This is the sort of thing that multiverse enthusiasts need to talk around:
Since physicists have not discovered a deep underlying reason for why these constants are what they are, we might well ask the seemingly simple question: What if they were different? What would happen in a hypothetical universe in which the fundamental constants of nature had other values?
There is nothing mathematically wrong with these hypothetical universes. But there is one thing that they almost always lack — life. Or, indeed, anything remotely resembling life. Or even the complexity upon which life relies to store information, gather nutrients, and reproduce. A universe that has just small tweaks in the fundamental constants might not have any of the chemical bonds that give us molecules, so say farewell to DNA, and also to rocks, water, and planets. Other tweaks could make the formation of stars or even atoms impossible. And with some values for the physical constants, the universe would have flickered out of existence in a fraction of a second. That the constants are all arranged in what is, mathematically speaking, the very improbable combination that makes our grand, complex, life-bearing universe possible is what physicists mean when they talk about the “fine-tuning” of the universe for life …
Facts can be special to a theory. That is, they can be special because of what we can infer from them. Fine-tuning shows that life could be extraordinarily special in this sense. Our universe’s ability to create and sustain life is rare indeed; a highly explainable but as yet unexplained fact. It could point the way to deeper physics, or beyond this universe, or even to principles beyond the ultimate laws of nature.
Luke Barnes,“The Fine-Tuning of Nature’s Laws” at The New Atlantis (Fall 2015)
Note: Astronomer Luke Barnes wrote a book with astrophysicist Geraint Lewis, for whom the multiverse beckons, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos.
See also: Another evidence-free whoop for the multiverse. Let’s be clear here. We have evidence for fine-tuning in the only universe we know to exist. To argue against it, we must posit universes for which we have no evidence and maybe cannot ever have any evidence. This makes sense, WHY again? Isn’t it all becoming a bit of a scandal?
Hat tip: Wintery Knight
Even leaving aside the fact the laws of nature are fine-tuned, the very existence of the laws of nature, in and of themselves, simply makes no sense on Atheistic Materialism.
Atheistic Materialists ultimately seek to explain everything, i.e. the universe and all life in the universe, via ‘bottom-up’ materialistic processes. Yet the laws of nature tell the material particles what to do. The material particles do not tell the laws of nature how to be. The relationship is purely a one way street type of relationship
As Origenes explained,
Atheistic materialists simply have no clue why there should even be laws of nature in the first place. Much less why there should be laws of nature that are exquisitely fine-tuned for life.
Atheists, (even though the Christian founders of modern science, via their Christian presuppositions, discovered the laws of nature in the first place),
Atheists, (even though the Christian founders of modern science, via their Christian presuppositions, discovered the laws of nature in the first place), Atheists, particularly David Hume, refused to accept the that the laws of nature were “God’s abstract creation”, i.e. he refused to accept that the laws of nature were a miracle in and of themselves, but instead David Hume held that the laws of nature were simply brute facts that needed no further explanation.
In fact, David Hume argued that instead of the laws of nature being miraculous in their own right, (As the Christian founders of modern science held), that a miracle would be, get this, “a violation of the laws of nature;”
After self-servingly presupposing that the laws of nature are completely natural with no need of God to explain their existence, David Hume, in the same passage, goes on to argue that since a man rising from the dead would violate the laws of nature, then Jesus resurrection from the dead is a violation of the laws of nature and is therefore impossible.
I’m not quite sure exactly which logical fallacy, and/or logical fallacies, David Hume committed when he stole the laws of nature away from the Christian founders of modern science, and then declared them to be brute facts of nature instead of miracles, and then, (on top of that intellectual theft from the Christian founders of modern science), attacked Christ’s resurrection from the dead in the process,,,, I’m not quite sure exactly which logical fallacy(ies) David Hume committed, but you have got to admire his brazen audacity, (or should that be ‘his brazen stupidity’?), in his intellectual theft from the Christian founders of modern science and then attacking Jesus Christ in the process.
But anyways, since the discovery of an absolute beginning for the universe, the atheist’s claim that ‘the laws of nature are simply brute facts’, obviously, does not work anymore. (Hence their appeal to multiverses, universe generating machines, etc…),,
Simply put, Atheistic materialists are now stuck trying to explain the impossible. Namely, trying to explain how ‘bottom-up’ material and/or physical processes can possibly give rise to ‘top-down’ laws of nature that tell the material particles what to do. ,, As the old joke goes, ‘you can’t get there from here’,,,
And in regards to fine-tuning, and in regards to David Hume’s claim that Christ’s resurrection from the dead would be a violation of the laws of nature, and therefore, supposedly, impossible,,,, in regards to all that, it is interesting to note that the specific law of nature that would supposedly be ‘violated’ in Christ’s resurrection from the dead would be entropy.
