Is the “Fine-Tuned Universe” an Illusion?

I think this is probably best as a Coffee House topic because the article I reference seems more lunatic fringe than scientific. I saw it on SciTechDaily this morning and rather than the usual article about a study that is published in some scientific journal, it is more like publicity for their own report.

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FQXi’s Fine Tuning report is part of the latest in a series exploring the frontiers of physics research, produced in partnership with the John Templeton Foundation. Other reports in the series tackle how our universe came into existence, whether time is real, and the origin of space from quantum entanglement.

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Is the “Fine-Tuned Universe” an Illusion? Challenging Popular Arguments for a Multiverse by The Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, February 8, 2022.

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For decades physicists have been perplexed about why our cosmos appears to have been precisely tuned to foster intelligent life. It is widely thought that if the values of certain physical parameters, such as the masses of elementary particles, were tweaked, even slightly, it would have prevented the formation of the components necessary for life in the universe — including planets, stars, and galaxies. But recent studies, detailed in a new report by the Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, propose that intelligent life could have evolved under drastically different physical conditions. The claim undermines a major argument in support of the existence of a multiverse of parallel universes.

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So not just fine tuned for life, but fine tuned for intelligent life!

By the way, the new report link takes you to a brief 2 page "report" on the Templeton website which has no detailed recent studies.

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“The tuning required for some of these physical parameters to give rise to life turns out to be less precise than the tuning needed to capture a station on your radio, according to new calculations,” says Miriam Frankel, who authored the FQXi report, which was produced with support from the John Templeton Foundation. “If true, the apparent fine tuning may be an illusion,” Frankel adds.

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Over the last few decades, the subject of fine tuning has attracted some of the sharpest minds in physics. By probing the universe’s physical laws and precisely pinning down the values of physical constants—such as the masses of elementary particles and the strengths of forces—physicists have discovered that surprisingly small variations in these values would have rendered the universe lifeless. This led to a puzzle: why are physical conditions seemingly tailored towards human existence?

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Almost the entire Universe is extreme vacuum filled with lethal extreme electromagnetic radiation. That does not seem like physical conditions tailored towards human existence.

I would bet that all the minds in physics, not just the sharpest, are aware of the fine tuning question.

I would also bet that the sharpest minds in physics do not spend any time or effort trying to figure out how to test this latest Creationist Pretend to be Scientific Gambit.

The article goes on a bit further but it's just more bullshit.

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About FQXi

The Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of science, particularly new frontiers in physics and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.

About the John Templeton Foundation

The John Templeton Foundation supports research and catalyzes conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder. With an endowment of $3.8 billion and annual giving of approximately $140 million, the Foundation ranks among the 25 largest grantmaking foundations in the United States and its philanthropic activities have engaged all major faith traditions and extended to more than 57 countries around the world.

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Templeton put money into the Discovery Institute, didn't he?

Hey if these clowns at FQXi can get a grant from Templeton, we should cash in. FQXi is as empty as MrID

Yep, #N/A is the only response to this question, because it is an appeal to incredulity, ignoring the lack of any way to calculate probabilities.

I don't expect great scientific scholarship at SciTechDaily, but their promotion of this pseudoscientific scam article is disappointing and makes me wonder if they have a vetting process.

You might even say this universe is fine tuned to create telescopes. Looking around, I'm more inclined to think it is fine tuned to create idiots.

I'm just really pleased that we don't have to let the idiots look through our telescopes.

"Dammit, Jim! I'm an engineer, not a philosopher!"

It would have been funnier if Spock had said it!

That cannot be done by redefining words in order to change reality. That is how theologians, philosophers, and lawyers roll, but not engineers.

Yep, nothing actually runs on BULLSHIT.

Yeah, there is a monster dairy farm up on the Columbia Plateau somewhere east of The Dalles that powers their whole operation with the methane from their manure. They are milking 50,000-100,000 cows twice each 24 hour period. Reducing methane to carbon dioxide reduces the greenhouse footprint a little bit.

But the other kind of bullshit, the verbal kind, seems to rot whatever someone is trying to power with it. My dad called the people who spread BULLSHIT, Bull Peddlers, the lowest of the low.

Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

In most Cosmological models it is actually true that our universe is "fine-tuned", as far as I understand the term. Only a vanishing amount of the parameter space for the Standard Model and also for theories of Quantum Gravity allow any complex structures to arise. And this is under any reasonable probability distribution.

OK, I understand that and agree that it is reasonable to think of it that way. ABE: I'm a fanboy of all this and love to listen to people a lot smarter than me talk about the whole physics of the Universe, but most of it is beyond my ability to deeply understand.

It seems like that could also mean though, that only universes with that vanishing amount of parameter space can exist. We only have one example of a Universe, and we know it works in some specific ways, but we cannot measure or predict universes that have other parameters. I may be wrong but it seems like there have been several changes in the fundamental parameters of this universe at specific stages in the development and evolution.

I really love hearing, reading and thinking about all the different hypotheses of cosmology and astrophysics. If any of these explanations are accurate, there have to be ways of eventually finding supporting evidence, if Homo sapiens survives as a curious species long enough.

I don't know what to make of it, it's a well known cosmology problem called the "naturalness" problem.

Maybe it's as simple as, this is the only way a universe can exist for 14 billion years.

Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

The last few days posts in this thread IMHO are full and complete justification for EvC's existence. The thread has been a classic example of Evolution in action.

I was thinking that exact thing myself, although I suspect QM says I wasn't.

I appreciate Son Goku explaining this to us, and I actually feel like I understood what he's saying, but when I try to conceptualize it my brain exploded (when I measured it). Thanks so much for hanging in here with us!!!

A new question.

Why are the speeds of light and gravity equal? I assume it must be some fundamental feature of the Universe that sets that constant. Is it because the gravitational field of the Universe and spacetime are the same thing? Is this a stupid question?

Moving at the speed of light is essentially taking a path that skims right along the edges of these gaps, so it is impossible to move faster than this. Only if you are massless can you do this, which both light and gravity are.

OK, I think this makes sense...but why do they both travel at the same speed? Is it somehow the limit itself that sets the speed? Something about spacetime makes them both travel at the maximum possible speed, just because they are massless?

In modern physics the universe has a four dimensional shape that has "gaps" in it.

OK, what are the "gaps"?

Particles have mass so they cannot travel at the speed of light, but some of them can be accelerated to "almost" the speed of light with magnetic fields. So protons are just sitting there, not moving unless they are accelerated, but neutrinos seem to be always in motion at almost the speed of light. What gives them that speed or what accelerated them? *

*I know these are different questions but I wanted to get them asked before I forget.

Because they are both massless. Everything massless moves right along the "edge" of these gaps/shortest paths in spacetime. Since it's the shortest path through spacetime there's no quicker way to move than that. Humans can imagine shorter paths, i.e. FTL ones, because we don't correctly intuit the actual shape of the universe. It's like how there is no shorter way to move along the surface of the Earth than going along a great circle.

Oh cool, it suddenly clicks into place! No guarantee, I will get it an hour from now, though.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all this to us, it means a lot!!