Grayling On Fine Tuning

Previously I mentioned how I had some suspicions of AC Grayling's analogy on fine-tuning, and now that I've gotten past the point in his book where he discusses design arguments, I can discuss those suspicions.

The fine-tuning argument, as far as I can tell, tries to make the case that the universe being the way it is demands an explanation. Or to be more specific, the configuration of the universe has the appearance of design for harbouring life. Of all the possible configurations of the universe, a very tiny fraction could even have life. So the best explanation for the fact that the universe has the appearance of design for life is that it was made by an agency who wanted life.

My suspicions about Grayling's analogy were due to the seeming disconnect between an improbability of a contingent history and the improbability of something with a design-like appearance. In other words, we wouldn't be able to appeal to a contingent history to explain away the design of a watch even if contingent history is a factor in watch-design. So when he says on page 80:

The 'Goldilocks dilemma' of my personal existence, and that of the universe's parameters and laws, is exactly the same thing.

I think that Peter S Williams had a fair reason to take exception with it. It doesn't obviously seem like the same thing at all, and requires further justification.

Grayling, however, hits the nail on the head with the final paragraph of the chapter:

We exist because the parameters are as they are; had they been different, we would not be here to know it. The fact that we exist because of how things happen to be with the universe's structure and properties entails nothing about design or purpose. Depending on your point of view, it is just a lucky or unlucky result of how things happen to be. The universe's parameters are not tuned on purpose for us to exist. It is the other way round: we exist because the laws happen to be as they are.

It's an important point to make. We necessarily live in a universe that can support us, so if any appeals to fine-tuning are to hold, they would have to show something more - that the universe was made for us. Of course we are going to be a product of whatever the universe can permit, and if the universe was any other way we wouldn't be here, but the same can be said of everything else that exists in a universe of the same configuration. Just as we exist, so do ants, and asteroids, and galaxies, and gamma ray bursts. All of it is a consequence of how the universe is. The fine-tuning view would be that everything else in the universe is a by-product of a universe designed for our purpose - a completely anthropic and unjustified assumption - rather than of us being a consequence of things being as they are.

This is what bothers me about fine-tuning arguments: any reality in which we exist is necessarily able to hold us. If we were made of a different material under a different configuration, the same argument would apply equally well. The reason being is that we are complex entities, dependent on things being as they are for that complexity to emerge. In between the two quotes from the book above was an illustration of this absurdity involving Dr. Pangloss from Voltaire's Candide:

"Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles."

We can see the absurdity right there. That the nose holds spectacles doesn't mean the nose is formed for the purpose of wearing spectacles. That the universe harbours human life doesn't mean the universe is formed for the purpose of human life. Even if the universe was purposefully designed so that 13.8 billion years later our species would emerge and God would show himself in Jesus form, the apparent design of the universe doesn't warrant that conclusion. Grayling's book explains why.

The Pin Analogy

I was listening to the Unbelievable podcast today, which consisted of a discussion between AC Grayling and Peter S Williams on the topic of Grayling's new book: The God Argument. The book, incidentally, is sitting on my shelves waiting for me to find the time to read it. The discussion centred around Grayling's portrayal of the arguments for God, with Williams and the host highlighting what they saw as the problems with Grayling's thinking on the arguments.

It might be worth getting into the discussion around the moral argument another time, but for now I want to focus on an analogy that Peter Williams gave for the fine-tuning argument. The analogy goes something like this: lets suppose I've taken your bank card and I've tried to withdraw money from an ATM, but I did not know your pin. Yet despite this limitation, I was able to guess the pin and withdraw the money. It seems really improbable that I was able to do so, and you'd be sceptical that I was able to do so without that knowledge. For a four-digit pin, that's ~1/10000 chance. Yet when we look at all the ways the universe could exist, the fraction that allows for something even remotely like life is near infinitesimal. It follows that just like we see someone guessing as an unlikely explanation, that to say the universe happened by chance for our benefit is an unlikely explanation.

The next step, as far as theism is concerned, is to use design as a way of providing an explanation. This analogy is contrasted with Grayling's own analogy of trying to think about all the unlikely circumstances that would lead to his existence - that things had to happen for his parents to meet and for them to reproduce when they did, and so on back through the ages, whereby the chain of events is incredibly improbable, yet that fact doesn't require any other explanation.

While I do have suspicions about Grayling's argument in the way it was presented, I'll reserve judgement until I've read his book. Prima facie, Williams looks to have a point about the inadequacy of such a statement, but I think that Williams analogy is a step in the wrong direction. The reason has nothing to do with how to calculate the probabilities of life and how universes come about - as I lack the sufficient knowledge of physics to even begin to ponder the meaning of the question - but that in what we do know about the history of life in this universe, Williams' analogy seems utterly nonsensical.

