Why do you think our universe is fine tuned? What made it so elegant?

[Nassbean]

I can't speak freely about that subject or I'll get banned

[Aldaris]

Interesting. Your first sentence could be used as an argument for a Creator. If the laws of physics are not random what are they?

It indeed could, but only with the assumed premise of there being a creator in the first place. If you don't do that and keep your mind open in a proper way, there's really no reason to do so. Which is what would a standard scientist would do in the first place. When we don't have answers, we prefer to admit the fact, instead of assuming we do, or worse, trying to fit the observations to our woldview - also known as confirmation bias. Once you're properly trained in this stuff, you don't do that anymore.

If they are part of the bigger picture why are they the way they are (and the way they are is a very good way).

Notions like 'bigger picture' don't even exist outside of our minds. Thinking in terms like this is either a convenient thing to do on some prehistorical playground or a subproduct of that. No biggie. Universe appears to be special only because we glorify life and especially human life despite being a lump of chemicals, ultimately. That said, our emotions are no less real because of that and we're bound to act in a certain way. Appreciate it, it's kinda cool.

No some could have argued laws of physics are tied to the cosmos, but the cosmos hasn't been eternal since Einstein's theory of relativity took it's place. The only way to fake eternal and static cosmos is to try to get there with cycles just like Roger Penrose is doing. In this case you don't need a beginning and to worry about laws of physics because constants are tied to whatever the heck and are variable just like in multiverse theories.

Yeah.. these claims wouldn't pass any real scrtutiny, I can tell you that much. It's a pseudo-scientific, philosophical point at best. But anyway. Being kinda acquainted with modern physics, as it's related to my field - no real peer-reviewed scinentist argues for static, eternal cosmos theory by now. The expanding universe is the standard paradigm indeed, but no need to mix the multiverse theories in.

But you said they are not a product of random stuff, which is interesting if you are a non theist. Because you have no explanation for laws now. Or you think our universe with the laws of physics is just a product of randomness?

I don't and I admit that. A honest position to hold at this point. And again, it isn't a 'product of randomness' and no honest academic assumes that. Not to mention, how do you define the term in the first place? You know, it's kinda arbitrary.

What did you mean when you said real deal won't work like that by the way? You mean it's too vague and unpleasant explanation (and it obviously is)?

I meant just what I've said - there's no evidence for a probabilistic-based universe-spewing machine. The way it got to be was probably bound to happen, but again, so what, really? Don't assume an intent behind it before you have a clear case. Always better to stick with the non-thorough explanation with all the evidence behind rather than outright inventing one out of the blue.

Hmm. I don't think that's a clear evidence against creation, universe being huge. It's not void but seems to be full of dark matter and dark energy. Also it's expanding. [1] It seems we need all of that because we need inflation type of mechanism to make it long lasting. This requires expanding universe since the static one is not possible. So for us to be here and all the things to function right we really need such a huge universe. Also, if a Creator wants only us, wouldn't it be mostly void?

It would be regarded as a piece of evidence if this was a court case, I assure you. Of course it's not a conclusive proof all the way, but nobody claims that anyway. Are we to colonize billions of galaxies before the soul rip happens, for whatever reason? Even the heath death of the universe is gonna happen sooner than that. If a Creator wants only us, chances are, he probably wouldn't bother for 13,5 billion years of mingling with dirt in a radiation-filled void to create us in the first place. No matter whether it's expanding or not.

[Joso]

The universe is very butt ugly, insects are there to proof...
Damn, i can't even sleep because of the little motherfuckerz.
But seriously, the more you think about aesthetics, the less the universe will look elegant.

[Methuselah]

It indeed could, but only with the assumed premise of there being a creator in the first place. If you don't do that and keep your mind open in a proper way, there's really no reason to do so. Which is what would a standard scientist would do in the first place. When we don't have answers, we prefer to admit the fact, instead of assuming we do, or worse, trying to fit the observations to our woldview - also known as confirmation bias. Once you're properly trained in this stuff, you don't do that anymore.

