I just discovered your writing and have found your last couple articles to be quite interesting, even if much of it goes a bit over my head given that a lot of this is territory I’m just not very familiar with (even if I do find it compelling). Anyway, your discussion of fine-tuning caught my attention.
I realize this is a bit tangential to what you’re writing about since you’re discussing fine-tuning in the context of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, but I’m curious if you’ve heard about cosmological natural selection and the arguments it makes about why fine-tuning exists.
It’s a hypothesis put forward by physicist Lee Smolin which suggests that on the other side of black holes are big bangs, which is how we get new universes.
From there, Smolin suggests that black holes create conditions that can alter fundamental physical constants, and that these alterations are “heritable”, meaning that the “baby” universes created by these black holes would create their own black holes with fundamental physical constants that retained the alterations from their “parent” black holes.
Black holes with fundamental physical constants more conducive to creating more black holes (thus birthing more universes) would then be more reproductively successful, leading to cosmological natural selection and the fine-tuning of fundamental physical constants that lead to conditions conducive to star formation, and all the conditions that make life possible (at least, without those conditions created by this fine-tuning process, life would be impossible).
I was introduced to this hypothesis by Julian Gough’s Substack The Egg and the Rock (which is entirely dedicated to promoting this hypothesis) and I found it quite persuasive, which led me to read Lee Smolin’s book The Life of the Cosmos ( I’m still working my way through it) in which he laid out this hypothesis.
Of course, like you I’m not familiar enough with physics to be well-equipped to judge the soundness of the physics behind this hypothesis, but for what it’s worth, Lee Smolin is a very influential and well-respected physicist and Julian Gough makes what I find to be a convincing case that this hypothesis has failed to gain much traction for reasons that have nothing to do with any scientific shortcomings on Smolin’s part.
I apologize for how long-winded that was, but perhaps you’ll find it worth looking into. I think more people should be exposed to this hypothesis, and I wonder if you would find Smolin’s arguments particularly engaging, if not convincing, given how he bridges physics and philosophy (he’s also a member of the graduate faculty of the philosophy department at the University of Toronto).
Fine-tuning has always been one of the weaker arguments for theism, in my experience. It just betrays a lack of understanding of what it means when our models don't match observations or how scientific theories correspond to reality. If I have a model that predicts the number of jelly beans in a jar, and it's based on a successful tradition of other models that help me guess the quantity of other small, round objects in a food containers. Now it turns out my model is over by a factor of 20. Do I conclude that a supernatural entity set up the universe such that every time I went to measure the number of jelly beans in a jar, it was way off from my model? No, it just means my model is wrong and I don't know why. The fine-tuning argument only seems plausible if you think it's more probable that our predictions about the behavior and motivations of an omnipotent being are accurate than our understanding of how certain locally observed physical constants ended up are inaccurate.
There's also a separate confusion about the stance-independence of scientific theories. It's as if the theist is used to seeing the world in terms of transcendent truths because God is transcendent and his purpose for us is transcendent and all of the laws (physical, logical, moral) are transcendent. So when we calculate the mass of an electron experimentally, that value -- no matter how we represent it symbolically -- must also be a transcendent truth that we have discovered. And just like how theists feel the need to ground logic and non-natural moral realism in terms of the theology of their faith traditions, so too must they ground the mass of an electron in theology, for some reason. This may also be why a Bayesian approach to the fine-tuning argument won't get us anywhere.
Yep! science is about detecting patterns in the universe, not "laws." The "laws" that we observe are just extremely reliant to the point that they are law-like. Theists like Ross Douthat (I reviewed his book recently), simply do not comprehend this.
Our laws are also always local in some sense. Even if Wiltshire's timescape cosmology ends up being wrong, I appreciate that he's pushing us to think that the perceived acceleration of the expansion of spacetime is merely a perspectival phenomena. Why should the cosmological constant apply universally? Why should space and time apply universally and absolutely?
You’ve missed the point, and your supporting arguments seem non-sequitur.
For point 1, you’re missing the point, and making a weird argument. You’re saying if the universe was more conducive to life and grammatically implying that means it wasn’t fine tuned either by definition or consequence. Not sure what you’re trying to say, or what it has to do with the puddle analogy. The question is whether the baseline conditions that create the probability space makes life probable or not, and whether or not that says anything about God. My point in the quoted passage is that the evidence of abundant life would probably say something about the probability space and whether or not God prefers life. With the fine tuning argument, the alternative data set (rarity/scarcity/improbability of life) is used to imply the same conclusion. If it was less probable and we were still here, would still think that’s evidence for God? Which one is it? Your argument may be a concession, but it doesn’t address that. Put another way, there’s got to be a reason that God chose to create humans in this embodied form and not others. It implies purpose, not randomness to that decision.
