Q&A: The Truth of Fine-Tuning
The Truth of Fine-Tuning
Question
I was speaking with a friend of mine about the physicotheological argument, and in the course of the conversation I simply assumed that there is fine-tuning in the world—that is, that if the constants of nature were even slightly different, ordered structures could not exist, let alone life forms and consciousness—and that this is a fact requiring explanation. My friend (who understands science better than I do) said that in his view the very claim that there is fine-tuning is highly speculative, because it is very hard for us to assess what would happen in a world with different constants or laws of physics. It could be that complex structures would arise, just of a completely different kind that is hard for us to grasp. Afterwards I saw that indeed quite a few scientists are skeptical about the assertion that there is fine-tuning. Do you think there is a convincing reason to believe that there is fine-tuning, and that this is not merely a speculative claim?
Answer
This is the standard claim atheists make against this argument, but it is a mistake. It is obvious that if we were to randomly generate some arbitrary system of laws, nothing complex would come out of it, and certainly nothing that would persist over time. I dealt with this in The First Existent. The complexity of the product expresses the complexity (and uniqueness) of the laws that produced it.
Discussion on Answer
Because it is obvious. If someone declares otherwise, I have nothing to add. Someone who says that a complex thing was created by chance and sees that as reasonable can also say that 2+3=-11.
That is not correct. What you define as “complex” is completely subjective. If you walk down the street and see the letter A engraved in the ground, you will be sure it was made by a human being, but snowflakes (whose shape under a microscope is extremely complex) would not strike you as something necessarily made by a person.
See Professor Aviezer’s refutation on this matter:
https://books.google.co.il/books?id=yLruOc_oujQC&lpg=PA53&hl=iw&pg=PA58#v=twopage&q&f=false
I haven’t read it. If you want to write an argument, then write it.
There is a clear definition of complexity, and it is definitely not in the eye of the beholder. The second law of thermodynamics defines it well.
Snowflakes were created not by man but by the Holy One, blessed be He.
This argument purports to prove the existence of a God who created the world because the world is complex and could not have come into being on its own. If you claim that snowflakes were created by the Holy One, blessed be He, then you are begging the question, and this argument is worthless from the outset.
The refutation, in brief, is this: “Complex” is a subjective definition. We attribute meaning to what we see and feel based on the knowledge and experience we have accumulated over the course of our lives. What seems “complex” to us may seem meaningless to someone else. It is a matter of perspective and instrumentation, as with snowflakes.
All right, I see a short lesson in logic is needed here.
The physicotheological argument is based on the assumption that a complex thing is unlikely to have arisen by chance. The complexity under discussion is defined objectively (low entropy). The claim that entropy does not decrease on its own except with directing intervention is the second law of thermodynamics. That is the logic underlying the physicotheological argument. It is not based on observations, nor on snowflakes from years past, but on considerations of probability or plausibility (see at the end about the difference). Thus, for example, living creatures are objectively an astonishingly complex thing, since their entropy is far lower than that of inanimate objects. This is not in the eye of the beholder. Therefore their formation requires explanation.
Now you claim that complexity is a subjective matter. This is of course a mistake. If it were subjective, there would be no law in physics forbidding a decrease of entropy in a closed system (without the involvement of a directing hand). Physical quantities (such as entropy) have an objective definition; otherwise physics itself would be in the eye of the beholder.
You further claim that a snowflake is also complex and yet arose on its own. That claim is trying to refute the physicotheological argument. To that I replied that it does not refute it, because the directing hand (God) is also what underlies the snowflake. Note that I am not assuming this as the basis for my proof. The proof is a priori, as I explained above. I mention this only to reject your snowflake objection. My claim is that it does not refute the existence of God, since God made that too. So there is no begging the question here at all.
And one final note. Your snowflake argument can be interpreted in two ways: 1. The snowflake is not complex (despite appearances), since it arose on its own. 2. The snowflake is complex and nevertheless arose on its own, and from here there is proof that complex things can arise by themselves.
Meaning 2 contradicts the laws of physics and probability. From your wording it sounds like you mean meaning 1 (that complexity is in the eye of the beholder). But that too contradicts the laws of physics, since there are objective measures of complexity: low entropy. So now you must decide: is your claim that the formation of snowflakes contradicts the laws of physics, or is your claim that they are not complex, in which case they are no proof for the matter at hand (because life is complex)?
One further clarification. The physicotheological argument is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. I use entropy to define complexity, but I am not claiming that the formation of life, for example, contradicts the laws of physics. There are various explanations for how life can arise without a directing hand—for example, that its entropy comes at the expense of entropy in the environment. Even if that is correct, it answers the laws of thermodynamics, but not the philosophical logic (which rules out the chance formation of complex things like life, even if it comes at the expense of the environment). Therefore this is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. That is what I meant above when I distinguished between probability and plausibility. Probability underlies the second law of thermodynamics, but plausibility belongs to philosophy.
“The philosophical logic” that rules out the chance formation of complex things is completely subjective, because what looks to you like scribbling on a piece of paper, likely formed randomly, will look to someone else like a sentence in his native language that was necessarily written by another person.
The snowflake argument is not a claim on the scientific level but on the philosophical level; its purpose is to show that what intuitively seems to us like something formed randomly and lacking complexity may in fact be very complex.
True, I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, but even I understand what I’m told after two or three explanations. There is no need to repeat it a fourth time. For the same reason, I also see no need to repeat my answer a fourth time.
All the best.
Why is that obvious? There are claims by physicists that in a large enough number of possible systems of laws, forms of “life” would arise, or things ordered enough to “surprise” us. Not necessarily life in the form we know, but things at the same level of complexity. At the very least, they argue that we have no good way of knowing that this would not happen in other systems of laws. Where exactly do you think they are mistaken?