Well, science is always about assuming something, especially in cosmology, it's not only about observable facts as sad as it sounds. Modern agnostic science (a huge part of the scientific community) seems to assume that there is a multiverse. Is it observable? No. Are there any logical reasons to believe in it? Yes. Inflation is a part of accepted modern Big Bang cosmology and inflationary models kinda predict other universes. Now, things are still open since we are not sure yet if the inflation will be the best answer. But it answers things more scientifically than your uncertainty does and this is the reason inflation is accepted concept in modern cosmology (now it might be a big mistake indeed, the whole concept of inflation but science deeply and badly needed this). You seem to take observable science as the only real science which ironically will still leave you in uncertainty too big for science to handle. You can't explain our universe with only observable facts you see. You have to go further and use intuition. This is science too. In fact, this is modern day cosmology, take it or leave it. And modern day cosmology is stuck, scientists are confused. Being agnostic and open minded won't help here. I bet all of them claim being scientific and logical. All of us claim to do so.

I agree that all answers in my poll are abstract answers (it's debatable whether multiverse theories are good science). But your take on this issue falls under the same category. You don't have any explanation for the things which cry out for the explanation. And you forget about modern scientific concepts (like inflation) predicting multiverses. If we look at inflation and multiverse as bad science then what made cosmos so elegant, assuming you don't believe in God? Old school agnostic take would say "it just happened and hey let's see if we have better knowledge later". This view falls under the same category with other abstract answers. Just because you are open minded for future answers (which might never come) doesn't mean you are closer to the truth, since you seem to trust randomness to produce elegant universe (another option is to run from the question itself or to jump on some train reminding multiverse theories). Randomness can not produce an elegant universe. This is the reason Penrose works on cyclical models and Hawking started to like multiverse (both there nailing down the beginning but changed their mind on this). There must be an answer for fine tuned universe. For some reason you seem not to believe it's an accepted fact in a modern day cosmology. If so, and it seems so, you might not want to find a good answer to the whole story. Not like there are no good candidates. There are and this is there science is now because science is about finding answers.

Notions like 'bigger picture' don't even exist outside of our minds. Thinking in terms like this is either a convenient thing to do on some prehistorical playground or a subproduct of that. No biggie. Universe appears to be special only because we glorify life and especially human life despite being a lump of chemicals, ultimately. That said, our emotions are no less real because of that and we're bound to act in a certain way. Appreciate it, it's kinda cool.

Everything exists only in our minds by this logic. You seem to start with an assumption what we don't need a multiverse or God to produce this universe. You take universe for granted. Bad assumption to me. Leaves you empty. You see, in physics things won't happen randomly and then produce something epic like elements and planets. You need laws of physics and an elegant universe for all this. Things might look random, but they can't be too random. Things work very well, because if they didn't we wouldn't be here. Multiverse is absolutely already here to challenge uncertainty, randomness and theistic views with one universe.

Ironically Christian theists focus on this observable universe. They don't need "bigger picture" in order to explain this physical world because there is a spiritual realm behind everything. There is a spiritual realm but God made us to live here and concentrate on this life specifically (Hinduism differs from this take quite a lot). And this take on life actually is closer to yours (from a cosmological point of view) since Christians don't need a multiverse to explain this universe, so they are cool with one and only observable expanding universe with a beginning - which is what you call science. Christians don't bring equations from Pslams for instance, they bring solid math like James Clerk Maxwell did. So theists and those believing in one and only Big Bang remind each other to some extent - they don't like multiverses too much since it's too abstract science. Here they agree. They however differ on what made our universe. People like you and those liking the multiverse trust some sort of randomness and purely mechanical mechanisms doing stuff and creating things (because remember- randomness is a bad creator). Multiverse just has more chances to create universes. Your take on this whole concept has zero chances of producing anything elegant (let it be randomness or whatever). So on the other hand theists kinda have similarities with an abstract scientific thinking. On the other hand they agree more with you than with multiverse theorists, because they don't have to assume that there are other universes.

