen? The universe will have had a humans with blue hair. But they will not be saying, "Oh, look what are the odds that he happened to make us with blue hair when he could have made us with black hair." That's not what they will be saying.
¶16They will be saying, "Look, he there happens to be life instead of not alive." So that's the difference like a different god will have will have wanted may have wanted life in a different way but that would still be life and they will still include conscious observers because it is plausible to say that a mind wants to create other minds to have some kind of relation because it's like fun for him or something like that. So no you only needed to you don't need god to desire to make this specific universe. You only need it to be plausible that a god would want intelligent beings and that's just seems plausible to me. Another another really bad response is to say that a lot of the universe is inhospitable to life like okay there are a lot of cosmic rays that destroy life there you know life cannot exist in a black hole or what or inside the sun or whatever it doesn't matter that the the are not saying that God wanted life everywhere to be to exist everywhere in the universe right they are not saying that so where God wanted life to exist somewhere that's it so where life can exist inside a black hole or whatever that doesn't matter. It doesn't affect the argument.
¶17So I think yeah those I think those are some very bad responses to the finetuning argument. So what is my approach? I have approach that is I mean at least it's different. It's not really different but in if all you look at is 80 YouTube at channels it may be a little bit different. I go for to a for the physics part instead of the philosophy.
¶18And what I uh what I do here is to draw from the work of a physics called Victto Stener who has done in my opinion some of the best work responding to the to the finetuning argument and he has an entire book the finetuning fallacy where he responds to this argument and he makes uh the following points which are very which are the key points. So one is the the claim that the there's only a super extremely narrow range of constants leads to a life permitting universe is an exaggeration. He thinks that there's actually a wide variety a relatively wide variety of of constants that can lead to life and he has done simulations to to show this. Second and this this part is super important. The fundamental constants could actually depend on each other in ways what in ways that we don't know or ultimately depend on the same thing on on the same thing.
¶19And if this is true, this will do a lot towards reducing the the probability the the force of the probability argument which is so huge because it it involves the many different permutations of having different constants has to be this has to be that. So that if you can like collapse the constants a little bit anything you can do there will do a lot toward reducing the the force of the argument. And third uh and this is a bit of my own original work there could be some kind of mathematical necessity when it comes to the structures or the con or even the constants on these laws. I'm going to explain that a little bit. Um and and the fourth is the the multiverse theory which I think is still the best response to the the finetuning argument.
¶20I do think that the best strongest response you can make is well there could be a multiverse but I don't want to just focus on that because it feels like the atheist is forced to posit a multiverse right and they may not be people may not like it because you feel like okay either the multiverse is true or God exists right okay so let's go uh one by one so one the the claim that life can only exist in this extremely small range maybe an exaggeration Let me show you a video by Victor to Stinganger making this point. >> I I played a little game myself with a with a constants of physics where I've I've changed them around and seen what kind of universe results and I discovered that uh one important parameter is age of of stars. Uh that when I change the existing parameters of the universe over 10 orders of magnitude randomly, I still get over half of stars living the same billion years or more without changing any of the laws of physics just changing the constants. So you still get stars, you still get atoms. So once you have long live stars, uh that seems the primary need to have some kind of complex life form because after all complexity does arise out of simplicity pretty naturally.
¶21We've shown this uh many times in the laboratory and with computer simulations. And so uh I think the finetuning argument just fails right off the bat because it only applies to one form of life and we have no way of showing that it rules out all conceivable forms of life. >> So basically what he did is he uses he made a a a computer program to simulate universes called a monkey boy. No, not the YouTuber. It's the program.
¶22And he found out that actually there were quite a lot of these universes that led to a a longer life range uh duration of stars which is a very important thing for life. So it is not that narrow that improbable in in big sustainers view to get a life forbidding universe. Also what one another thing here is that what these calculations usually do is they take one constant and keep the order constants uh the same and then change it right and then they show that this doesn't lead to life but he says that maybe is the ratio of constants what what matters. So maybe there's like a if you do the things right and you change all constants which becomes at this point the calculations become very difficult to do but he thinks that maybe if you did it that way in that way you will see a higher range of life prevailing universe. Uh okay the second this point is very important.
