ughaibu wrote:as it is highly improbable that the universe has the features necessary to support life,

There is no statistical basis to make that claim.
We only have one universe we can investigate.

newolder wrote:

ughaibu wrote:...

Taking sides is for sports, games and pastimes.

Your post should be addressed to those who think there are sides, Surreptitious57, Eshuis, etc.

ughaibu wrote:

newolder wrote:

ughaibu wrote:...

Taking sides is for sports, games and pastimes.

Your post should be addressed to those you think there are sides, Surreptitious57, Eshuis, etc.

I forget how much difficulty you have with written English. I "think there are sides" ? Yes, I do, especially on polygons, polyhedra &c.

ughaibu wrote:

newolder wrote:

ughaibu wrote:...

Taking sides is for sports, games and pastimes.

Your post should be addressed to those who think there are sides, Surreptitious57, Eshuis, etc.

Will you stop making shit up about your interlocutors?
I have not said anything about any sides.

newolder wrote:I forget how much difficulty you have with written English. I "think there are sides" ? Yes, I do, especially on polygons, polyhedra &c.

You really do post the most unconscienable crap.

ughaibu wrote:

newolder wrote:I forget how much difficulty you have with written English. I "think there are sides" ? Yes, I do, especially on polygons, polyhedra &c.

You really do post the most unconscienable crap.

You really do post nothing but baseless claims.

ughaibu wrote:

newolder wrote:I forget how much difficulty you have with written English. I "think there are sides" ? Yes, I do, especially on polygons, polyhedra &c.

You really do post the most unconscienable crap.

That may be true but it's hardly as unconscionable as yours, is it now?

uhaibu wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
Fine tuning is not a problem in physics because were the constants any different we would not be here

Constants are one sphere in which the problem of fine tuning arises and fine tuning is a problem in physics that can be rephrased as the problem that as it is highly improbable that the universe has the features necessary to support life why
does the universe meets those highly improbable requirements ?

The question is not the problem here rather the answers that it can generate and specifically non scientific ones. So
as long as the answers are scientific or mathematical then there is no problem because fine tuning has got absolutely
nothing to do with God creating the Universe

I will now give a mathematical answer to your question :

All probabilities exist between 0 and I and as long as those parameters are not violated then even very high / very low probabilities can be accounted for. The sense of incredulity that may be expressed pertaining to such probabilities has precisely zero bearing on them as long as the maths is rigorous enough for them to be sound. Now as this is absolutely
the case with the fine tuning of the constants the figures should be accepted without condition

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:the classic eternal inflationary model of Alan Guth (later modified by Paul Steinhardt and others) predicts a multiverse.

Okay, I'll look into this, because as far as I'm aware inflation is itself an ad hoc solution, (in fact, doesn't your assertion that "it was invented to account for certain observations" amount to acknowledging it to be an ad hoc solution?).

According to Wikepedia: "One of the most severe challenges for inflation arises from the need for fine tuning". Inflation cannot be a defence to fine-tuning if it requires fine-tuning, so, whether it implies multiverse theory of not is irrelevant.

ughaibu wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:the classic eternal inflationary model of Alan Guth (later modified by Paul Steinhardt and others) predicts a multiverse.

Okay, I'll look into this, because as far as I'm aware inflation is itself an ad hoc solution, (in fact, doesn't your assertion that "it was invented to account for certain observations" amount to acknowledging it to be an ad hoc solution?).

According to Wikepedia: "One of the most severe challenges for inflation arises from the need for fine tuning". Inflation cannot be a defence to fine-tuning if it requires fine-tuning, so, whether it implies multiverse theory of not is irrelevant.

I'm not sure you are going to appreciate where Prof. Steinhardt went to from his abandonment of inflationary scenarios but, here goes...


ETA: That's just the first in the sequence. Full playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlRqQHL ... KgE7fnBdQu

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:Any such solution that requires things external to the universe is "unfalsifiable conjecture".

I'm sorry but that is just not true. There are models of cosmology that predict mechanisms that leave yet-to-be-observed effects in our local cosmic expansion if it evolved from some sort of multiverse.

In such a case there would need to be some commonality across the multiverse, which would make it a universe. I don't see how this could function as a solution.

