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I understand that the fine tuning argument claims to atleast make a designer’s existence more probable. But when phrased in the inverse way, is it even true?

If the constants to produce life were not finely tuned, or if perhaps there were a wider range of values that would allow life to exist, would this make the naturalistic hypothesis more likely?

It seems, to me atleast, that the existence of a designer cannot possibly depend upon how improbable something is, as long as that something is still possible.

In other words, whether the probability of life arising is guaranteed, or whether it is 1 in 10^150, one first needs to establish that the probability of god existing is above 0. Would this be accurate?

  • Fine tuning = Evolution and Natural Selection over 13.5 billion years. –  Aug 16 '23 at 16:21
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    Not "more probable", but "more persuasive". – tkruse Aug 17 '23 at 08:26
  • Does this answer your question? Can a coincidence be evidence of a god? Yet another re-phrasing of the same question. – Dikran Marsupial Sep 16 '23 at 06:40
  • The universe is not fine tuned. At the very least, not for human life. – armand Sep 16 '23 at 08:06
  • @armand that is not correct, for example space is essentially exactly flat, which requires "fine tuning", the explanation for that fine tuning is inflationary expansion of the early universe. – Dikran Marsupial Sep 16 '23 at 09:11
  • @DikranMarsupial we don't know that. This reasoning is making universal conclusions form partial observations, and therefore is a non sequitur and a hastily conclusion. But actually we don't know if the universe is really flat, and if it is we have no idea if there isn't some physical phenomenon that makes it necessarily flat. What is more, when one considers the portion of the known universe that is actually habitable by humans, one can reasonably only conclude the idea of "fine tuning for human life" is ridiculous. – armand Sep 16 '23 at 13:34
  • @armand O.K. as far as we can measure the universe is essentially exactly flat, which is still an example of "fine tuning". I was addressing your first, more general statement "The universe is not fine tuned. " not the second "At the very least, not for human life.". – Dikran Marsupial Sep 16 '23 at 13:36
  • @DikranMarsupial yes "as far as we know" -> don't make universal assumptions you can't support. And no, it's no example of fine tuning as long as you don't demonstrate that the universe could have been not flat (but this would require a complete knowledge of physic, so back to my first point). At most you can say "the universe appears to be flat and I have no idea if it is a necessary happenstance or fine tuning", anything else is non sequitur. – armand Sep 16 '23 at 13:43
  • "@DikranMarsupial yes "as far as we know" -> don't make universal assumptions you can't support." sorry that is just rhetorical pedantry. I already made it clear that it was not a statement of certainty when I wrote "essentially exactly flat" meaning "to within the accuracy of measurement it is exactly flat". Sorry, I am not interested in trying to "win" online debates. If physicists are happy to use it as an example of fine tuning, I don't see why I shouldn't. – Dikran Marsupial Sep 16 '23 at 14:40
  • The probability of life occurring = 1 as far as I can tell. An explanation of the universe has to be consistent with an explainer coming in to being. So, it must have been inevitable and all the incredulity in the world doesn't change that. – Scott Rowe Sep 16 '23 at 23:57

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If the universe isn't fine-tuned, it would mean that there are more ways for life, as we know it (carbon-based), to exist than in the "fine-tuned" universe we say ours is. A life-friendly set of conditions would "surely" have to have divine origins.

That is to say, a fine-tuned universe, paradoxically, implies, ignosce mihi Magnus Deus, the absence of a pro-life creator-deity.

Agent Smith
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