For point 2, that’s fine that Draper makes that argument, but I think we can come up with plausible theories of moral agency that need not invoke God. Plenty of atheist moral realists do so.
For point 3, I see two problems. First, if everyone woke up every day from past to future eternity and got pinched, that’s technically “continuous suffering from past eternity to future eternity.” In fact, it would be infinite suffering! Many theists think there is a plausible justification for suffering. Second, I don’t see how anti-natalism has anything to do with it.
In all, you may have your own falsification criterion for the fine-tuning argument, but most of the advocates I’m being critical of here do not. What’s more, I think there’s plausible reason to think there are flaws in your criteria.
For point 1, I think the point in general is that life is rare in the universe, as is moral agency. I don't see how narrowing it to earth really matters, as God created the universe, and it's still quite puzzling why he did so and made life rare. I'm still unclear with moral agency as I think you're either conflating arguments, or they were supposed to connected somehow (but again it's unclear how)
For 2, um wait that disappeared, so I guess point 1 and 2 were related?
For point 3, I think you're overcomplicating it with anti-natalism. Rather you can just say that if sufficient people find the problem of evil convincing, it accomplishes the same goal. In this way, many atheists think the problem of evil is evidence of a design flaw, and thus falsifies fine tuning. Yet fine tuning advocates don't seem to! And they don't seem to have a criteria where they say "actually there's way too much suffering to say this is fine tuned." Again, I think this is something that you are doing (which is great!) but not the people I criticize.
As for your fourth point, this is a problem with natural/revealed religion because I'm sure Christianity/revealed religion would say that God cares about humanity for specific reasons that are revealed to us via scripture. The problem is that such evidence is not available to the fine tuning advocate, who is making an argument from natural (i.e. not revealed) religion using data points found in nature. And from that vantage point there's nothing special about earth, and narrowing God's interest in earth is totally arbitrary. It's odd to create a universe only to have life on such a tiny spec!
I just discovered your writing and have found your last couple articles to be quite interesting, even if much of it goes a bit over my head given that a lot of this is territory I’m just not very familiar with (even if I do find it compelling). Anyway, your discussion of fine-tuning caught my attention.
I realize this is a bit tangential to what you’re writing about since you’re discussing fine-tuning in the context of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, but I’m curious if you’ve heard about cosmological natural selection and the arguments it makes about why fine-tuning exists.
It’s a hypothesis put forward by physicist Lee Smolin which suggests that on the other side of black holes are big bangs, which is how we get new universes.
From there, Smolin suggests that black holes create conditions that can alter fundamental physical constants, and that these alterations are “heritable”, meaning that the “baby” universes created by these black holes would create their own black holes with fundamental physical constants that retained the alterations from their “parent” black holes.
Black holes with fundamental physical constants more conducive to creating more black holes (thus birthing more universes) would then be more reproductively successful, leading to cosmological natural selection and the fine-tuning of fundamental physical constants that lead to conditions conducive to star formation, and all the conditions that make life possible (at least, without those conditions created by this fine-tuning process, life would be impossible).
I was introduced to this hypothesis by Julian Gough’s Substack The Egg and the Rock (which is entirely dedicated to promoting this hypothesis) and I found it quite persuasive, which led me to read Lee Smolin’s book The Life of the Cosmos ( I’m still working my way through it) in which he laid out this hypothesis.
Of course, like you I’m not familiar enough with physics to be well-equipped to judge the soundness of the physics behind this hypothesis, but for what it’s worth, Lee Smolin is a very influential and well-respected physicist and Julian Gough makes what I find to be a convincing case that this hypothesis has failed to gain much traction for reasons that have nothing to do with any scientific shortcomings on Smolin’s part.
I apologize for how long-winded that was, but perhaps you’ll find it worth looking into. I think more people should be exposed to this hypothesis, and I wonder if you would find Smolin’s arguments particularly engaging, if not convincing, given how he bridges physics and philosophy (he’s also a member of the graduate faculty of the philosophy department at the University of Toronto).
so, funny enough, i think they talk about it in the documentary i cited!