Your claim "Universe appears to be special only because we glorify life and especially human life despite being a lump of chemicals, ultimately. That said, our emotions are no less real because of that and we're bound to act in a certain way. Appreciate it, it's kinda cool" is very unscientific. An elegant universe is cosmologically speaking a widely accepted fact. Like i said it's not only about emotions or life being able to rise up from non organic world. The anthropic principle is not important here. If we trust our capability of seeing and observing physical sciences we come to conclusion that our universe is elegant. Laws of physics and the structure of our cosmos are just few evidences. You could say it's all illusion if you were on the multiverse train. But you are not. You have only one universe which came to existence once and is elegant enough to produce even life. Saying here that it's not elegant seems to me like some nihilistic emotional statement. But it leaves you free somehow- you don't have to explain the fine tuning. The problem is- it is still very much fine tuned, like it or not.

Yeah.. these claims wouldn't pass any real scrtutiny, I can tell you that much. It's a pseudo-scientific, philosophical point at best. But anyway. Being kinda acquainted with modern physics, as it's related to my field - no real peer-reviewed scinentist argues for static, eternal cosmos theory by now. The expanding universe is the standard paradigm indeed, but no need to mix the multiverse theories in.

Oh yes, static eternal cosmos is long gone with the work of Einstein, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow, Penzias and many others. Even Penrose and Hawking did their share. Vilenkin too. https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4658 Yet people still chase eternity in cycles or eternal multiverse bubbles. Because if there was a beginning then how did it produce something elegant like our universe or a multiverse. Not all multiverse models claim there is an eternal and infinite creation by the way but it's not far away from that really with very many variants. Infinity is not mathematically beautifully if you are working on some models but that is what you want to be honest. You want that if there is no space for God let's say.

I completely agree with you here, disagreeing with only purely naturalistic take on things (take that assumes that the absolute reason to any existence of anything is purely mechanic). Your take on this is something that many theists would like to hear. Multiverse would put Judeo- Christian concept of creation in odd light. It all would be random and non specific. Closer to Hinduism and Kabbalah. Your view (and my view too) on the way cosmos exists after it comes to existence is similar: we believe it had a beginning and is expanding.

I don't and I admit that. A honest position to hold at this point. And again, it isn't a 'product of randomness' and no honest academic assumes that. Not to mention, how do you define the term in the first place? You know, it's kinda arbitrary.

So you are kinda running from the question itself if you don't believe in randomness? You just leave the whole question open. There are potential candidates but you seem to reject them all. If you are waiting for modern science to choose one of them for you then they already did so. From the purely naturalistic view the multiverse and cyclic models are the only possible explanations for our observable universe. Now the problem is - if they explain fine tuning, what explains them? They kinda have to be some eternal and infinite creating machines or laws in that sense.

I meant just what I've said - there's no evidence for a probabilistic-based universe-spewing machine. The way it got to be was probably bound to happen, but again, so what, really? Don't assume an intent behind it before you have a clear case. Always better to stick with the non-thorough explanation with all the evidence behind rather than outright inventing one out of the blue.

"The way it got to be was probably bound to happen" sounds like God or static eternal cosmos, which has been gone for a while. And this is the reason the whole conversation exists, we simply have to explain our universe. Saying "it just had to happen" is not scientific, it's exactly the opposite. We don't have such laws of physics to deliver all of that. It looks more chaotic yet very epic. Everything does indeed look organized from the very beginning but not in the way that something purely mechanical could produce such an elegant universe (unless we jump on the multiverse train). It seems like our universe shouldn't have happened but if it was an anomaly what caused it? The reason it happened was the fact there was a chance or rather a possibility for it (this is popularized as something out of nothing which kinda only brings superficial quantum tricks in the game explaining only certain aspects of the whole cosmic craziness). Physics don't like anomalies or something which breaks laws of physics. We don't even have a quantum gravity theory by the way so the whole concept is still unclear. Now how can you get all of the matter, space- time, energy, laws of physics and a tiny cosmological constant we needed with a random chance? Also inflation partly responsible for all we have in an expending universe is finely tuned, we just don't know the mechanism behind it. I don't see any variants rather than but some Cosmic mind or some eternal machine spewing out many very workable variants. Because again, you need laws or magic for something like our universe to happen. That eternal machine could fall under some brave interpretation of quantum physics to be honest which is what multiverse theories are largely based on- quantum magic. Here- everything exists because all possibilities are possible. Naive thinking of course. However, they will think the same about you and me. Who is right? Who is more scientific? Very arguable.

