Q&A: Fine Tuning
Fine Tuning
Question
Hello Rabbi, I’m truly very grateful to you for the lengthy reply to the previous question!
1) Is the argument that a small deviation in any value would lead to life not being created accepted by all scientists? All the constants? From Wikipedia (the fine-tuning entry) it sounds like there are those who disagree. Has the Rabbi studied the topic and that is the conclusion he reached?
2) I’d be happy for examples of constants, and articles in Hebrew that deal with the subject, because the articles that exist in this area in Hebrew are either by atheists or by Messianic Jews (and who better than the Rabbi knows how reliable they are).
3) I also heard that there are those who claim that life does not necessarily require carbon in order to arise.
How good it is that there is a site like this on the internet, truly an oxygen balloon after visiting those awful atheist sites.
Answer
- It seems to me that yes. At most one could argue that other values would produce other creatures. I have heard those claims, but in my opinion that is nonsense (I explained this in the book).
- I’m not familiar with articles in Hebrew that deal with this. But I don’t think the atheists are any more reliable than any other religious sect. You can read Christian materials on this issue. In Hebrew I don’t know of any. I think Aviezer wrote about it, but I’m not sure.
- Life requires chemistry and biology. If there is some other form of life without carbon, that is possible (I’m not knowledgeable enough to examine that), and it is still clear that they too would require a different fine-tuning.
Discussion on Answer
I watched it and there is nothing new here.
1. He talks about distances and temperatures, and explains that these can change. But the question is not about the values of physical states, but about the values of the constants. Obviously, different distances and different temperatures would only change the nature of the living creatures (that is, instead of us there would be creatures with a different scale that would fit those other scales).
2. He talks about relationships between constants, and again that changes nothing. It is fairly obvious that changing the values of the constants while preserving the same ratio would allow creatures identical to us to form, but on a different scale. The question is about changes in values that do not preserve the proportionality between them, or a change in the equations themselves (and not just different constant values in the same equations), or laws that are not equations at all.
3. He talks about constants that are determined with probability 1 by Einstein’s equation. The question is who determined the equation itself. Again, his argument is within the laws, whereas I am talking from outside them.
4. He talks about the formation of universes with different constant values out of black holes. The problem is that the black holes themselves were formed out of a well-defined physics (=quantum theory and gravitation), and the question is who created that.
Bottom line, there is nothing new here. The usual nonsense.
Wow, I’m really grateful to you, Rabbi!
Sorry for barging into the discussion, but I didn’t understand what you explained to him in the last section, number 4. Why does it matter that the multiple universes come out of a physical system? At the end of the day there are infinitely many universes here (let’s say), and that’s it—the argument from complexity falls.
Not at all. The black holes are the product of only one particular system (a quantum-gravitational system of laws), and the question is how it itself came to be. This is like the distinction between an argument within the laws and an argument outside the laws in my article here:
And is it even scientifically accepted at all that universes are created this way?
Additionally, if there are infinitely many universes that stem from the laws of quantum theory, then the subject of the physico-theological argument is the complexity of the mechanism for producing universes, and not the complexity of life in our universe. So even a multiplicity of universes that stems from special laws refutes the argument from life, while leaving intact the argument from universes—a new argument.
It feels to me a bit like the Rabbi is using the word “complexity” in an unclear way.
In the physico-theological booklet, the Rabbi uses the word “complexity” for something statistically unique.
But here suddenly the Rabbi relates to complexity in another sense. As though it means a complex operation.
And the moment the Rabbi uses it in this context, the question about God comes back—namely, that He is complex and needs a composer.
Danny, I have no idea (and I assume that in any case these are speculations and not findings). But as I explained, even if so—it does not matter for our purposes.
If you transfer the universes to monsters, then the argument will deal with monsters. That has no importance.
Assaf,
Why does it matter? Complexity is something that does not arise without a directing hand.
Thank you very much.
Here, for example, in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t10fDLfSV88
from minute 5:00 to 7:00 there is a rejection of 3 constants. Unfortunately I don’t understand English, so maybe the Rabbi could help me with this. Of course, only if I haven’t crossed the line of chutzpah and bothering you.