Sorry I'm not going deeper. I don't really have thoughts because I'm not a big physics understander
Fine-tuning has always been one of the weaker arguments for theism, in my experience. It just betrays a lack of understanding of what it means when our models don't match observations or how scientific theories correspond to reality. If I have a model that predicts the number of jelly beans in a jar, and it's based on a successful tradition of other models that help me guess the quantity of other small, round objects in a food containers. Now it turns out my model is over by a factor of 20. Do I conclude that a supernatural entity set up the universe such that every time I went to measure the number of jelly beans in a jar, it was way off from my model? No, it just means my model is wrong and I don't know why. The fine-tuning argument only seems plausible if you think it's more probable that our predictions about the behavior and motivations of an omnipotent being are accurate than our understanding of how certain locally observed physical constants ended up are inaccurate.
There's also a separate confusion about the stance-independence of scientific theories. It's as if the theist is used to seeing the world in terms of transcendent truths because God is transcendent and his purpose for us is transcendent and all of the laws (physical, logical, moral) are transcendent. So when we calculate the mass of an electron experimentally, that value -- no matter how we represent it symbolically -- must also be a transcendent truth that we have discovered. And just like how theists feel the need to ground logic and non-natural moral realism in terms of the theology of their faith traditions, so too must they ground the mass of an electron in theology, for some reason. This may also be why a Bayesian approach to the fine-tuning argument won't get us anywhere.
Yep! science is about detecting patterns in the universe, not "laws." The "laws" that we observe are just extremely reliant to the point that they are law-like. Theists like Ross Douthat (I reviewed his book recently), simply do not comprehend this.
Our laws are also always local in some sense. Even if Wiltshire's timescape cosmology ends up being wrong, I appreciate that he's pushing us to think that the perceived acceleration of the expansion of spacetime is merely a perspectival phenomena. Why should the cosmological constant apply universally? Why should space and time apply universally and absolutely?
You’ve missed the point, and your supporting arguments seem non-sequitur.
For point 1, you’re missing the point, and making a weird argument. You’re saying if the universe was more conducive to life and grammatically implying that means it wasn’t fine tuned either by definition or consequence. Not sure what you’re trying to say, or what it has to do with the puddle analogy. The question is whether the baseline conditions that create the probability space makes life probable or not, and whether or not that says anything about God. My point in the quoted passage is that the evidence of abundant life would probably say something about the probability space and whether or not God prefers life. With the fine tuning argument, the alternative data set (rarity/scarcity/improbability of life) is used to imply the same conclusion. If it was less probable and we were still here, would still think that’s evidence for God? Which one is it? Your argument may be a concession, but it doesn’t address that. Put another way, there’s got to be a reason that God chose to create humans in this embodied form and not others. It implies purpose, not randomness to that decision.
For point 2, that’s fine that Draper makes that argument, but I think we can come up with plausible theories of moral agency that need not invoke God. Plenty of atheist moral realists do so.
For point 3, I see two problems. First, if everyone woke up every day from past to future eternity and got pinched, that’s technically “continuous suffering from past eternity to future eternity.” In fact, it would be infinite suffering! Many theists think there is a plausible justification for suffering. Second, I don’t see how anti-natalism has anything to do with it.
In all, you may have your own falsification criterion for the fine-tuning argument, but most of the advocates I’m being critical of here do not. What’s more, I think there’s plausible reason to think there are flaws in your criteria.
For point 1, I think the point in general is that life is rare in the universe, as is moral agency. I don't see how narrowing it to earth really matters, as God created the universe, and it's still quite puzzling why he did so and made life rare. I'm still unclear with moral agency as I think you're either conflating arguments, or they were supposed to connected somehow (but again it's unclear how)
For 2, um wait that disappeared, so I guess point 1 and 2 were related?
For point 3, I think you're overcomplicating it with anti-natalism. Rather you can just say that if sufficient people find the problem of evil convincing, it accomplishes the same goal. In this way, many atheists think the problem of evil is evidence of a design flaw, and thus falsifies fine tuning. Yet fine tuning advocates don't seem to! And they don't seem to have a criteria where they say "actually there's way too much suffering to say this is fine tuned." Again, I think this is something that you are doing (which is great!) but not the people I criticize.
As for your fourth point, this is a problem with natural/revealed religion because I'm sure Christianity/revealed religion would say that God cares about humanity for specific reasons that are revealed to us via scripture. The problem is that such evidence is not available to the fine tuning advocate, who is making an argument from natural (i.e. not revealed) religion using data points found in nature. And from that vantage point there's nothing special about earth, and narrowing God's interest in earth is totally arbitrary. It's odd to create a universe only to have life on such a tiny spec!
Good stuff! I don't really have a reply