It would be regarded as a piece of evidence if this was a court case, I assure you. Of course it's not a conclusive proof all the way, but nobody claims that anyway. Are we to colonize billions of galaxies before the soul rip happens, for whatever reason? Even the heath death of the universe is gonna happen sooner than that. If a Creator wants only us, chances are, he probably wouldn't bother for 13,5 billion years of mingling with dirt in a radiation-filled void to create us in the first place. No matter whether it's expanding or not.

That would be a very bad court case, because like i said universe is not void but full of dark matter and dark energy instead. Also we don't know too much about black holes, they seem to be some regions of space with a very dense mass and a huge gravity pull. I don't see how this is for or against God in any court case. They are anomalies, something for us not to comprehend with tiny minds, since laws of physics don't apply to them. Assuming our understanding of them is right.

I would rather focus on human suffering than an elegant, expanding, infinite looking universe if i was searching for an argument against the existence of God. Universe can be indeed harsh looking but if we go by pure logic it's too elegant to reject the fact its fine tuned. It's our home to be honest. Our planet is safe from the radiation regardless what happens in other spots of the universe and all the dirt God was playing with (let's both pretend God exists) is made of beautiful elements needed for anything in planets and life. Sometimes very strong secular views make it unnecessarily nihilistic in my opinion. I don't see it as the best logic. I don't think that the longevity of our universe should scare us. We needed all those billion years for things to form. Who said God has to create things by snapping his finger- that would remind a static and super infinite universe. God did it in the way we can now observe to some degree, not in the way we can't observe, because if he creates everything in one second, it's hard really to see that flowy evolution of elements and matter getting organized. But even life seems to have happened unlikely soon, regardless how we feel about time. Many argue that life happened as soon as it could. Also, that expanding part shouldn't be taken lightly. We needed that too. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016...erse-expanding

[Methuselah]

I can't speak freely about that subject or I'll get banned

Why is that? Come on, we need all ideas and thoughts on this subject.

The universe is very butt ugly, insects are there to proof...
Damn, i can't even sleep because of the little motherfuckerz.
But seriously, the more you think about aesthetics, the less the universe will look elegant.

We need bugs too. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/n...-food-macneal/ I live in Finland so unless it's summer time i don't think about them too much. And i can agree with you on that- buzzing little creatures are not my friends, but we still need them.

[pulstar]

Its fine tuned for life just in this epoch

[Methuselah]

Its fine tuned for life just in this epoch

So you would go with this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confor...clic_cosmology

[pulstar]

So you would go with this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confor...clic_cosmology

Not really, I believe in creation ex nihilo, but I guess its the closest (from the given options) to how I imagine it.

[Annihilus]

By the way we say it is fine tuned for life but it could be say fine tuned for black holes and life is a byproduct.

Come to think of it, this universe is quite hostile to life as we know it. Maybe there are universes where life as a percentage to all mass and energy is much much higher and we live in a shitty one.

Maybe there are other forces that are set to near zero in this universe and we have no way of ever discovering it. Forces that thrive in other universes that allow for things we couldn't begin to imagine.

[Methuselah]

Not really, I believe in creation ex nihilo, but I guess its the closest (from the given options) to how I imagine it.

Interesting. I'm smelling some Platonism there. Your view could be explained as some Judeo- Christian and Buddhist blend, no? There is a beginning, but the universe is eternal in cycles. God seems to be doing some sort of unnecessary work here. Unless previous cycles are somehow preparing next cycles for life in some strange way. Of there is no God in this concept we have a strange beginning for a self organizing universe. Universe dies in cyclical models before it starts to expand again. This is a crazy sounding chain, cosmos kinda rearranges itself, after dying. It's problematic without epic magic.

By the way we say it is fine tuned for life but it could be say fine tuned for black holes and life is a byproduct.