¶23It could be that with some of these fundamental constants, it could be that they are depend on each other or depend on a more fundamental thing. And let me give you just one example, one analogy. Let's say we have droplets of water condensing from a certain surface. The size of the droplet depends on how much water is necessary for the droplet to reach a weight where it falls. Right?
¶24So there is actually an explanation for why the dolet has this particular size. But imagine an observer that cannot see past this line and he thinks that uh the dop he just sees the droplet. He doesn't know that it was formed by condensation. The observer will think okay oh the droplet could have had any possible size right and it's like a free parameter or a free fundamental concept but this is not true. So let me just give you one example.
¶25The mass of the electron. Now electrons condense from the hot dense plasma after a big bang. So the mass of the electron could ultimately depend on the property of this plasma instead of being a free parameter that could have been could have had any value. Now you may say here okay this just maybe pushes the question from the electron to the plasma like why does the plasma have those properties right? But here's the my point.
¶26The plasma could also be the explanation to why the other constants such as the weak force have the value that they have and this will greatly reduce the probability space because it eliminates the conjunction of different things. Another thing I want to show you here is that for example there's these guys who uh publish a paper and they show that you could even remove the weak interaction and you could you can still get a universe that uh underrows deformation and duration of of stars and you know the formation of complex structures and they last for billions of years and so on. They synthesize iron etc. So that again shows that the universe could be different and you could still have life. Okay.
¶27So here are some so here so here are some of the examples from physics. He says the expansion rate and energy density are not independent parameters. In fallacy I provide the equations that demonstrate this showing that ner is fine tuned for life. Here he was talking about the rate of expansion of the universe and Hawkins for example thinks that it may be there may be something that makes it automatically become like the one that he had. Another example uh gravity and the masses of particles.
¶28He says in general the relative strength of the two forces depends of the masses and charges of the particles involved. I explained that the reason that gravity is so much weaker than electromagnetism for elementary particles is because they're low mass compared to the plank mass. I then propose a plausible explanation for this low mass. Namely, in the standard model, the masses are intrinsically zero and the observed masses are the result of smart corrections such as the Higs mechanism. Another example, the strength of forces.
¶29Barnes also fails to grasp the core point that I make that the force constants are thought to be related to one another and expected to come together at some high unification energy. The fact that they only different now by a factor of six should not be regarded as fine-tuning and also about charge. Another finetuning claim is the ratio of protons to electrons in the universe. I argue that this parameter results from charge conservation and quote from a book on cosmology written by an astronomer bars agrees that this is not a good fine tuning argument. So as you can see uh the basic idea is that for some of these uh apparently fundamental constants it could be that they either depend on each other or depend on something more fundamental and so so that's uh basically the the gist of this okay another point I want to make is that there is there could be some degree of mathematical necessity for the struct and even the constants of these laws because Joe makes the point that even the structure the basic structure of the laws is fine-tuned which means he's implying that it could have been different right but I in my opinion that claim is far more dubious right and I I'm going to give you some examples like you're going to go from a from a more obvious example to a to a the more to the less obvious examples.
¶30So example number one, this is very trivial. Let's say you have a galaxy for example, a galaxy with different stars and and let's let's assume that there are no planets or you know asteroids, right? It's just the stars. What would be a formula an equation for the total mass of the galaxy? Well, it's obvious that it's going to be just the sum of the total mass of the stars, right?
¶31This is just a trivial thing. So the mass the total mass of the galaxy is m1 + m2 plus m3. Now is the structure of this equation is it true is it correct to say that it could have been anything. But of course not you cannot say that instead of a plus it could have been a minus right that's obviously not true that's absurd right that that had to be the addition the sum of the individual masses right that's like obvious. So that's just some a way to show that the structure is not always like yeah whatever you want.
