fine tuning
Lately I’ve been having a lot of discussions with atheists about the subject, and a recurring argument they make is “How can you claim that the universe is tuned for life when, for the most part, there is no life at all?/The sun gives us cancer, what’s tuned for life in that?”
I assume the mistake stems from a misunderstanding of what it means to be adapted to life, but so far I have not found an answer that will convince them. Can the Rabbi point me in the right direction? I hope you are not asking this question too much.
The statement that the universe is tuned for life is vague and therefore difficult to discuss. It is true that it could have been more tuned (at least in my understanding).
The physico-theological argument is different. If you randomly select different sets of laws, the chance that such a system without a guiding hand would create living beings is zero (life has low entropy). The fact that the system of laws in our universe created life means that it is special. In that sense, it is directed towards the creation of life.
Of course, one can still ask if this was the intention, why didn’t it do it in a more focused and unambiguous way? Just as they make it difficult for evolution, which has a lot of fallout (creatures that went extinct due to incompatibility) to create the next links in the chain (which will also go extinct, some of which will change to something more sophisticated, and some of which will be a dead end in the evolutionary process, which seems even more unnecessary and unintentional).
I have two comments on this:
- God wanted the world to develop and be governed by a rigid and fixed system of laws. This is a clear assumption and it is also possible to understand the rationale behind it (it is very difficult for us to get along in a world that does not operate according to laws. We would not know what to expect and how to behave in various situations). Once we have accepted this, the burden of proof is on the challenger: prove that there is a more efficient rigid and fixed system of laws – that is, one that will give all the desired results (living creatures and the structure of the world) without the bad effects (degradation, diseases, disasters, etc.). As long as you have not shown that such a system exists, you cannot make it difficult why God, if He exists, did not create a world with a better system that is more suitable for life. It is like asking why He did not create triangles with a sum of angles of more than 180 degrees. This is the triangle and anything with more degrees simply would not be a triangle.
- You cannot know what importance the fallout has, and the parts of the universe that are not related to life. It is quite possible that they also have a role, either for us or another role (for God). Therefore, the assertion that they are unnecessary is unfounded.
In general, I say this. The physico-theological argument is similar to Pastor Paley’s clock argument. If you see a very special and complex clock, you assume that there is a watchmaker who made it. It is unlikely that it was created alone. Now you see that the clock is not working optimally (in your opinion). Is it correct to conclude from this that there is no watchmaker? Of course not. After all, it is still complex and special, and therefore it is unlikely that it was created by itself without a guiding hand. At most, you should conclude that you do not understand the “head” of the watchmaker. To conclude from this that there is no watchmaker is logical and probabilistic nonsense.
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