Sure, fwiw. Existential possibility shouldn't be mixed with statistical chance.

I was hoping for a succinct way to say it, and you gave it to me. Thanks!

Some versions of the Fine Tuning Argument for God's existence remark that our existence is too improbable to be the product of chance - that it's absurd to attribute it to luck. Is it? Consider how these two cases differ:

1. Mary is lucky to be alive! She was on a flight to Detroit, and the plane crashed killing 98 of the 100 people on board.

2. John is lucky to be alive! Had his parents not had sex on that particular day, uniting that specific sperm and ovum - he wouldn't be here. The same is true of each of his parents, as well as every pair of ancestors throughout biological history. Consider the odds that JOHN would come to be!

Mary beat the odds, a 98% mortality rate. The reason she happened to live could be analyzed in terms of exactly where she was seated, the nature of the crash, the planes structural differences from one part to another, etc. Similarly, the 98 people who died were unlucky that they weren't sitting in the exact right spot.

Did John beat some odds? If he did, they were astronomical: consider how many potential sperm-egg combinations could possibly have occurred over the course of history. Can we say that the people that DIDN'T emerge are unlucky? It seems to me that something that doesn't exist can't be considered to be lucky or not-lucky. It seems therefore that John couldn't lose, because losing means not existing.

We could say that John is lucky in some sense, but not in any analyzable sense. Therefore no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from it. This seems similar to the "luck" of our improbable existence that is the result of the (presumed) low probability fact that the structure of the universe happens to be life permitting.

Thoughts? — Relativist

The way Stephen Hawking put it in "A brief history of time" if over X time you roll a trillion sided die a trillion times you'll eventually roll an 18 if you desired to roll an 18.

I don't think probability is the best way to argue for religion.

We could say that John is lucky in some sense, but not in any analyzable sense. Therefore no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from it. This seems similar to the "luck" of our improbable existence that is the result of the (presumed) low probability fact that the structure of the universe happens to be life permitting. — Relativist

The "probability" of John being born as a result of chance circumstances is a rather iffy concept: you have to make a pretty arbitrary choice of random variables and their distributions in order to estimate it. But at a stretch one can perhaps make some sense of it.

With the fundamental physical laws the situation is much worse: what probabilities could possibly mean in this case is anyone's guess. We only know about this one universe; there is no statistics, no generative model. What probabilities could we be talking about?

The "probability" of John being born as a result of chance circumstances is a rather iffy concept: you have to make a pretty arbitrary choice of random variables and their distributions in order to estimate it. But at a stretch one can perhaps make some sense of it. — SophistiCat

Sure, the denominator of the probability is still finite - but it's so large that it makes it surprising that any actual person is alive. On the other hand, it's imminently reasonable that SOME people exist. This is the tension. It's erroneous to apply this to individuals to "prove" they shouldn't be expected to exist, because we should expect SOME people to exist.

In terms of the FTA, life (or intelligent life) is one sort of existent, but there infinitely many sorts of existent. So IMO the analogy holds.

I'm wondering if this can be described mathematically.

The way Stephen Hawking put it in "A brief history of time" if over X time you roll a trillion sided die a trillion times you'll eventually roll an 18 if you desired to roll an 18.

I don't think probability is the best way to argue for religion. — christian2017

Lots of people think the FTA is the very best way to prove God. I don't think so, and that's why I'm pondering this issue.

Hawking's right, but for the sake of discussion, I'm assuming there is exactly one roll of the dice - where each die represents a fundamental constant, whose many sides are the possible values it can take. My take on it is that there are no preexisting players who "win". Each roll is as likely as any other, and the consequences of a roll are irrelevant. The consequences are the sorts of thing that exist in the universe. These consequent existents weren't players, any more than were WE players in the procreation lottery.

It is possible that "something" always existed with no gods involved...and any particular "John" came about by chance. It is also possible there is a god (or are gods) who figure into the situation some way.

WE DO NOT KNOW WHICH OF THESE IS THE REALITY.

Nothing wrong with speculating for the fun of speculating...but any calculations or "probability estimates" are not any better than flipping a coin with "heads" being the former and "tails" the latter.

