I see no other way of explaining the anthropic principle other than the multiverse theory We used to believe the earth was all there was until we learnt of stars, then galaxies, then super clusters of galaxies If the laws of natural selection are a precipitate in this 3 dimensions + 1 time universe, then there is no other reason not to believe that: 1.) The universe is finite 2.) There are other universes These universes are encapsulated in a substrate called the multiverse where some radiate slower than others and some don't, some form weak atomic structures and some don't, others form perfect atomic configurations for galaxies and planets to form edit I don't believe in the Many Worlds interpretation of QM where parallel universes exist in 3 dimensions + time. 2, infinities cannot exist in a 4 dimensional universe where heat death is inevitable, the 4th dimension produces entropy + inflation which is at odds with infinities Whatever infinity this universe came from has to be of a higher dimension than 4
It seems weird to me.. to say that we used to believe Earth was all there was, then we learned about other planets and stars.. then learned about galaxies.. and then assume the universe is finite. To me, that would be like if you lived back when we first learned about other planets and stars and saying "well.. that's all there is.. just planets and stars.". Also.. you don't need to explain the anthropic principal. You could simply just reject it. We don't even know how life appears.. so you can't say that if one detail were changed, then life wouldn't have appeared. There could be a billion, or even an infinite amount of different ways for life capable of observing the universe to form.. no reason to narrow your focus to just one.
If the universe had a beginning and is expanding then it has to be finite, we know how galaxies formed in the early universe and there is a finite amount of stuff the universe could be made of. See us as a fish in the ocean, everywhere we look it's just water and no matter how far or fast we swim all we see is water. It would be natural to say the ocean was infinite right? But what if you gave us tools to study the water or gave us a compass or brought us to an island or dissect a whale would we still be convinced the oceon was all there was and that land was not a possibility? Non carbon based Lifeforms could exist but they would be highly unlikely in a universe with no galaxies, If you take life out the picture we still have an incredibly fine tuned universe: If the strong force were weaker or stronger by 1% there would be no heavy elements anywhere in the universe If the force binding nucleons was 0.006 only hydrogen would exist. If it was 0.008 no hydrogen would exist and no stars could form The precise number of electrons are equivalent to the number of protons 10 to the 37th power, an analogy commonly used: Cover the entire North American Continent with dimes and pile them to the moon. Find 1 billion other continents the same size and do the same. Paint one dime red, blindfold a friend, and ask them to pick a dime. The chances that they randomly pick the right dime is 10 to the 37th power. There are others like the cosmological constant you can find here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
Another one is the the force of gravity, which is determined by the gravitational constant. If this constant varied by just one in 10 to the 60th power (10 followed by 60 zeros,) galaxies wouldn't form. To understand this imagine a dial divided into 10 to the 60th increments. To get a handle on how many tiny points on the dial this is, compare it to the number of seconds that have ticked by since time began (10 to the 20th pwer). If the gravitational constant had been out of tune by just one of these small increments, the universe would have expanded and thinned out so rapidly that no galaxies could form To me, coincidences like these are too significant for them not to mean something
The universe having a beginning and expanding does not automatically mean it is finite. We know that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, so if the universe had a beginning.. that would simply mean that that beginning was the end of something else.. and that something else's beginning was the end of something else.. and so on and so on. With an infinite universe, it literally has no end, no boundaries.. so it is capable of expanding within itself. So having a beginning and expanding does not prove or disprove an infinite or finite universe. As for comparing us to a fish.. if we swam forever, we would eventually hit a boundary. Sure, it'd be natural to say that it went on forever.. until we hit a boundary. Have you ever seen a boundary to the universe? I highly doubt it. The rest just seems like gibberish mimicked from someone else's argument for what you're arguing.. but none of that can prove the universe and life can't exist with those changes. Just that it wouldn't exist how we know it to be. Our universe has laws of physics.. but if you were to alter the characteristics that those laws come from, you would alter the laws. There is no reason to assume that if you did, the universe and life wouldn't exist.. just wouldn't exist how we know it. PS - When I get home, I can link you several articles.. but we do not know how galaxies formed in the early universe. I have, or had, a collection of articles that talk about galaxies in the early universe. They don't exactly adhere to what we thought. Many scientists are seeing galaxies that are supposed to have been from the early universe.. but are much much more mature and developed than they should be. So instead of questioning the age of the universe, they simply go "well.. that just means galaxies in the early universe formed and developed faster for some reason, just need to figure out why.". Also, no where in no shape or form has science proven that there is a finite amount of "stuff" the universe could be made of.. not sure where you're getting that from.
