Is the Universe FINELY TUNED for Life?
PLUS Bonus Section- If NOT can you TRUST your COGNITIVE FACULTIES?
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Has chance finely tuned the universe on a knife-edge?
Ever wondered what would happen if the gravitational force was stronger or weaker by the smallest fraction?
Or if the universe expanded at a slightly faster or slower rate? Or if the initial distribution of mass energy when the universe began was different?
Or if light had a different velocity?
Or, at a minute nuclear level, if the ratio of proton to electron mass was slightly different?
Or when you drink water considered the importance of the polarity of the water molecule for life?
Stephen Hawking
Atheist Sir Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time, shared his thoughts:
"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life" (p. 125).
You fiddle with any of these parameters in the seemingly most insignificant way and life as we know it is made impossible.
How many finely tuned parameters?
There are many more parameters we could cover. Some minimalist lists cover 22 parameters while maximalist lists can include parameters of around 140!
Some specifics
Stephen Hawking estimated if the universe’s rate of expansion, the second after the Big Bang, was smaller by one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would simply have re-collapsed into a hot fireball (Brief History of Time, p.123).
British physicist P.C.W Davies, calculated a change in the strength of gravity or of the weak force by one part in 10100 or a change in the relevant initial conditions of the universe by one part in a thousand billion billion zeroes would have prevented a life-permitting universe (Other Worlds 1980 and The Anthropic Principle 1983 ).
In the Road to Reality, Oxford physicist Roger Penrose estimates that the odds of the initial low entropy state of the universe occurring by chance alone are 1 in 1010(123).
If the cosmological constant that controls the expansion speed of the universe were slightly more positive or negative by 1 part in 10120 the universe would fly apart or collapse respectively (Richards, Fine Tuning Parameters, 2020).
Water
Coming back to water, Jay Richards notes, “The polarity of the water molecule makes it uniquely fit for life. If it were greater or smaller, its heat of diffusion and vapourisation would make it unfit for life.”
Life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge
It is perhaps no surprise that Paul Davies concludes, “The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly.”
A super intellect monkeyed with physics, chemistry and biology?
Or that astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, though commencing his career as an atheist concluded in The Universe: Past and Present Reflections, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Where does this leave you- necessity, chance, or design?
Philosopher William Lane Craig notes the 3 key options here are that the universe is this way by necessity, chance, or design.
However, there is no reason to think the universe is this way by necessity. Paul Davies suggests “it could have been otherwise (The Mind of God, p. 169).”
In light of the statements above by Hoyle and Penrose it seems doubtful that chance is a feasible explanation.
Besides, does chance flip a coin or reflect the odds when a coin is flipped?
As Hoyle notes, the most common sense interpretation is that a “superintellect” intended for things to be this way for life to be permitted.
What about the multiverse?
A common argument sceptics respond to the fine-tuning with is the multiverse theory, where some sort of “multiverse generator” generates an unlimited number of sufficiently different universes meaning that one universe will eventually permit life.
Finely tuned mechanism?
Yet, such a mechanism itself would need to be finely tuned to allow sufficient variation between generated universes and work off a constrained list of “finely tuned” parameters that need to be varied.
Occam’s Razor
Moreover, suggesting an infinite number of universes just to explain our own goes against Occam’s Razor where the best explanation is normally the one that makes the fewest assumptions.
Cannot be detected, measured, observed or proved
Finally, as Craig highlights the existence of a multiverse cannot be detected, measured, observed or proved. Critics contend it lacks testability and falsifiability.
Postulating an infinite number of universes is perhaps more of a metaphysical theory to avoid the existence of God.
The suspicious poker dealer analogy
Plantinga provides an analogy in Dennett’s Dangerous Idea. As the hypothetical poker dealer who deals 20 consecutive sets of 4 aces to one individual in a row says to those who complain, “Possibly there is an infinite succession of universes, so that for any possible distribution of possible poker hands, there is a universe in which that possibility is realized; we just happened to find ourselves in one where someone like me always deals himself only aces and wild cards without ever cheating.”
So where does all this leave you? Is there any life-permitting intent behind the universe? Chance has no intentions.
Bonus section- What has this got to do with cognitive faculties?
The argument from the fine-tuning of the universe is not about arguments for various types of evolution but about the universe at large.
No intention, no purpose, accidental and chance-based
If one believes the universe stems from an intentionless, purposeless, and accidental chance-based process, this is the same process that would give rise to their perceived cognitive faculties.
Presuppositions of science
Intentionless, purposeless, accidental and chance-based.
That’s not what makes a coherent argument. It’s not what provides the basis for assuming logic and immaterial mathematical laws apply to science, or that the universe is rationally intelligible or that tomorrow will likely be like today (uniformity). In other words, atheistic assumptions go against the foundational presuppositions used to practise science.
Are your thoughts in practising science a meaningless flux of atoms?
As Lewis, eloquently highlighted in Is Theology Poetry?, “If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry, and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.”
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. -Psalm 19:1
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