There also is nothing wrong with making a blind guess...although I feel the coin toss has more dignity.

Having said that...I acknowledge that some people guess one way and some the other.

No big deal.

The notion of luck is rendered irrelevant if adequate time is available and by "adequate" I mean time in terms of googol years or larger. Even events with near-zero probabilities will actualize given the right amount of time, no?

A failure of the FTA does not prove God's non-existence. But if the FTA is a failure, it's one less reason to believe there is such a thing. I'm focusing on the alleged "luck" issue that I've seen bandied about - we're (supposedly) lucky that the fundamental constants happened to result in a life-permitting universe, and the argument is that it entails such a high degree of luck that it can't be the product of chance. If there were some meaningful probabilities involved, that might be reasonable. But it's no more meaningful than the improbability of us existing as individuals.

The way Stephen Hawking put it in "A brief history of time" if over X time you roll a trillion sided die a trillion times you'll eventually roll an 18 if you desired to roll an 18.

I don't think probability is the best way to argue for religion.
— christian2017
Lots of people think the FTA is the very best way to prove God. I don't think so, and that's why I'm pondering this issue.

Hawking's right, but for the sake of discussion, I'm assuming there is exactly one roll of the dice - where each die represents a fundamental constant, whose many sides are the possible values it can take. My take on it is that there are no preexisting players who "win". Each roll is as likely as any other, and the consequences of a roll are irrelevant. The consequences are the sorts of thing that exist in the universe. These consequent existents weren't players, any more than were WE players in the procreation lottery. — Relativist

thats fair.

The notion of luck is rendered irrelevant if adequate time is available and by "adequate" I mean time in terms of googol years or larger. Even events with near-zero probabilities will actualize given the right amount of time, no? — TheMadFool

Yes - that's one way to address it, but it depends on the assumption that there is some sort of infinity of possibilities (infinite past, infinite space, infinite universes). That can be debated, and I'm tired of theists claiming I'm using the multiverse as a means to "escape" the obvious conclusion ("god").

My issue seems more straightforward - cutting the FTA off at the knees. Assume one universe: the "luck" of our existence is meaningless - no conclusions can be drawn from it.

Yes - that's one way to address it, but it depends on the assumption that there is some sort of infinity of possibilities (infinite past, infinite space, infinite universes). That can be debated, and I'm tired of theists claiming I'm using the multiverse as a means to "escape" the obvious conclusion ("god").

My issue seems more straightforward - cutting the FTA off at the knees. Assume one universe: the "luck" of our existence is meaningless - no conclusions can be drawn from it. — Relativist

CONTRADICTIONS would still be impossible - they're supposed to have zero probability of happening.

Agreed, but can you identify a relavent contradiction?

Sure, the denominator of the probability is still finite - but it's so large that it makes it surprising that any actual person is alive. On the other hand, it's imminently reasonable that SOME people exist. This is the tension. It's erroneous to apply this to individuals to "prove" they shouldn't be expected to exist, because we should expect SOME people to exist.

In terms of the FTA, life (or intelligent life) is one sort of existent, but there infinitely many sorts of existent. So IMO the analogy holds.

I'm wondering if this can be described mathematically. — Relativist

Well, I brought up one difficulty with any such mathematical description: in order to be able to talk about probabilities at all, we need to have random variables and their probability distributions. And there had better be good reasons behind the choice of both the variables and the distributions.

Already in the case of the "lottery" of being born we can see many difficulties in this regard. Depending on what we consider to be the chance circumstances and how we treat those chances, we can get wildly different results. For example, we could, like in so many romantic comedies, consider the first time the two future parents met due to some happenstance. What were the chances of them being in the same compartment on the train on that day? We could go on and estimate those chances using some simple probabilistic model of ticket sales, which might give us a small probability, but not inconceivably so. But we could take a completely different route - like, for instance, in your OP, and get a result that differs by many orders of magnitude.

