Q&A: Regarding fine-tuning
Regarding fine-tuning
Question
I saw in one of the forums a link to a study claiming that in fact it would have been better if the cosmological constant were 400 times larger. What do you think?
Here is a link to the study: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.07301, and here is a link to a simple video –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXzV7zdl4oU&ab_channel=SabineHossenfelder
Answer
I don’t have time, and I don’t understand what “better” means in this context. If you have a concrete question, post it here.
Discussion on Answer
That has no significance for the issue at hand. The probability of this is very small, so it is reasonable to think there was a guiding hand. The fact that the situation is not perfect does not mean much. This is my broken-watch argument: if you find a broken watch, that does not refute the conclusion that there is a watchmaker. At most, it shows that the watchmaker’s mind does not resemble mine. His very existence does not depend on the watch’s optimality, but on the question of how likely it is that it would come into being by chance.
The paper is basically arguing that the chances of life arising would have been higher if the cosmological constant were 400 times larger. In other words, our universe is not “perfectly designed” for the creation of life. I heard a recording of yours about the argument, “What are the chances that our laws would be suitable for creating life by means of them,” so I thought it might interest you. I don’t have a specific question.