Yet entropy, as a law of nature, was not even yet fully elucidated in Hume’s day. (Shoot, it can be forcefully argued, due to advances in quantum information theory, that entropy is still not fully elucidated to this day). But anyways, Entropy, as a law of nature, simply was not known to exist in David Hume’s day. The foundation of entropy was not even elucidated until the mid to late 19th century, some 100 plus years after Hume. Hume could only appeal to the common sense fact that we observe people dying and we do not ‘normally’ see people rising from the dead.
But if any law of nature should ever be considered ‘miraculous’ in its origin, and not simply a brute fact as Hume had falsely assumed, then entropy should definitely be that law.
Entropy is, by a VERY wide margin, the most finely tuned of the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Finely tuned to an almost incomprehensible degree of precision, 1 part in 10 to the 10 to the 123rd power. As Roger Penrose himself, a staunch agnostic, stated, “This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.”
Roger Penrose, again a staunch agnostic, simply would never use the word ‘Creator’ unless the scientific evidence itself compelled him to do so. To this day Penrose, from what little I’ve seen of him, resists the notion of a ‘Creator’, yet in this one instance at least, he felt compelled to appeal to a ‘Creator’.
In the following video, Dr, Bruce Gordon touches upon just how enormous that number truly is. Dr. Gordon states, “you would need a hundred million, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes our size, with a zero on every proton and neutron in all of those universes just to write out this number. That is how fine tuned the initial entropy of our universe is.”
This extreme fine-tuning for the initial entropy of the universe creates some fairly embarrassing problems for atheistic naturalists when they try to explain the origin of such fine-tuning for entropy.
As Dr. William Lane Craig noted, “if our universe is but one member of a multiverse, then we ought to be observing highly extraordinary events, like horses’ popping into and out of existence by random collisions, or perpetual motion machines, since these are vastly more probable than all of nature’s constants and quantities’ falling by chance into the virtually infinitesimal life-permitting range.”
In fact, this argument against the initial 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe originating purely by chance has been made semi-famous with the “Boltzmann brain argument”
In other words, if the 1 in 10^10^123 initial entropy of the universe really did occur purely by chance, as atheists are claiming, then it would be far more likely that our universe would only consist of a single human brain that pops into existence, and which has false memories, or that we are merely floating brains in a lab, being fed false memories by some mad scientist. Those fantastical scenarios would all be far more likely to happen than the scenario that we appear to be in now (i.e. living in a universe with a initial state of 1 in 10^10^123 entropy, with a 14 billion year history, and with all of our experiences of the past supposedly being trustworthy and reliable).
I’m sure Rene, ‘I think therefore I am”, Descartes would be pleasantly amused at this turn of events in modern science since it would validate his argument for the reality of the immaterial mind in a rather stunning fashion.
Clearly, believing the initial 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe, (and our own conscious minds), originated purely by chance is absurd. As Dr. Bruce Gordon further commented, “In the most “reasonable” models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science.”
Moreover, Christians do not have to rely solely on the Reductio ad absurdum argument of the ‘Boltzmann brain” in order to argue that the Mind of God must be behind the initial 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe, but the Christian can now, due to advances in science, appeal to the scientific evidence itself.
An old entry in wikipedia described the Quantum Zeno effect as such “an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.”
Likewise, the present day entry on wikipedia about the Quantum Zeno effect also provocatively states that “a system can’t change while you are watching it”
Atheistic materialists have tried to get around the Quantum Zeno effect by postulating that interactions with the environment (i.e. ‘decoherence’) is sufficient to explain the Quantum Zeno effect.
Yet, the following interaction-free measurement of the Quantum Zeno effect demonstrated that the presence of the Quantum Zeno effect can be detected without interacting with a single atom. And thus decoherence can’t possibly be the correct explanation for the Quantum Zeno effect.
Since decoherence is ruled out as a viable explanation, then the original wikipedia statement of, “an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay”, stands as being a true statement.
On top of the Quantum Zeno effect, in quantum information theory we find that “one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer.”