¶32Let me give you another example. Maybe this one is better. What is the area of a square? So the the area of a of a square is L to the two to the exponent of two where L is the the size of the of the side one of the sides of the square. Now there is a number there is a natural number on this equation right is that two right in the exponent.
¶33Now somebody could say could look at this natural number and think oh that's a natural number in an equation I bet it could have been a three or it could have been a 2 comma 2.5 or it could have been a 1.9 but no this is not true. Okay, it is mathematically necessary for the area to be uh just L to the side of to the two, right? It just cannot be an area or away, right? Unless we're talking about a non-flat space, right? That's a different thing.
¶34So, it's just obvious that just because there's a natural number on the equation doesn't mean you it doesn't mean you can point to that natural number and say, "Oh, well, this could have been anything, right?" That's not true. Now, third, let's look at a less obvious example. So, this is the equation for the gravitational force. And notice that it's proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance. So, the distance is in the denominator.
¶35Now, what that means that the further the particles are away from each other, right? the weaker the the interaction becomes. And this is like it feels like it makes sense in a natural way. It's like yeah, of course, if they are closer and there is some force that interacts with each other, the closer they are, the the stronger they are going to do, but I but they're very far. It's like they're less likely to interact with each other or they they affect each other less some way.
¶36And this seems like a natural or metaphysically necessary in a way like it makes seems like it's common sense. The reverse of that will be weird like imagine the the further away they are the more they affect each other in a in a sense this will be like I mean this is really like metaphysically right like a coherent I mean it's not I mean it's not logically impossible right but it's just weird in a sense I think so I could say maybe it is metaphysically or mathematically necessary that the distance is in the denominator. Right? So maybe maybe that's again maybe there is a certain mathematical or metaphysical necessity in these laws and we just haven't discovered that yet. Right?
¶37So that that's another thing one can one could say about what Joe is tried to do. Okay. Another big response to the finetuning argument is the multiverse. Right? I think this is the strongest response one can make which is to say that there if there are multiple universes then just some of them may have constants that are permissible to life and we just happen to be in that one.
¶38Right? So that I think is the I think this like still like the best one can do. So Joe has some objections to to that. So one thing he says is about he brings up the finetuner for discoverability. >> The multiverse hypothesis certainly doesn't explain fine tuning for discoverability since we could have existed in a far less discoverable universe.
¶39So theism still ngs. >> Okay. But I don't I don't get I really get the objection. Like let's say we have a multiverse. Some of them are fine-tuned for life and some of them are are fine- tuned for life and for discoverability, right?
¶40So like by definition some people are going to to be there right and they're going to see oh we are in a in a universe that is fine to for life and discoverability right so how does that disprove like the hypothesis of the multiver I know I'm not sure I get the like the logic behind it right I'm not sure I get why also there are many things that I could say about this fine tuning for discoverability this one is actually considered less strong than the normal f fin fine tuning like this is very controversial. I mean, I think I'm I don't have time to go into that, but maybe I would make a a video separate video about it. But if we didn't know that this radiation was there, maybe we wouldn't know about the bean bag. But maybe we will know about something else, right? This is like I don't really see how this is like a huge argument.
¶41Okay. Another point he makes is that the structure of the laws what also had to be had to lead to life even if there's a multiverse. There's some there's something that's called like the structure of the basic law structure of the multiverse. >> Third, the multiverse hypothesis doesn't significantly dent the force of the argument from finely tuned law structures. So the more a priori fine-tuning argument, right?
¶42even getting a multiverse with law structures containing life permitting ranges would itself be a highly fortuitous result given the vast abyss of extremely simple lifecluding law structures that could have reigned across the multiverse or that could have existed instead of a multiverse. So I think finetuning still very significantly favors theism even over multiverse naturalism. >> Okay. So first of all like I was saying in the previous section the idea that um the LA the basic structure of the LA can be anything is not so obvious right and I mean a second I mean how do you know out of all the possible structures which ones lead to life and which ones don't that that you don't know that seems to be more a priority thing because that has not been calculated for this universe we have the equations and we can calculate how if it leads to life or not but for a multiverse we don't have the equations we don't have the equations for multiveres so that's just like a priority like and a priority but okay let me steal on the argument because Joshua Rasmusen has also made this argument he made it in his debate against humor he's what he's saying is that the multiverse still needs to be in a certain way to lead to life and Make this example. Imagine you have a multiverse in this way.