Contingency already plays a huge role in the world as it is now. If the non-avian dinosaurs weren't wiped out by catastrophic events 65 million years ago, then there wouldn't have been the rise of mammals, the evolution of hominids, and even analogies like the ATM machine one. Yet the extreme unlikelihood of those events for our existence don't suggest that we should think of the plate tectonics and killer asteroids as being guided by a purposive designer for our benefit.

Even if the universe could be argued to be improbable on its own, it seems apparent that we cannot tell the story of our own existence without invoking chance and contingency in a sufficient and explanatory way. For the analogy, it's worth reflecting on just how lucky we are to be here with no other explanation beyond the happenings of how life evolved on this planet given the circumstances of the planet. The pin analogy makes it seem like the idea of fine-tuning means that we're the product of this fine-tuning. Yet there's no reasonable reason to think this is so.

Interpretations And Data

Right way to analyse a phenomenon:

Here's some data, how shall we interpret it?

Wrong way to analyse a phenomenon:

Here's my interpretation, why do you deny the data?

Too often I see people taking the data and interpretation as if one implied the other. Take near death experiences, for example. If someone thinks that near-death experiences mean that the mind and body are literally separated, then all they've done is taken their interpretation of near-death experiences as being proof of something that's not so. Near-death experiences may well fit into a physical model, after all the experiences don't show that the physical wasn't involved.

Another example is fine-tuning. If there is only a certain range of parameters in the universe that allow for our existence, does that mean that the laws of physics were made for our existence? Of course not. But the interpretation of the extreme improbability is so often put alongside the data as if one implied the other. And again, those who are sceptical are put into a false dichotomy of either denying the phenomenon or accepting the interpretation of it.

Standing back and thinking whether or not the interpretation holds or if its the only interpretation is what's needed. Near-death experiences for example might mean dualism, but that has further implications for mind and body and need to be explored elsewhere. Fine-tuning for us also holds for ants and asteroids, so perhaps the interpretation that it means the universe was created for us isn't so tightly coupled as some make fine-tuning out to be.

The mistake is best highlighted by thinking that the tooth fairy as visited because one's tooth has gone and money has been left in its place. Just because people say that's what tooth fairies do...

QFT

"Isn't it interesting how physics concludes that life is possible given the constants of nature as they are? God could have created the universe in such a way to make life impossible under pure naturalism (a 6000 year old earth, etc), yet apparently we are to believe that he did so in a way which still makes sense under naturalism. Wouldn't it be miraculous if the universe couldn't have possibly have created life - yet still did. THAT would require a serious explanation, however the fine-tuning argument as-is isn't a threat to the naturalists ontology." - Reasonably Aaron

Morning Scepticism: Life

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that life can only exist in a narrow band on physical constants. And let's, for the sake of argument, assume that those constants are incredibly improbable. And let's, for the sake of argument, find ourselves in a world where life exists. Now for the important question. What's so significant about life?

Morning Scepticism: ETI

While I think fine-tuning gets causality backwards, let's grant the principle that the laws of physics are that way because they support life. What can we say about how those laws came about? While many people might invoke the supernatural, there's a perfectly natural explanation at hand. What about an advanced life-form in a different universe that arose under different conditions which in turn created our universe for the purpose of making carbon-based life? From our vantage point we couldn't distinguish between a divine creator and an alien one, hence that even if the argument is taken at its own value cannot get to where some people wish it to take them.

Morning Scepticism: Raptor-Jesus

Any invocation of the anthropic principle as evidence of a divine creator should be coupled with an explanation of why the principle shouldn't apply to any other life-form that has ever lived on this planet. This is only fair given what we know about evolution, we are a product of the environment just like every other life-form. If conditions weren't right then none of this would exist in its current form, yet who takes that conditions were just right for the existence of velociraptors to mean that there's a Raptor-Jesus?

The Principle Of Stability

It must be incomprehensible at times to look up at the universe and not see intelligence. After all, we are agency-seeking apes. Detecting intelligence and looking for intentionality is what we do best. In navigating through social situations, and trying to understand the motives of other bits of matter, it's a very useful trait. When it comes to nature, not so much. We know now that order in species is a result of the evolutionary process, and order in nature is but an expression of the laws of physics. As Dan Dennett might put it, ultimately there are those who want an ultimate skyhook to explain all those cranes. Enter fine-tuning arguments.

Consider the anthropic principle in its most basic form: that the conditions of the universe must be that which allow for observers to exist. It's a truism by definition, if the universe couldn't harbour the kind of life observing it then there would be no observations of it. We know the universe can support us because we are here.

Various forms of fine-tuning are inevitably proposed to explain just why were are here. Certain types of fine-tuning can be explained already. For example, that we are so suited to the planet we live on can be explained by evolutionary theory. Or that the planet has a stable orbit and is the right distance from the sun can be explained by the huge number of planetary systems that there would be. etc. But there are some things that seem yet unexplained.

While there are non-controversial explanations for particular aspects, there are still aspects of nature which we don't understand. There is not yet a theory of everything, so it's no surprise to see a whole host of arguments based around seemingly improbable aspects of the universe. I think it's quite silly, because there are so many things critical to our existence it means that any any change means we don't exist.

