Some of you are familiar with this idea, I'm sure.
Some scientists believe a fundamental law will be discovered which can explain certain constant numbers in physics, but none has been found yet.
Anthropic principle, first postulated in 1973, attempts to explain this mystery.

The idea that life and the universe as we know it evolved as pure happenstance seems to be rather improbable.
Anthropic principle states, rather provocatively, that there must be an intelligent design to the universe. Startlingly, the seemingly arbitrary constants in physics have something in common: they are exactly the numbers you need to allow for the existence of life. To wit:

The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).

If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life.

The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on a significant scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the centre of stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12--allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds long.

A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.

In simpler terms, as anthropicist Hugh Ross states: "everything about the universe tends toward humans, toward making life possible and sustaining it" (his use of the term "humans" is arguable, perhaps "carbon based life" would be better.)

Certainly, it's too bad that Einstein isn't around to ponder this.

Those proponents of "intelligent design" theory ought to be reading this stuff. If there is any evidence of intelligent design, it is at this most level of the most basic forces of the universe, not in why people have opposable thumbs.

Do you find this at all akin to "sacred geometry"? Things like the number "phi", the golden ratio, and the other really interesting constants in mathematics like Euler's number or Planck's constant or things like that.

--PunkDavid

I'm just gonna throw this out for the sake of argument... Everyone is aware of the fact that the human brain has a natural tendency to assign meaning and relationship to all things in order to classify and try to understand it, right?
I don't know much about hard science, and I know almost nothing about the theory stated here, but it all seems a bit "putting the horse before the cart" to me.




considering we don't know about even a fraction of the universe at this point in human development, that sounds little more than arrogant.

We are not the center of the universe, but if it makes you comfortable with yourself to think this, I guess it could be true. That kind of idealogy is what makes us arrogant. We're always trying to add meaning to our existance. What meaning do you need? You are what you are, so enjoy it and do your best at being what you are. If people were less concerned about the afterlife and more concerned about the now, we'd be alot more happy I think.

They do. "Hugh Ross" is an old-earth creationist.

I'm not really sure how to say this but I think you have things backwards and are looking at the wrong end of things.

You are saying that in the equation X + Y = Z if X or Y was just a bit different we would never have Z.

I would say that it only makes sense. If the nuclear weak force been slightly weaker things wouldn't be the way they are. Well the fact remains that things are the way they are because the nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity.

The reason Ross says that "everything about the universe tends toward humans, toward making life possible and sustaining it" is because there are humans here. For me it's like "Uhh no Duh Ross!"

If insects ruled the world and breathed mud "everything about the universe tends toward insects, toward making life possible and sustaining insect life breathing mud"

I don't know how else to say it but it appears his line of reasoning is very very wrong.

Well said. I don't know why they're assuming that all of these many variables are the way they are SO THAT we would exist. I would think that it's far more logical to assume we're here BECAUSE of those variables. The enviornment was right, so POOF here we are - not Someone wanted us here so they forced the enviornment.

And there really isn't any way of knowing right now that life wouldn't have sprung forth under different circumstances, either. Just because carbon based life forms are the only kind we're familiar with, doesn't mean that this is the only kind that could possibly exist.
Arrogant seems the perfect word for it.

If there was some sort of Crea... er "Intelligent Design" involved, why create an entire limitless universe to put us on ONE of a billion gajillion planets?! Now that's just a big big waste, dontchya think?

I'm not completely faithless, but the idea that this could just all be some crazy, grand accident doesn't seem at all impossible to me. *shrugs*

As was stated before in this thread, Mr. Ross is a creationist who uses this theory to further his religious beliefs; I stated that the term "carbon based life" would be a better fit than "humans".

Factually, insects and mud are here because of the aforementioned constants in physics.

Your sentence: "I would say that it only makes sense. If the nuclear weak force been slightly weaker things wouldn't be the way they are. Well the fact remains that things are the way they are because the nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity."
only serves to reinforce the argument: you would not be here if the nuclear weak force was ever so slightly different.
Why is it 1028 times the strength of gravity? That is the question. Science, as of yet, has no answer.

Man In Black:

I guess I'm confused then as to why you posted Ross's assertions. Do you agree that this points to some sort of intelligent design or creationism?

I agree that it is the Why that is important.

What Ross is doing is linking factors with an end result stating that other factors would result in a different outcome thereby showing something meant humans to be the outcome. I don't feel this is accurate. The set of unique physical laws and conditions that gave rise to humanity is amazing, however, the complexity and rarity in and of itself does not lead to the conclusion of intelligent design.

Reading through all this I'm compelled to say that I don't think its arrogant to think that given the very precise nature of the universe, that it is was created with purpose, and that purpose is to create for life as we know it to exist. There certainly could be other forms of life (that aren't carbon-based) that exist in other universe or even exist in this universe, and we just haven't figured it out yet. There are many questions yet to be answered. But when so many coincidences lead to our existance, I don't think its an accident.

I don't believe in God, by the way.