My point with the fish was to say that just because the sea seems infinite does not necessarily mean it is infinite in reality, the universe could be finite and still have no edge or boundary like the surface of a sphere And If you think the argument for a fine tuned universe is gibberish I suggest you read up on it more cos this guy is probably talking gibberish too: "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." Stephen Hawking If you think this is just 'coincidence' then i don't know... For me, there is no reason why the force of gravity, electromagnetism or the nuclear force are the strengths they are or why some subatomic particles are hundreds of times heavier than others. Stars or even atoms would have never formed if even one of these values where changed by just one tenth of one percent. The cosmological constant cannot be varied even 0.000000000000000000001 percent without destroying the universe as we know it. Martin Rees formulates the fine-tuning of the Universe in terms of the following six dimensionless physical constants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe "- N, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, is approximately 10~36. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.[10] - Epsilon (ε), the strength of the force binding nucleons into nuclei, is 0.007. If it were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. If it were 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang.[10] - Omega (Ω), also known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.[10][11] - Lambda (λ) is the cosmological constant. It describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10−122.[12]This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant was not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.[10] - Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.[10] - D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4.[10]"
I do not believe the universe is fine tuned. I believe the apperent fine tuning is merely a result of equal opposite reactions. There is no "if one force was slightly stronger" that's just silly. Whatever happened first and sparked the universe, had an equal and opposite thing that happened after. Eventually it balanced out. -Yuri
Its not a coincidence. Its just the only way it could have turned out. "If" any constant was different, so too would all the other numbers. The claim that if the constant was off slightly the universe couldn't exist is unfounded. -Yuri
You should read up on it Yuri, the universe is incredibly fine tuned way beyond coincidence, check out this video by Brian Green it should provide some visuals for you
Read the whole wiki article, there are smarter way more qualified people than me and you who are in broad agreement that the universe is incredibly fine tuned
I'll be honest.. I don't give much merit to an argument which simply repeats the personal opinion of other people, but yes, it is gibberish. As great of a scientist as Einstein was, he still believed in a form of god. I don't hold that against him.. but it just goes to show that no matter how smart someone is, they're still a dumbass with something. Same with Hawking and any other intellectual you want to point at. I never said it was a coincidence.. but it is simply order through chaos. Like with the formation of atoms or even subatomic particles.. there is really only a select amount of ways they would come into existence. That is the order that we see.. but the chaos is a soup of energy all mixed up and before the ordered particles that we see came into existence.. there was a chaotic mess of unstable particles trying to come into existence. If you need to simplify it, think of a triangle. There is only really one way for a triangle to exist, 3 sides joined together with 180 degrees between all 3 angles. That is a stable triangle.. but if you tried to make a triangle where the degrees didn't add up to 180, it would collapse. Now imagine subatomic particles as triangles. In the chaotic mess of sides and angles.. a countless amount of unstable triangles will try to form until a stable triangle appears, and when it does.. you can either willfully ignore the chaos that went into the order, or you can acknowledge the chaos and the order that came out of it. Anyone who argues for a finely tuned universe, that is one where it appears there is something other than the mindless, chaotic universe doing the tuning.. is being willfully ignorant of the chaos. Like Yuri said, the physical characteristic(s) of the universe that we see is really the only way it could have come into existence. There is nothing special about the characteristics that formed and why they formed that way.. just a natural product.
