You're assuming too much. The FTA, if it were successful, would only entail a creator who wanted life. It does not entail a creator who gives a damn what they do to each other. — Relativist

Is there no contradiction? We're more or less opposed in our views; let's suppose we contradict each other. Does it make sense then there could be someone who supports both of us?

Heavy metals are (relatively) "rare" and they are also "significant". Are they significant because rare? Certainly organic molecules could not form without carbon. Typically one reason things become viewed as "significant" is because they are unique or special in some way.

There could be someone who disagrees with both of you.

But the problem is that science assumes that there’s a lawful regularity in the cosmos. But it doesn’t, and probably can’t, explain why there’s such an order. It’s simply given. — Wayfarer

Not only that, but scientists generally assume that the laws of nature as we observe them operating today have always operated that way; or at least, that they have operated that way ever since very soon after the alleged Big Bang. What justifies this assumption? Why not consider the alternative that the laws of nature have evolved over time, and perhaps are still (very slowly) evolving? What would count as evidence either way?

There is evidence. Rupert Sheldrake has had this idea for a long time and recently there has been evidence found that contants and laws change, at least some of them.

I actually got the idea from Charles Sanders Peirce, who was advocating it more than a hundred years ago. Again, what is being considered as evidence for it today? What are the ramifications for Big Bang cosmology?

True. But I think that the significance of "rare" is itself connected to teleology. Rare things are significant because of their use for us, either in terms of productive use or as status symbols.

As for special and unique, it seems to me humans are special and unique, individually as well as as a species. We imbue everything with our own personal meanings.

I used to have a list of links. I'll do a little googling....
https://physicsworld.com/a/changes-spotted-in-fundamental-constant/
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html
http://news.discovery.com/space/is-the-sun-emitting-a-mystery-particle.html
https://www.livescience.com/29111-speed-of-light-not-constant.html
https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/is-the-speed-of-light-slowing-down

Sorry, not finding more or better ones. I actually wrote to Rupert Sheldrake if I found anything that supported his view. Sometimes he'd always seen them, but not always, which was fun for me. There were a number of signs that laws may change and also constants, some of the evidence strong.

Which was an aristotilian deity, outside the chain of being and some sort of pure intellect. I don't think we need either the implied dualism or this kind of pure intellect. Perhaps we do, perhaps it would entail a separate creator, but I can't see how this could be demonstrated. (given my own beliefs, which are theist, I don't have a problem with the conclusion, I just think whatever the argument would be speculative and likely carry assumptions out of our everyday lives into cosmological issues.) I don't think Hawking's cosmology which is FT based is theistic or even deistic. (though I will concede in advance I am not sure I truly get it. But I see no diety in there.) — Coben

I believe the Aristotelian deity entails a first cause, so it wouldn't be outside the chain of being. This at least was Flew's interpretation, and I believe this is what is entailed by the FTA if it is true.

I'm glad to have a theist respond to this thread. Tell me if you embrace the claim that the improbability of our existence entails an explanatory gap. Some versions of the FTA depend on there being such an explanatory gap. My Op was intended to falsify this claim.

The real context here is not theist vs. non-theist, but one group of physicists (and not a group of theists) arguing with others. FT came out of non-theist physicist concerns that the chance of a universe right for life seemed so radically small it bothered them. Right or wrong it seriously bothered a group of non-theist physicists. And it bothered other physicists enough to try to find a rebuttal, some of these along with some of the first group thinking that a multiverse offered an elegant solution. Later theists heard about FT and used it also. — Coben

That's a reasonable description, but I submit the source of the problem was the perceived explanatory gap that I rebutted in my Op: the premise that life should be "expected". That premise is not derived from Physics. The false premise has been characterized and rebutted in a variety of ways, but I haven't seen it rebutted in terms of an epistemological principle as I did in my (revised) op.

Not only that, but scientists generally assume that the laws of nature as we observe them operating today have always operated that way; or at least, that they have operated that way ever since very soon after the alleged Big Bang. What justifies this assumption? Why not consider the alternative that the laws of nature have evolved over time, and perhaps are still (very slowly) evolving? What would count as evidence either way? — aletheist

That's of course possible, but what's the motivation to propose that? It seems to me the motivation is the premise that our improbable existence entails an explanatory gap that must be filled. The purpose of my Op was to dispute that, and I revised it yesterday to identify a principle that distinguishes between cases where explanations are required, and where they are not.

Aren't you implying that the existence of heavy metals doesn't require an explanation for their existence, and therefore neither does life? Arguing with analogies (which I often do) always leaves an escape hatch: simply identifying what's different between the two cases.

So, although I agree with you about this, I revised my Op to remove that escape hatch. I provide a general basis for rejecting the premise that there is an explanatory gap for either heavy metals OR life.

Perhaps some people couch it as 'expected', for me Fine Tuning arguments entail that is not some potentially never would have happened little side effect of the inevitable stuff. Something that is explicit or implicit in many physicalisms (not that it need be) or perhaps better put by a large number of physicalists, including many scientists.