There is an endlessly variety of such probabilistic models at our disposal, each giving a different result, and there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to prefer one over another, if all we want is to estimate the chance of being born in some very general sense. This uncertainty exposes the meaninglessness of such probability talk even in this intuitively suggestive example: there is no "general sense" of the probability of being born. There can only be a sense relative to some chosen model. Generally speaking, the choice of the model is dictated by our interest in the matter: what is under our control, what isn't, what we know, what we don't know, and what we wish to know.

In the case of the universe's fitness for life the situation is that much worse. Nothing is under our control. We know nothing about the reasons for the universe being the way it is, nor whether such reasons even exist. (And if they did exist, that would only push the question further, forcing us to ask about the reasons of the reasons, and so on.) We can't infer distributions from observed frequencies, because we only have this singular instance. If in the previous example we could at least idly pick among many possible probabilistic models, here there aren't even any models to pick. What are the random variables? How are they distributed? It's impossible to answer. So what could the probability of the universe being fit for life even mean?

But supposing, contra the above, that we can meaningfully answer the question about the probability of the universe being fit for life, I do get what you are saying.

This seems similar to the "luck" of our improbable existence that is the result of the (presumed) low probability fact that the structure of the universe happens to be life permitting.

Thoughts? — Relativist

There has been a lot of discussion along these lines. John Leslie offered a now well-known firing squad analogy: You face a firing squad of trained marksmen. Shots are fired, but to your immense surprise, you find that they all missed. Are you justified in inferring that the marksmen intended to miss? Leslie argues that a similar scenario in the case of the universe's fundamental constants suggests two alternative explanations: God or multiple universes. Objections have been put forward in terms of gambler's fallacy and observation selection effect, among others. You can find many such debates under the heading of anthropic reasoning (see also SEP entry on fine-tuning). Although I believe that the considerations that I gave above preempt any such debates with respect to the universe as a whole, I still think that they are instructive.

Water and carbon are some of the most common substances in the universe. Quantum superposition of phase states in elementary particles such as atoms has been proposed as a means for molecules to evolve in many ways simultaneously, which possibly makes emergence of basic organic chemistry from the inorganic extremely rapid, maybe an almost inevitable occurrence in numerous circumstances. Enzyme/replicator hybrids called ribozymes have been found in the cytoplasm, likely descendants of a missing link between metabolic and genetic mechanisms. Fossil records of the Cambrian explosion prove that adaptive radiation in eukaryotes can happen very quickly once sufficient symbiosis between prokaryotes is attained. It has been shown in the lab that novel symbiosis between microscopic organisms such as amoeba and bacteria can develop in only weeks. Plausible explanations exist, and the more that science progresses, the more probable biological evolution seems. We're lucky, but not such that macroevolution from atoms to earth's current ecosystems by mutation and natural selection isn't a viable theory. And this has absolutely no implication for whether or not God simply exists.

There has been a lot of discussion along these lines. John Leslie offered a now well-known firing squad analogy: You face a firing squad of trained marksmen. Shots are fired, but to your immense surprise, you find that they all missed. Are you justified in inferring that the marksmen intended to miss? Leslie argues that a similar scenario in the case of the universe's fundamental constants suggests two alternative explanations: God or multiple universes. Objections have been put forward in terms of gambler's fallacy and observation selection effect, among others. You can find many such debates under the heading of anthropic reasoning (see also SEP entry on fine-tuning). Although I believe that the considerations that I gave above preempt any such debates with respect to the universe as a whole, I still think that they are instructive. — SophistiCat

One of my hobbies (or obsessions) is to debate theists on their Fine Tuning Argument for God (here's my current one - I'm called, "Fred"). I've read a number of papers, including the SEP article, and I've read debates and seen videos where its defended. I have observed that the most common rebuttal to it is the multiverse hypothesis. I don't think that's the best approach because it concedes too much - in particular, it concedes that life needs to be explained.

Awhile back, someone on this forum posted a link to this paper: The Fine Tuning Argument. The author (Klaas Landsman) argues that the existence of life is not a good reason to infer either a designer OR a multiverse. My reasoning is based on that paper, so have a look if you're interested.