¶43One multiverse just has has one ball moving around. Another universe just has two balls grow moving around. And a third universe just has three balls going around, right? And that goes on and on. And he's saying well life will never appear there for example, right?
¶44Or or moving away from each other. I think that's what he said. I don't remember. Okay. So he says like look in that kind of multiverse right the only difference between universes is just how many balls but the basic structure is one that will never lead to life right he says you still need the multiverse to be in such a way that in at least in some of them it leads to life right okay so what what do I say about this like okay it's easy to see that at this point it becomes more of a an imagination thing like okay I can imagine many universe, many multiverses or states of earth that have no life and I I would have to say okay but the ones that have no life are are much more numerous that the ones that have life but yeah sure maybe but I can also say yeah I can imagine many possible a priority possible states of aware that are many different kinds of life I don't know one of them I don't know maybe it's not so obvious right it becomes a a more a priority everything and I had an interesting thought.
¶45Let's say you have this a multiverse with these balls like are you absolutely absolutely sure that let's say when you have like a a trillion trillion balls like maybe they start smashing against each other and maybe they what if they start like producing some more interesting structures I I don't know I'm not sure right so it's not even even from his analogy it's not even that obvious that this multiverse can never lead to life Okay. And the last argument Joe makes against a multiverse is to say that in a if there's a multiverse with like a ton of universes, then there are many of these universe that have Boltzman brains like you but are deluded about being Boltzman brains. >> My fourth response to the multiverse hypothesis is that it faces a very serious Boltzman brain problem. Even in universes that are a diffuse soup of hydrogen helium for all eternity, which will far outnumber universes like ours in the multiverse, random events will rarely occur in which a fully functioning human brain fluctuates into existence, briefly persists, and then snaps out of existence. These Boltzman brains will tend to predominate the class of observers within a multiverse.
¶46Since Boltzman brains only require small, localized pockets of order or low entropy to exist, whereas long and drawn out evolutionary processes in large, complex, structured, orderly universes like ours require gargantuan pockets of order or low entropy. >> Okay, I I talked about this in my previous video. I don't really get the force of this argument. What What are you supposedly trying to do? You don't know if you're a Bsman brain, right?
¶47Uh, in fact, don't don't freak out, but you may be a bossman brain, right? And and this the video you don't get to watch the end of the video. Just kidding. You're not a bossman brain. Okay, here's the thing.
¶48Imagine this. If you are going to from an epistemology point of view and trying to refute a trying to disprove a scenario, it's like imagine this. Imagine a a guy imagine this is scenario. Humans in the future are able to put brains in vats and simulate environments. And they can do this to to babies.
¶49And the babies will grow up in a simulation. I will believe that they are in the year 2026, but they're actually not. They're actually in the year two million, but the humans did this. If that reaches the the point now, you may imagine, wait, this may reach a point where most of the people that are born will be put in simulations. And then you may think, wait, hold on, if that's true, then I am in a simulation, okay?
¶50And that's bad. Okay. And that somehow disproves that scenario. Does that prove that that a scenario is impossible and that it cannot be the case? No.
¶51So yeah, maybe you're in a simulation. Maybe the but so what I mean that doesn't do anything, right? I don't sure that you can make a this epistemological point. Anyway, yeah, I think I think that's all I wanted to say on this topic. I didn't cover the fine-tuning for discoverability thing, but there are definitely arguments one can make against that.
¶52Maybe I will make a separate video. I don't know. So, thank you for watching that. Please subscribe to my channel and if you're still here, if you haven't like evaporated because you're a BS small brain, like the video and see you next time. Bye.