Tell me if you embrace the claim that the improbability of our existence entails an explanatory gap — Relativist

It might be on a subliminal level. But it's not an argument I make. It could simply be that life lucked out. The only universe that is happens to have conditions that allow for life, perhaps even make it likely or very likely. Of course I'm (also) a pantheist, beyond being a theist in a more traditional sense, though not one that would make any of the big religions consider me a member.

Thanks for the links, I will take a look when I get a chance.

That's of course possible, but what's the motivation to propose that? — Relativist

The motivation is simply to challenge the widespread and usually uncritical assumption that the laws of nature have remained essentially unchanged for billions of years. It seems to me that the only motivation for that is to enable us to extrapolate our present observations into the very distant past, which I find highly dubious.

It seems to me the motivation is the premise that our improbable existence entails an explanatory gap that must be filled. The purpose of my Op was to dispute that. — Relativist

I was not commenting on the OP, only the specific post to which I replied. As a theist, I happen think that fine-tuning arguments are interesting, but by no means demonstrative. On what rational basis could we assign a prior (im)probability for the boundary conditions of the only existing universe to which we have access?

My intent for this thread was to discuss the claims in my Op. — Relativist

That is presumably the intent of every author of an OP, but side issues inevitably come up as the thread develops.

Is there no contradiction? We're more or less opposed in our views; let's suppose we contradict each other. Does it make sense then there could be someone who supports both of us? — TheMadFool

And still be rational? Not if the contradiction is truly present.

What is it that you refer to as ‘I’? What information are you basing that ‘certainty’ on? And how are you certain of that information? — Possibility

I regard it as an innate, incorrigible believe that is unanalyzable in terms of a priori principles. In short: it a basic belief, a foundation for every other belief. The "certainty" is nothing more than the incorrigibility.

Because we can trace evidence of informing interaction back as far as the Big Bang. — Possibility

No one was being informed at the time of the bog bang. There is no ontological connection to our epistemic inferences about the big bang.

Not sure that it implies that anything requires an explanation? Heavy metals are "rare" due to the way that they are formed (with respect to the rest of the cosmos) and likewise fulfill the rare functions that they fulfill because of their "ontological matrix". I think assuming teleology is unwarranted, but also perhaps unnecessary. A carbon atom is no more mysterious than a hydrogen atom, but opens up a whole universe of new possibilities.

Not sure that it implies that anything requires an explanation? Heavy metals are "rare" due to the way that they are formed (with respect to the rest of the cosmos) and likewise fulfill the rare functions that they fulfill because of their "ontological matrix". — Pantagruel

Humans are likewise rare for the same reason. But one could make a fine tuning argument that the fundamental constants must have been finely tuned so that X would be produced, because X is otherwise very improbable. (for X=heavy metals or humans).

Nevertheless, this is different than the case of Mary. There must be some explanation why she would live rather than die.

I think assuming teleology is unwarranted, but also perhaps unnecessary. A carbon atom is no more mysterious than a hydrogen atom, but opens up a whole universe of new possibilities.

I agree.

Not only that, but scientists generally assume that the laws of nature as we observe them operating today have always operated that way; or at least, that they have operated that way ever since very soon after the alleged Big Bang. What justifies this assumption? — aletheist

Parsimony, obviously. If an explanation works well enough, why complicate it without reason? More importantly, if a law is changing over time, then as long the change is itself regular, it simply becomes a dynamic component of the same law.

Why not consider the alternative that the laws of nature have evolved over time, and perhaps are still (very slowly) evolving? What would count as evidence either way?

They are being considered. At various times changes in fundamental constants have been hypothesized. For example, Dirac, in an attempt to explain the enormous disparity in coupling strengths in the present-day universe, proposed as part of his Large Number Hypothesis that the gravitational constant has changed dramatically over time. But such changes (and even much subtler changes) leave their marks in the universe, which is why Dirac's hypothesis was quickly falsified with data. But other such hypotheses are considered even today, so it's not true that this is some kind of taboo.

By the way, I brought up Dirac for a reason, because, unlike the theistic argument, scientific discussion of fine-tuning is framed not so much in terms of "gee, how lucky we are to live in such a special universe," but in terms of the so-called naturalness of physical laws - which is what bothered Dirac so much. Already back then the seeds of the problem of fine tuning were planted, well before Carter et al.

The role of "surprisingness" has been discussed in the context of fine tuning, drawing on more general epistemological considerations (e.g. in the work of Paul Horwich). White, whose discussion of the inverse gamble's fallacy I think you have mentioned, comments on it. I'll see if I can dig up more.

Cool. Thanks!

Parsimony, obviously. If an explanation works well enough, why complicate it without reason? — SophistiCat

I don't think that's parsimony. It's just an assumption. There is no need to make the assumption that laws are eternal. We can work with what seem like rules now, and black box whether these rules may have changed or may change. You do not have to commit to something you don't know. Further there is evidence that constants and laws have changed.