And as the following 2017 article states, ““The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, “Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
If the statement “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”, does not send chills down your scientific spine then nothing ever will!
Why in blue blazes should the finely tuned 1 in 10^10^123 entropic actions of the universe, entropic actions of the universe,,, actions which happen to explain time itself,,,
Entropies actions which also happen to explain why our material, temporal, bodies grow old and die,
Why in blue blazes should the 1 in 10^10^123 finely tuned entropic actions of the universe even care that you, or I, or anyone else, is consciously observing them unless Consciousness itself really is more foundational to reality than the finely tuned 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe is?
To state the glaringly obvious, this finding of entropy being “a property of an observer who describes a system.” is very friendly to a Mind First, and/or to a Theistic view of reality.
Moreover, (since David Hume thought it fitting to attack Christ’s resurrection from the dead in his process of stealing the ‘miraculous’ laws of nature from the Christian founders who first discovered the laws of nature), it is also interesting to note that entropy itself plays a pivotal role in discerning the fact that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides us with, IMHO, the correct solution to the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
You see, in the attempt to unify quantum mechanics with general relativity into the much sought after ‘theory of everything’, we find that we are, in fact, dealing with two very different types, and/or qualities, of entropy.
But, in drawing this fact out, it is first necessary to point out that Special Relativity can be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics whereas General Relativity can not.
In fact, there is an infinite mathematical divide between quantum mechanics and general relativity,
Professor Jeremy Bernstein states the mathematical situation between quantum mechanics and general relativity as such, “there remains an irremediable difficulty. Every order reveals new types of infinities, and no finite number of renormalizations renders all the terms in the series finite.
The theory is not renormalizable.”
Besides Special Relativity being able to be unified with quantum mechanics, and General Relativity not being able to be unified with quantum mechanics, we also find that we have two very different entropies associated with Special Relativity and General Relativity, respectfully.
Specifically, in Special Relativity, we are dealing with the extremely orderly 1 in 10^10^123 entropy that is associated with the creation of the universe, i.e. associated with the initial creation of light.
Whereas, in General Relativity we are dealing with the ‘infinitely destructive’ entropy associated with Black Holes.
And thus, since the entropy associated with special relativity is extremely orderly, i.e. 1 in 10^10^123, and yet the entropy associated with General Relativity is ‘infinitely destructive’, then I hold those two very different entropies to be a fairly obvious reason, (besides the ‘infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics), for why QED (i.e Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity), can never be unified with General Relativity into a purely mathematical theory of everything.
And yet, although Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity seem to forever be beyond mathematical reconciliation with each, all hope is not lost in our search for a ‘theory of everything’.
If we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), if we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, then that provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
In regards to gravity being dealt with in the Shroud of Turin, ?The following article states that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’
And in the following video, Isabel Piczek states,,, ‘The muscles of the body are absolutely not crushed against the stone of the tomb. They are perfect. It means the body is hovering between the two sides of the shroud. What does that mean? It means there is absolutely no gravity.’
Kevin Moran, an optical engineer, describes the Shroud Image in this way, “The unique front-and-back only image can be best described as gravitationally collimated. The radiation that made the image acted perfectly parallel to gravity. There is no side image. The radiation is parallel to gravity,,,”
Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with on the Shroud of Turin, the Shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics, (QED), itself was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms.
Moreover, the following rather astonishing study on the Shroud, found that it would take 34 Trillion Watts of what is termed VUV (directional) radiation to form the image on the shroud.
So thus in conclusion, when, and if, we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God back into physics then a very plausible solution to the number one unsolved mystery in science today, of finding a reconciliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, readily pops out for us in that, as the Shroud of Turin gives witness to, both Gravity and Quantum Mechanics were dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
We? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
This universe is not fine-tuned for life; it’s fine-tuned for a certain kind of conscious experience and a certain definition of “life”. Life doesn’t begin at conception or end at death, nor is defined by or limited to the “finely tuned” parameters of this particular universe, at least not life in terms of being in individual, sentient being.
There are plenty of other kinds of realms we easily inhabit and have sentient experiences in that are not “finely tuned” for such, at least not in the sense “fine tuning” is currently being argued. Such as: imagination and dreams. That doesn’t even touch on NDEs, OOBEs or the kinds of worlds reported to us from afterlife or extra-dimensional sources, depending on how you want to phrase it.
And yes, there’s plenty of evidence to support the above statements.