We don't really know much about black holes, at least not too much. They might not exist. If they do exist, which is not a bad assumption, they are very epic anomalies. They of course got to be a consequence of something, but saying our universe is fine tuned for them and everything in our universe is not taking anything away from the fact that the universe seems to be fine tuned. Maybe even fine tuned for life. Life is still a miracle and needs obviously some magic to exist, this is a tricky question, how life rose up. But laws of physics are at least making it possible for us not to fall apart to pieces.

Life is a byproduct of what? Cosmic craziness? At minimum it's a byproduct of extremely epic universe. At minimum. Let our universe be harsh in most places or not.

Come to think of it, this universe is quite hostile to life as we know it. Maybe there are universes where life as a percentage to all mass and energy is much much higher and we live in a shitty one.

Life is a miracle of some sort. Everything points to this. The fact that even an elegant universe is mostly empty of life is something worth noting. All that enormous space universe has is needed to have life.

What do you mean by "Maybe there are universes where life as a percentage to all mass and energy is much much higher and we live in a shitty one"? What maybe there are some universes full of life? You need so many things to have life, perfectly balanced things. A planet of right size and right distance from the sun, working laws of physics, universe expanding at the right speed. Advanced life on earth in our solar system is a miracle too big to say that we live in a shitty universe. Now some might say that maybe there is a universe in some other dimension popping out off quantum soup which is full of smart aliens but it's all pure fantasy and i'm not even sure if that scenario would be a good definition of a better universe. Maybe is always maybe. But reality is reality. And in reality we needed a miracle and our elegant universe to get life here. However, using our imagination is something that paved the way for any development. http://nautil.us/issue/49/the-absurd...iverse-of-1686

Maybe there are other forces that are set to near zero in this universe and we have no way of ever discovering it. Forces that thrive in other universes that allow for things we couldn't begin to imagine.

If they are set to zero they are non existent for us. Do we need to think about them? Same goes for other universes, many multiverse theories assume that different universes are not really connected as some realms. Some argue tho that there are dimensions and everything is connected and already exists in different variants. Hugh Everett was close to this type of thinking. He thought all the magic we see in quantum world is possible because all realms are connected and the wave function never collapses. A very brave take on quantum mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett_III Nonetheless, let there be zillions of other universes, they don't explain our universe which is perfect enough for life to exist. We don't know how life rose up, but we know it's possible for advanced life to exist in our solar system. If we try to explain our existence and our universe with other universes and abstract ideas of the multiverse, then we need to explain the mechanism behind the multiverse.

Anyway if this is your take on things/ you see this type of scenario the most probably to explain our existence it would be worth thinking what kind of mechanism drives this whole multiverse and what is the ultimate source of it. It must be quite fine tuned to work in order to produce everything or anything really. If it produces some more epic and some less epic variants at the same time as it produces our universe- it's still producing fine tuned variants and can be considered as fine tuned. It's just a bit random type of creation and is quite a perverted view on things. It will make things very strange for both sides- scientific puritans and Abrahamic theists. The whole saga will remind of some Hindu cyclical stuff or Kabbalistic creation. Or actually it will be even worse than that since it will produce many non working variants too. Again multiverse is a strange place for science to be in- anyone can bring any ideas if this is the case. There might be eternal creation Andrei Linde likes to talk about with different laws of physics or there might be same stuff what we have here. A lot of same stuff what we have is what they start with because it's the most logical start. So even with multiverses it's preferable to start with something we have here and know more about. Now they might say "listen, just because we can't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist". But we can answer that "just because we can think that something can exist beyond our eyes and sometimes beyond our imagination doesn't mean it's logical to assume it exists or can exist". All of this talk goes back to the fact that we don't know if anything rather than this universe can exist. Yet this universe has to be explained and the most probable explanation lies beyond this universe and beyond the whole concept of Big Bang, which depicts only first steps of creation. So the ultimate truth is beyond our scientific possibilities, very possibly will always be. But that doesn't mean there are no good explanations for things. There seems to be some sort of creation which makes it very tough for modern Buddhists at least, since they put their trust in secular eternity and infinity.