This is as close minded as religious folk saying 'God did it' dont know if you see that or not The work I posted above is the work of foremost cosmologist and astrophysicists who work in the field (including Guth and Linde who discovered inflation theory, which btw leads to no possible alternative other than a multiverse theory) So calling leading scientist's work gibberish simply because it doesn't fit your world view is arrogant in my opinion
this isn't leading anything. Its all philosophy based on math You cannot make the claim "if this constant was off by even 0.00000000000000000001% there wouldn't be a universe" That's just silly. I don't care how many doctorates you have. Who's the one who's idea is akin yo religion? Lol The fine tuned idea is not based in reality. Its not based on any science at all. -Yuri
Sorry champ, but no. All you're doing is cherry picking pieces out of other peoples' work to fit your own belief.. evident by you saying that the inflation theory can only lead to the multiverse.. which is asinine.. but you go ahead and follow other people and not yourself. PS - I never said Hawking's work is gibberish.. just that his personal opinion on one aspect of the universe is. Big difference that would have been seen with some reading comprehension.
Also.. since all you seem to be doing is riding the coattails of prominent scientists.. take a ride on Victor Stenger's. A particle physicist who wrote the book "The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning". It's a book where he dismantles fine-tuning and shows how it is delusional to believe the universe was finely tuned by anything other than itself.. a mindless, God-less universe.
The point is, that none of the constants have any reason to be what they are, it's like earth, why arent we on Venus or Pluto? The answer is obvious - earth's distance from the sun means it is neither too far or too near, too hot, nor too cold to support water, we're in the goldilocks zone Now see the universe the same way. Not for life but rather for particles and atoms and forces. This universe is in a goldilocks zone. It has the right setup for matter to form, if it were 'too hot' or 'too cold' it would be out of this zone Do you get me now? On the inflationary cosmology and the multiverse see this lecture by Alan Guth My points in summary are these: There are physical constants in the universe If these were different the universe would be different (has been proven in computer simulations) Cosmic inflation predicts the universe is one of countless others I'll suggest a book back called 'Just six numbers' by Martin Reese, wont read yours cos its geared more at debunking creationists's arguments And enough with the ad hominem, i'm referencing the work of a reputable scientist no need for me to write my own paper just to argue on a stoner board
There is a reason I don't give a damn about what a scientist, no matter how smart they are, has to say about a fine-tuned universe.. because it is not a scientific query, it is a philosophical one. It really boils down to personal opinion.. so all you're going to have is individual scientists stating their personal opinion and parroting what they say. As for the Goldilocks zone.. just like there is no actual reason that Earth formed in a Goldilocks zone, it just happened to form there. You could trace a long line of cause and effect that was responsible for its formation, but there is no reason to believe that there was any special tuning. Yes, if one or more details were changed.. things would be different, but they aren't.. no point in forming a belief around a 'what if'. There are countless star systems where there isn't a planet in its Goldilocks zone.. and countless planets that are, no rhyme or reason for it other than it just happened. It's the same with the universe.. there is no real rhyme or reason to it, it's just the way it formed. If you didn't like the triangle example, imagine Lego. You go out and buy 1,000,000,000 Lego sets that are all the same set.. then you empty all 1,000,000,000 sets into one giant box. Now they would be different, special Legos. When you shake them around, if one piece touched another piece exactly how they should fit together according to the instructions.. they would join together. So when you shake all the billion sets together.. eventually through all that chaos, pieces would start to join together.. an order would appear. After so long, you would start to get whole sets.. and it would appear that there was some sort of special tuning involved, but really.. there is only one way for them to come together. That is the universe.. a soup of subatomic particles that can only fit together one way and if those subatomic particles are made up of more particles, there is only one way for them to come together.. and so on. It needs to be a chaotic mix in order for there to be a chance for some order to occur.. but there is nothing actually tuning the order. Basically, when I hear people go on about how things were just perfect for Earth to form and then for life to appear on it.. or how the universe seems like it was tuned the way it was because if it wasn't it wouldn't exist.. or specifics of how an aspect of life evolved.. all I can think of is "no shit". It's amazing no matter what.. but it's a 'no shit' kind of statement. That's why I originally said, you could just simply reject it altogether.
We got you from the start. We just don't believe that is the result of "fine tuning" It is no coincidence either. If something happens something else will happen. The result is balance. -Yuri
^ I lol at your replies I go with the experts on this thank you, people who actually work in in the field, were just stoners on an internet board