This is meaningless semantics. It doesn't matter what you call it, the relevant matter is whether those other universes (or whatever you wish to call them) can have different values in the fundamental constants of interest. So you don't want to call that solution a multiverse? Who gives a shit? I'll call it a multiverse, and you can call it a unicorn.

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:The situation here is no different for the physicist or the theist.

It demonstrably is.

No it isn't. In both cases an ad hoc solution is proposed. There is no independent reason to think that there's a multiverse, but if there was one, it would supposedly solve a problem. The same can be said of god as a solution, though the theist would probably claim that there are independent reasons to think there's a god.

We don't currently have evidence for a multiverse no. That doesn't mean the situation is the same. I can only repeat myself, there are multiverse models that make predictions that should be observationally testable in principle. There is no God-model that predicts a certain pattern or structure in the distribution of matter in the early universe, for example.

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:It's not a prediction, it's ad-hoc rationalization.

The same can be said of multiverse theory.

No, the classic eternal inflationary model of Alan Guth (later modified by Paul Steinhardt and others) predicts a multiverse. Predicts. As in it follows from the mathematics. And it wasn't invented to solve the fine-tuning problem, it was invented to account for certain observations of structure in the distribution of matter in the universe.

Okay, I'll look into this, because as far as I'm aware inflation is itself an ad hoc solution, (in fact, doesn't your assertion that "it was invented to account for certain observations" amount to acknowledging it to be an ad hoc solution?).

Yes, inflation is an ad-hoc solution proposed to account for some observed fact of our universe. I think you have misunderstood my argument here. It is not that there is something inherently wrong with ad-hoc solutions. Necessarily, any proposed explanation for an already observed collection of data will be ad-hoc. That in and of itself is not the problem.

The problem is if the proposed solution does not also predict other testable, yet to be observed data. In order to test the proposed solution, it needs to make feasibly testable predictions. It's ability to account for the data for which it was originally proposed as an explanation, is not a test. Obviously it will be able to account for the data it is being proposed to account for, otherwise why propose it at all? The people who came up with the model would have to be incompetent.

The true "test" of any model is how it deals with future observations and new data. It is in this crucial aspect that theism fails as an account for the values and constants of physics. You won't find theist physicists having predicted the value of the fine structure constant, or the gravitational constant, 150 years ago.

It is in this way eternal inflation, while certainly had-hoc in how it was proposed to account for already observed data, also constitutes a testable scientific hypothesis (where theism does not), because eternal inflation made predictions about other data and phenomena that had yet to be observed.

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:Fine-tuning is an interesting problem, trying to poo-poo it away with cliches isn't an interesting response.

I agree on both counts, but you should really read up on some history of cosmology because you seem to have bought into some common creationistic misconceptions.

I haven't read any creationist literature about fine-tuning.

Coulda fooled me.

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:inflation is itself an ad hoc solution

The problem is if the proposed solution does not also predict other testable, yet to be observed data.

I assume you're aware that Steinhardt holds that inflation is refuted by the fact that it entails a multiverse, because in a multiverse all possibilities are actualised, so there can be no prediction to falsify a multiverse.
In any case, nothing you have said impacts the fact that inflation cannot serve as the basis for solving the fine-tuning problem, as it requires fine-tuning.

ughaibu wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:the classic eternal inflationary model of Alan Guth (later modified by Paul Steinhardt and others) predicts a multiverse.

Okay, I'll look into this, because as far as I'm aware inflation is itself an ad hoc solution, (in fact, doesn't your assertion that "it was invented to account for certain observations" amount to acknowledging it to be an ad hoc solution?).

According to Wikepedia: "One of the most severe challenges for inflation arises from the need for fine tuning". Inflation cannot be a defence to fine-tuning if it requires fine-tuning, so, whether it implies multiverse theory of not is irrelevant.

That complaint is nonsensical.

Necessarily any model proposed to account for some set of data will itself have to have some properties that make it able to account for that data. That means something in the model needs to take certain values or have some specific propertie/capacities. That will of course again just bring up the question of why it is the way it is, but there is no solution that doesn't suffer from this issue, including theism. Why would God want to create life? An assumption has to be made that that is what God would want to do. Why is God able to create universes? An assumption has to be made God has that capacity, but what explains that?