Fine Tuned Universe

Fine-tuned universe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Our universe seems to be 'fine-tuned' (for life), because any small changes in the 20 or so physical constants would make it very different, and presumably not hospitable to life. For example, stars would not be able to fuse hydrogen and helium if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, or if the strength of the strong nuclear force had been only 2% greater diprotons would be stable and hydrogen would fuse too easily.

Another related point is that the early universe had a very low entropy, a very unlikely situation: statistical mechanics says that the most probable state of matter has a very high entropy, a state where life is not possible. The universe is now going towards that state, according to the second law of thermodynamics, resulting eventually in heat death. This paradox can be treated in the same way as fine-tuning.
Contents [showhide]
1 Does "fine-tuning" need an explanation ?
2 What are the possible explanations ?
3 How can we choose between the competing explanations ?
4 See also
5 Source


Does "fine-tuning" need an explanation ?

Some, like Stephen Jay Gould, believe that fine-tuning does not need any more explanation than a particular roll of dice that would result in a double six. Our universe had to have physical constants, and they just happen to be the ones that permit our existence. Moreover, any other combinations of physical constants may have resulted in a very different universe, one in which a human-like civilization may not emerge, but who is to say that it would not be hospitable to other, very different, forms of intelligent life?


What are the possible explanations ?

There are actually three broad types of explanations: the universe is not fine tuned, the multiverse, and the intelligent designer. While the latter two are not incompatible with each other, accepting one of them makes the other one less necessary.

* The universe is not fine tuned explanation questions whether the universe is in fact fine tuned. The fact that a universe with different physical constants might be inhospitable to life as we know it does not necessarily mean that it is inhospitable to any form of life, and there is no known way of actually experimentally verifying whether a universe allows for life or not. Further, the overwhelming majority of this universe, especially the interstellar vacuum, appears to be devoid of life; other physical constants may exist that allow a much greater density of life than in this universe. The apparent rarity of life in our universe is, however, evidence that life does indeed require 'fine tuned' conditions for existence.

* The multiverse explanation assumes the existence of a mechanism that has created many universes with different physical constants, some of which are hospitable to intelligent life. And because we are intelligent beings, we would happen to be in an hospitable one. This approach has led to a lot of research in the anthropic principle. This explanation has been of particular interest to particle physicists because theories of everything do apparently generate large numbers of universes in which the physical constants are random.

* The intelligent design explanation assumes the existence of a being, principle or mechanism with the purpose to create a universe with intelligent life. It would thus somehow set the physical constants as we know them. This agent could of course be a God-like being, but it need not be.

A probabilistic discussion (http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html) by mathematician Michael Ikeda and astronomer Bill Jefferys argues that the traditional reasoning about intelligent design from the presence of fine-tuning does not properly condition on the existence of life, and is also based on a incorrect reversal of conditional probabilities (in an example of the prosecutor's fallacy), which in this form erroneously claims that if fine-tuning is rare in naturalistic universes, then a fine-tuned universe is unlikely to be naturalistic. (In this context, "naturalistic" is taken to be synonymous with "not intelligently designed".) They offer a proof that indicates one should in fact draw the opposite conclusion: the presence of fine-tuning actually argues against intelligent design. Their main theorem — under the assumptions that (a) our universe exists and contains life, (b) our universe is "life friendly", and (c) life can exist in a "naturalistic" universe only if that universe is "life-friendly" — states that, given that our universe contains life (L), the probability, P(N|L), that our universe is naturalistic (N) is less than the probability, P(N|L&F), that our universe is naturalistic given that it is also fine-tuned. (That is, adding the assumption of fine tuning increases the probability that our universe is naturalistic, given that we know our universe contains life.) Thus, they argue ironically, supporters of intelligent design should try to prove that our universe is not fine-tuned. The philosopher of science Elliott Sober makes a similar argument (http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/black-da.pdf).


How can we choose between the competing explanations ?

The usual test for a satisfactory explanation is that it fits all known observations, and that it can make testable predictions. It remains to be seen whether the fine-tuned universe enigma can be resolved satisfactorily.

Creationist claim: The cosmos is fine-tuned to permit human life. If any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, life would be impossible. (This claim is also known as the weak anthropic principle.)
Source:
Ross, Hugh, 1994. Astronomical evidences for a personal, transcendent God. In: The Creation Hypothesis, J. P. Moreland, ed., Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, pp. 141-172.


Response:

1. The claim assumes life in its present form is a given; it applies not to life, but only to life as we know it. The same outcome results if life is fine-tuned to the cosmos.
We don't know what fundamental conditions would rule out any possibility of any life. For all we know, there might be intelligent beings in another universe arguing that if fundamental constants were only slightly different, then the absence of free quarks and the extreme weakness of gravity would make life impossible.
Indeed, many examples of fine-tuning are evidence that life is fine-tuned to the cosmos, not vice versa. This is exactly what evolution proposes.

2. If the universe is fine-tuned for life, why is life such an extremely rare part of it?

3. Many fine-tuning claims are based on numbers being the "same order of magnitude," but this phrase gets stretched beyond its original meaning to buttress design arguments; sometimes numbers more than 1000-fold different are called the same order of magnitude [Klee 2002].

How fine is "fine" anyway? That question can only be answered by a human judgment call, which reduces or removes objective value from the anthropic principle argument.