Consider the firing squad you mention. The shooters have a target. Why should we treat life as a target? Here's an outline of my reasoning:

1. There are many possible universes with a different set of values for the fundamental constants
2. Each possible universe has the same low probability of existing
3. Therefore there’s nothing remarkable about any specific universe existing (i.e. the universe is a lottery winner: someone was going to win despite every ticket holder having a low probability of winning - all had the same chance).
4. The winning universe happens to support life, but every universe begets consequences that would not obtain in the others so that has no relevant implications.

Proponents of the modern fine tuning argument accept that life in this universe is fully explainable. What they argue is that life-permitting universes should not be expected. This is because there are fundamental constants in the laws of physics (like the cosmological constant, the mass of the Higgs boson, the gravitational constant...) that appear to be "fine-tuned" for life: had any of these constants differed by even a small amount, such things as chemistry would not be possible (there would not exist atoms that could form chemical bonds). They argue that these constants are finely tuned to allow life.

As I just mentioned to Sophisticat, this assumes life was a target - a design objective.

Who says life can't adopt as many different forms as existent universes? Maybe life can exist in many possible universes. The "laws" of physics are based on models of our universe, not every possible universe.

↪ Who says life can't adopt as many different forms as existent universes? Maybe life can exist in many possible universes. The "laws" of physics are based on models of our universe, not every possible universe. — Enrique

I understand, but here's their perspective: the textbook laws of physics are our best guess at the actual laws of nature, so they are a reasonable basis for analysis.

Why the obsession with life? So what if life is only possible in this universe? How is that a problem?

My instant reaction is to think we should be seeking a comprehension of how life exists in the universe to improve stuff, not assuming that the very existence of all this life implies our universe is somehow ideal. Ruins the entire purpose of the intellectuality when we hem ourselves in with a view that current knowledge must be the foundation for all conceivable circumstances in relation to a particular issue. The fine-tuning argument seems like disingenuity diminishing certain beliefs about spirituality that should actually be respected for entirely different reasons, one more teleological shenanigan to possibly estrange all kinds of dudes and dudettes from the pursuit of mutual progress. But maybe this is looking at it with excessive seriousness, could merely be a good conversation starter about physics. I'm not inclined towards the view of reality as governed by absolutes, and not a fan of ideological camps.

Proponents of the modern fine tuning argument accept that life in this universe is fully explainable. What they argue is that life-permitting universes should not be expected. This is because there are fundamental constants in the laws of physics (like the cosmological constant, the mass of the Higgs boson, the gravitational constant...) that appear to be "fine-tuned" for life: had any of these constants differed by even a small amount, such things as chemistry would not be possible (there would not exist atoms that could form chemical bonds). They argue that these constants are finely tuned to allow life.

As I just mentioned to Sophisticat, this assumes life was a target - a design objective. — Relativist

There is no reason to assume that life as we know it was the specific target. The creative process itself is open-ended, and not so much an application of power and influence from ‘above’ towards a specific design objective, but rather an interaction aimed at whatever increases awareness, connection and collaboration overall. It’s initially an unselfish and undirected process, exploring possibility and potential within material limitations.

Agreed, but can you identify a relavent contradiction? — Relativist

Well, it seems the FTA has a flaw. It claims that the universe is fine tuned for life as a whole but that would mean the universe was fine tuned for microbial pathogens as well as humans but these two examples of life are counterexamples of the universe being fine tuned for either. I mean microbial pathogens shouldn't exist if the universe were fine tuned for humans and humans shouldn't exist, with their antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and all, if the universe were fine tuned for microbes.

Since all life maybe reduced to such mutually harmful relationships, I would think twice before suggesting any fine tuning for life. Perhaps it has an evilish entertainment value as a paradox: the universe is fine tuned for life but not fine tuned for the living.