Consider this analogy of trying to explain why a particular stellar object has some observed trajectory in the night sky over several decades. You invoke an unseen object with a particular mass at some particular location that would explain the trajectory of the observed object with their mutual gravitational attraction. Now someone comes along and complains that you haven't solved the issue of the trajectory of the stellar object, because you had to invoke a fine-tuned amount of mass with a fine-tuned location to account for it. I submit that the complaint does not make sense.

With respect to a multiverse model proposed to account for the values and constants of our universe, the key requirement is that it does not itself depend on the same values it is proposed to explain. Whether that model itself in turn also requires explanation is then besides the point. The key issue is whether the proposed model makes testable predictions, and whether it explains what it is invoked to explain.

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:Inflation cannot be a defence to fine-tuning if it requires fine-tuning, so, whether it implies multiverse theory of not is irrelevant.

That complaint is nonsensical.

Of course it isn't. Obviously, I mean really really obviously, you cannot prove P if your proof requires a premise such that not-P is true.

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:inflation is itself an ad hoc solution

The problem is if the proposed solution does not also predict other testable, yet to be observed data.

I assume you're aware that Steinhardt holds that inflation is refuted by the fact that it entails a multiverse, because in a multiverse all possibilities are actualised, so there can be no prediction to falsify a multiverse.

That't not a refutation. At best that would make it untestable, not refuted.

In any case, I'm aware of that objection, and that there is considerable disagreement on that point among working cosmologists. You can see this for more:

ughaibu wrote:In any case, nothing you have said impacts the fact that inflation cannot serve as the basis for solving the fine-tuning problem, as it requires fine-tuning.

For reasons explained above this objection is nonsensical. It seems to me you have essentially reduced the problem to Agrippa's Trilemma, in that any proposed solution to a problem itself has to make certain assumptions, and so we are left with the problem of an infinite regression of required explanations. But if that is really your view, then to you nothing can be considered explained. Who put the coffee cup there? Niels did. But that can't be the explanation, because Niels is himself in need of explanation and requires all sorts of fine-tuned abilities to put coffee cups in place. How did he get those? Why do they take those values? Etc. etc.

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

ughaibu wrote:Inflation cannot be a defence to fine-tuning if it requires fine-tuning, so, whether it implies multiverse theory of not is irrelevant.

That complaint is nonsensical.

Of course it isn't. Obviously, I mean really really obviously, you cannot prove P if your proof requires a premise such that not-P is true.

Obviously, really really obviously, I did not propose to have proven P with a proof that requires not-P be true. At all.

With regard to inflationary theory and fine tuning, Andre Linde is quoted in a SymmetryMag post on The Growth of Inflation:

... The authors admit that this is only an encouraging first step. For one thing, “stringy” inflation seems to require a very complicated fine tuning, as Linde found in a paper with seven other authors. Linde says that was a record number for him. “The reason is, it took eight authors to fine-tune the parameters to get a nice inflation,” he says. ...

The (Steinhardt's) implication being that a different group of authors could fine tune another inflationary scenario to fit another data set, and so on. That is to say inflationary cosmology is no longer disprovable by any observational data.

Rumraket wrote:I did not propose to have proven P

So, you have offered no solution to the problem of fine-tuning.

ughaibu wrote:

Rumraket wrote:I did not propose to have proven P

So, you have offered no solution to the problem of fine-tuning.

On the contrary, I have done that very thing, and I reject your silly portrayal of my argument as being completely without merit.

newolder wrote:With regard to inflationary theory and fine tuning, Andre Linde is quoted in a SymmetryMag post on The Growth of Inflation:

... The authors admit that this is only an encouraging first step. For one thing, “stringy” inflation seems to require a very complicated fine tuning, as Linde found in a paper with seven other authors. Linde says that was a record number for him. “The reason is, it took eight authors to fine-tune the parameters to get a nice inflation,” he says. ...

The (Steinhardt's) implication being that a different group of authors could fine tune another inflationary scenario to fit another data set, and so on. That is to say inflationary cosmology is no longer disprovable by any observational data.

And yet there's an author of inflation (at 49:56) in the video I linked above who gives a testable prediction that, he says, would falsify inflationary cosmology. Sounds pretty unambigous to me.