3. The fine-tuning claim is weakened by the fact that some physical constants are dependent on others, so the anthropic principle may rest on only a very few initial conditions that are really fundamental [Kane et al. 2000]. It is further weakened by the fact that different initial conditions sometimes lead to essentially the same outcomes, as with the initial mass of stars and their formation of heavy metals [Nakamura et al. 1997], or that the tuning may not be very fine, as with the resonance window for helium fusion within the sun [Livio et al. 1999].

4. If part of the universe were not suitable for life, we wouldn't be here to think about it. There is nothing to rule out the possibility of multiple universes, most of which would be unsuitable for life. We happen to find ourselves in one where life is conveniently possible because we can't very well be anywhere else.

5. The anthropic principle is an argument against an omnipotent creator. If God can do anything, He could create life in a universe whose conditions do not allow for it.

Links:
Stenger, Victor J., 1997. Intelligent design: Humans, cockroaches, and the laws of physics. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html

Stenger, Victor J., 1999 (July). The anthropic coincidences: A natural explanation. The Skeptical Intelligencer 3(3): 2-17. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/stenger_intel.html

Weinberg, Steven, 1999. A designer universe? http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm
References:
Kane, G. L., M. J. Perry, and A. N. Zytkow, 2000 (28 Jan.). The beginning of the end of the anthropic principle. New Astron. 7: 45-53. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0001197
Klee, Robert, 2002. The revenge of Pythagoras: How a mathematical sharp practice undermines the contemporary design argument in astrophysical cosmology. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53: 331-354.
Livio, M., D. Hollowell, A. Weiss and J. Truran, 1989. The anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of 12C. Nature 340: 281-284.
Nakamura, Takashi, H. Uehara, and T. Chiba, 1997. The minimum mass of the first stars and the anthropic principle. Progress of Theoretical Physics 97: 169-171. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/9612113
Further Reading:
Goldsmith, D., 2004. The best of all possible worlds. Natural History 113(6) (July/Aug.): 44-49.

From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CI

Again the reason we think that way is because we look at ourselves and see us or life on our planet as the goal or end result when in fact we are not. We are also a product of the precise nature of the universe but that should not lead us to believe that it was in any way tweaked to result in "us."




They aren't coincidences, they are factors in the life of our planet and our creation. They only appear to be coincidences because of our view as masters of the universe. In fact, we have no way of knowing how many factors could be changed and life still be a result. There is also an equal probability that things would come to be this way as there is a probability that we would not exist. If you accept an infinite or near infinite universe, anything becomes possible and it's all only a matter of chance.

I don't view us as masters of the universe. I view the universe as the master of us.

[quote="gogol"]

You are saying that in the equation X + Y = Z if X or Y was just a bit different we would never have Z.

I would say that it only makes sense. If the nuclear weak force been slightly weaker things wouldn't be the way they are. Well the fact remains that things are the way they are because the nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity.
[quote]

You've confused me. Are you agreeing with this ID argument or disagreeing?

The X + Y equasion only makes sense if you accept it to mean that X and Y exist ONLY to create Z. Not the more likely possibility that Z just happened to be a result of two existing factors.

I disagree with the Hugh Ross proposition that this points to intelligent design. My example was an attempt to illustrate the point that he's looking at various factors in an equation (X and Y) and stating that due to their results (Z) it must mean there is a plan behind it all because andy variation in the factors would've lead to a different result. We know that for life to exist as we know it, certain conditions must be present etc etc. That does not mean however that those conditions were constructed to create life. Any variation of the factors may or may not have lead to something different, we just don't know. All we do know is that these factors created this result, to throw around a bunch of 'if's' and 'or's' isn't reality and certainly doesn't explain a creator or designer.

Okay, gotchya. Basically, we agree. =)

there could be non-carbon life forms which would alter the scenario but we have no idea. there are two possiblites, either we are alone in this universe or we are not. either scenario is really amazing when you think about it. its not arrogant to think we are alone because there is no proof to suggest otherwise. if the universe was created by random chance and life arose through those processes it would make sense for life to arise elsewhere. if it could be proved we are in fact alone it would seem to back up a creationist or ID stance but it doesn't mean that if life was found elsewhere it would mean ID or creationism was impossible.

the chance of life arising by itself to me is plainly ludricious and there has to be a designer because of the irreducable complexity.

Okay, wait - so just because life is hard to make and you don't understand it, then it must have been created by someone???

Are you living in the dark ages? Seriously, look at history. As people evolve and become more intelligent about their surroundings, God gets further and further away. Don't forget, in ancient settlements, people didn't know what caused RAIN - so it was GOD. People didn't know what the sun was - so it was GOD. See a pattern?? People will figure it all out someday, and then they'll laugh at us.

I'm afraid that once the concept of god appears, getting rid of it is not as easy as it may seem.

We now know what causes rain, fire and stars to shine. Let's call it physical laws for the sake of this argument. But who 'created' the laws of physics? What enforeces the physical laws?

Now, whether the universe was created just so life (or humans) can live in it is a whole different question...

p.s. Why is there something instead of nothing?