I regard it as an innate, incorrigible believe that is unanalyzable in terms of a priori principles. In short: it a basic belief, a foundation for every other belief. The "certainty" is nothing more than the incorrigibility. — Relativist

I recognise that at some point we feel compelled to draw a line to protect the integrity of the system. Something must be incorrigible, but that something is not necessarily ‘I’. There is enough potential information available to doubt one’s own incorrigibility, and yet we tend to exclude this information in a Cartesian-style retreat from the uncertainty of subjective experience. Descartes misunderstood: we don’t increase certainty by excluding doubtful information.

That ‘I’ exist is not a certainty, but is relative to an event of limited duration and fragile relational structures.

No one was being informed at the time of the bog bang. There is no ontological connection to our epistemic inferences about the big bang. — Relativist

I didn’t say anyone was. But our epistemic inferences about this event can only be made as a relational structure of potential information relative to actual observations and measurements. Something was actually ‘informed’ for a potential event five seconds after the Big Bang to exist. Prior to the Big Bang, however, is another story.

Not only that, but scientists generally assume that the laws of nature as we observe them operating today have always operated that way; or at least, that they have operated that way ever since very soon after the alleged Big Bang. What justifies this assumption? Why not consider the alternative that the laws of nature have evolved over time, and perhaps are still (very slowly) evolving? What would count as evidence either way? — aletheist

Interesting question - Rupert Sheldrake gets into trouble for saying the speed of light has fluctuated over time, and he also says that the laws are like habits, as does C S Pierce.

But in respect of the ‘six numbers’ that Lord Martin Rees writes of in his book of that name, as I understand it, there’s no scope for variability. There are relationships of very precise values, and ‘non-natural’ values, which as I understand it is also a philosophical anomaly, without which nature would not have been able to start to form any habits whatever.

Again, it’s not to say that ‘God did it’, but just to again draw attention to the limits of the notion of ‘chance’ in this context. I mean, anywhere else in science, the assertion that something happened due to chance would simply regarded as the absence of an hypothesis!

I don't think that's parsimony. It's just an assumption. There is no need to make the assumption that laws are eternal. We can work with what seem like rules now, and black box whether these rules may have changed or may change. You do not have to commit to something you don't know. Further there is evidence that constants and laws have changed. — Coben

Your last sentence contradicts what comes before it. If we can have evidence that constants and laws have changed, then we can have evidence for the contrary. And the balance of evidence for the known laws and constants is so far on the latter, although as I said, every once in a while someone proposes that some constant is actually non-constant (e.g. the cosmological constant). Such proposals are settled by evidence, because as Faulkner famously said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

If we can have evidence that constants and laws have changed, then we can have evidence for the contrary. — SophistiCat

Yes, I agree. One can have evidence, and there is evidence that laws have been around for a long time, with at least a great deal of consistancy, and even at some distance from earth. IOW consistancy through space and time. There is also evidence coming in that some have not.

But my first sentence is talking about the idea that if there is a pattern or constant then it is either eternal or does not change in whatever finite time we have.

THAT is the assumption. There can be, then evidence to support this, sure. But the very concept of a natural law, rather than not weighing in that patterns that get called laws must be eternal, is an assumption.

No contradiction. I think using the idea of natural laws as a heuristic has been helpful, but it may be confused and we can be aware of just as, say, Newton's conception of space and time and rules he developed within that model were extremely useful, but it turns out his concept of absolut space and time were wrong.

It's a paradigmatic assumption. I am not blaming scientists for having gone with it. We work from local to more distant time and place. But that assumption that these things do not change is not parsimonious since one need not make that assumption and one can still use all the, for example, mathematical models that work now and seem to have been in place for a while. It's not less parsimonious NOT to make that assumption. Less assumptions cannot be less parsimonious.

I regard it as an innate, incorrigible believe that is unanalyzable in terms of a priori principles. In short: it a basic belief, a foundation for every other belief. The "certainty" is nothing more than the incorrigibility.
— Relativist

I recognise that at some point we feel compelled to draw a line to protect the integrity of the system. Something must be incorrigible, but that something is not necessarily — Possibility

"Incorrigible= not able to be corrected or reformed. That applies here. This is not an arbitrary assumption we pull out of thin air. No one has to be talked into it. Perhaps you've talked yourself out of it, but the only basis seems to be that it's possibly wrong. Possibility is not a defeater of belief. If you treat it as such, then you can have no beliefs other than analytic trurhs.

The issue with the constants straddles the line between physics and metaphysics.

Perhaps the values of the constants are set by natural law. If not, their values are brute fact. The FTA treats them as brute facts that could have differed.

It's a paradigmatic assumption. I am not blaming scientists for having gone with it. We work from local to more distant time and place. But that assumption that these things do not change is not parsimonious since one need not make that assumption and one can still use all the, for example, mathematical models that work now and seem to have been in place for a while. It's not less parsimonious NOT to make that assumption. Less assumptions cannot be less parsimonious. — Coben

Parsimony entails explaining the available facts with the fewest assumptions, not with entertaing the possibility we are missing some facts.

That said, it is reasonable to seek scientific explanation for why the constants have their values. Scientists should not accept brute facts.