Well, it seems the FTA has a flaw. It claims that the universe is fine tuned for life as a whole but that would mean the universe was fine tuned for microbial pathogens as well as humans but these two examples of life are counterexamples of the universe being fine tuned for either. I mean microbial pathogens shouldn't exist if the universe were fine tuned for humans and humans shouldn't exist, with their antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and all, if the universe were fine tuned for microbes. — TheMadFool

The point is not that the universe is perfect for life, but that it is perfect enough for life to evolve even if individual organisms can suffer, while others of the species manage to procreate. And it seems to me you are interpreting FTA as necessarily part of a benevolent God model. This need not be the case. The problem is the utterly, incredibly low chance that a universe would be hospitable to life or even complex patterns at all. THAT is what shocked many physcists. And while few of them were theists, they suddenly felt they needed an explanation for why amongst all the seemingly possible universes this one balanced on a point where life could evolve. And, they, not advocates for a benevolent deity, began looking at reasons it might be like this. Answes included multiverses or at least a more extended universe where other conditions elsewhere that were not conducive to life also existed in parallel or at a distance from our neck of the woods. People who had no interest in proving a deity or believing in one found the conditions of the universe so strange they started to look around for possible explanations. Other people, outside these physicists, with other beleifs and paradigms also became interested in this issue. But extremely smart, non-theists, solidly within the scientific paradigm, were the ones who first felt there's a problem This is too radically unlikely. And for some it was precisely to ward off religious interpretations they rushed to find some other way of explaining this - such as a multiverse where different sub universes have different fundamental laws and constant. And some of them, despite not being theists, do believe in a strong version of fine tuning .. That for reasons unknown the universe IS tuned to make life.

We know that a universe with life in it exists (otherwise nothing would be known anyways). It may be that that means that there is a high probability in this type of universe that life will inevitably take shape based on the conditions. I think the real hidden value that should be questioned here is why life is considered so different than other physical processes. One can say that any other physical thing "may" not have happened if certain other events before that didn't take place. We are quite amused at our own place in the universe, probably unwarranted, but inevitable being we are a self-aware species, and awe at our own being would seem common for such a species.

There is no reason to assume that life as we know it was the specific target. The creative process itself is open-ended, and not so much an application of power and influence from ‘above’ towards a specific design objective, but rather an interaction aimed at whatever increases awareness, connection and collaboration overall. It’s initially an unselfish and undirected process, exploring possibility and potential within material limitations. — Possibility

You seem to be claiming there was an objective to "increase awareness, connection, and collaberation." Why think that?

Well, it seems the FTA has a flaw. It claims that the universe is fine tuned for life as a whole but that would mean the universe was fine tuned for microbial pathogens as well as humans but these two examples of life are counterexamples of the universe being fine tuned for either. I mean microbial pathogens shouldn't exist if the universe were fine tuned for humans and humans shouldn't exist, with their antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and all, if the universe were fine tuned for microbes.

Since all life maybe reduced to such mutually harmful relationships, I would think twice before suggesting any fine tuning for life. Perhaps it has an evilish entertainment value as a paradox: the universe is fine tuned for life but not fine tuned for the living. — TheMadFool

The claim is not that the universe is tuned for each specific type of life - that entails a complex set of objectives. It's just the broad claim that it seems "tuned" for life - because no kinds of life would be possible had the constants had different values.

I think the real hidden value that should be questioned here is why life is considered so different than other physical processes. — schopenhauer1

Yes, and that's related to my Op. Consider the enormous (infinite?) number of possible things that would exist if other universes had existed instead of ours. Each type of thing had the same, infinitesmal chance of coming into being. Consider the odds against YOU coming to be, vs the enormous number of possible people that weren't so "lucky".

The claim is not that the universe is tuned for each specific type of life - that entails a complex set of objectives. It's just the broad claim that it seems "tuned" for life - because no kinds of life would be possible had the constants had different values. — Relativist

That's the problem in my opinion. Suppose the fine-tuned physical parameters for life are like a set of conditions imposed on a group of people. If these conditions didn't favor any one member of the group wouldn't it be the heights of foolishness to say the conditions favored the group as a whole. The exact logic applies the the fine tuning argument.

That's the problem in my opinion. Suppose the fine-tuned physical parameters for life are like a set of conditions imposed on a group of people. If these conditions didn't favor any one member of the group wouldn't it be the heights of foolishness to say the conditions favored the group as a whole. The exact logic applies the the fine tuning argument. — TheMadFool

I don't follow. One can favor Croations without favoring individual Croations.