I think the problem stems from our vantage point. We are looking at a universe 13.7 billion years old, we aren't seeing the process but the result. Like us being a result of 3.5 billion years of evolution, that evolution produced us does not mean that evolution was designed to produce us. Likewise, us existing in the universe does not mean the universe is the way it is for our existence.

I want to illustrate this using a thought experiment, invoking the principle of stability. Another truism, the principle can be stated as stable forms last longer than unstable forms. We can understand this function already in terms of stable and unstable isotopes. Nitrogen-14 is a stable atom, but when bombarded with cosmic rays in the atmosphere transforms into Carbon-14. Carbon-14 is an unstable form of carbon and decays back into the stable Nitrogen-14.

Imagine rolling a die 1000 times and recording the sequence. A simple procedure but one that will generate a sequence of immense improbability 1.4x10⁷⁷⁸. Each role has a 1 in 6 chance of being any value yet the number you end up with is beyond all human comprehension of improbability. It produced a huge number, one that wasn't by any means inevitable but it did result through the series of chance rolls. It's only a problem to explain if you're expecting the outcome to be a particular 1000 roll sequence. This is why instead of looking backwards we should look fowards and ask whether a process could allow for the possibility of our existence instead of looking for improbable things in order to invoke an infinite improbability drive God.


If we go back far enough in time, we are going to do away with a lot of things. Life on this earth is but a few billion years old, our solar system only 4.6 billion years old. The heavy elements that we see in great amounts would eventually go to, for we know they are forged in stars and distributed by supernovae explosions. Eventually we get back before there's galaxy formation, to a universe where there's only light atoms (hydrogen, helium and a tiny bit of lithium) then before atoms can form, then before before there were particles like protons. Going back further we see elementary particles then back further a place before elementary particles where there were no fundamental forces.

Like the die experiment, look at the process going forward. It's not an aim to get what we have now, but to see what would happen if we took the process on the principle of stability. Stable things last longer than unstable things, so in the most unstable state imaginable, some form of structure should emerge. Consider this initial structural states as elementary particles. Now that there is a basic form of structure. With those particles interacting, there's always further possibility that bigger particles could be made. Not all interactions need to lead to bigger particles, but if only a small percentage of particles could form stable structures they should emerge on account of stable structures being more stable than unstable structures.

On the principle, this should continue until there are no more possible increments in complexity. So now we have a whole host of particles, some composites of many iterations of smaller particle collectives colliding, and some that are still elementary particles. Some of these particles may only be able to exist when the universe is energetic enough and should not be seen in the latter universe except through high-energy collisions. And some states of interactivity might not be able to happen until the universe is sufficiently cool enough to allow for them. Atoms might be a good example of this, not being able to form until 100,000 years after the big bang.

Perhaps now you have a state where you can have structural formations, composites of atoms interacting together in a new structure - like for example in stars. And in those new states, in turn new forms of structure might emerge, like atoms fusing together to form heavier atoms. And from there perhaps those atoms by their interaction will come together to form spherical structures, and on some of those spherical structures, organising principles there will allow for complex chains of molecules. Which in turn might serve as templates for creating copies of the complex chains. That process might become better at doing so, creating a new means of generating complexity. And so on...

By now the principle should be illustrated, that is to say that if we take the events looking through time instead of back at them we should tend to see the gradual emergence of more complex structures by pure necessity.


I'm not saying this is the way that it happened, or even that it could happen this way. It's a means to think about the problem in a different way. That we look backwards means we aren't seeing the process, instead seeing a whole lot that needed to be the way it is for us to exist. But why shouldn't there be a whole host of things necessary for our existence? We exist, therefore the universe must have the conditions necessary for our existence.

A parallel argument is invoked by those who support biological fine-tuning called Irreducible Complexity. This suffers from the same process, it's looking backwards at what there is instead of considering the process by which to get to it. Can evolutionary theory account for irreducibly complex structures? It can! Any mutation that is advantageous may through later mutation make it necessary. Thus the structure looks like it is evidence against a gradual process, but only because it's looking after the fact instead of considering how the process works.

And I think the same error in thinking in all fine-tuning arguments. It's looking for that which is hard to explain by conventional thought without giving consideration as to what can explain it. By attaching huge improbabilities to that particular structure, it makes it seem like it needs a grand explanation.

One final thought is that perhaps this line of argument falls into irrelevancy if humans aren't treated as a necessity. That it could result in observers doesn't mean that the goal of the universe was to have observers. Likewise that evolution created sapient beings doesn't mean that evolution was made to create sapient beings. That we did evolve and that we do have the capacity to observe the universe says nothing about the laws of nature other than they have to be that way necessarily. It's because we are here to observe that we know that, but they are not that way so that we can be here to observe. Putting us as the focal point generates the improbability because we are very improbable - just like everything else!