Nancey Murphy - Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Consciousness?

That the universe is fine-tuned for life, with multiple physical laws required to be within small ranges, is generally accepted. But can we then make the additional argument that the universe is somehow required to contain consciousness? Such a conclusion may not follow. But the key question is this: Is consciousness wholly contingent or somehow special?

Nancey Murphy is a philosopher and theologian who is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary. She received the BA from Creighton University in philosophy and psychology, a PhD from University of California, Berkeley in philosophy of science.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[IZnguDatAll]

What about not speculating on stuff that can’t be proven or disproven?

The inability to say « well i don’t know and i have no way to know for sure so i let that rest for now » should be a prerequisite to be a professional thinker of any kind.

[ghaderpashayee]

There is no Escape from Robert's questions 🤣😅.
Robert is a master of Questioning!!

[TORO]

How do we know it's unlikely for life to exist in the universe if the most common elements in us are the most common elements in the universe? The universe is gigantic and possibly infinite... so why is it unlikely for life to exist when life is everywhere on Earth?

[lambda]

The anthropic principle is becoming a tired worn out argument to me. I’ve heard it a thousand times. I get it. I get it. Can we move on and recognize that it would be present no matter what the “real” answer to our existence is. It does nothing but say, to be here we have to be here.

[strongblackcoffee]

What if the universe arises in consciousness, and not the other way around? Why posit the existence of matter? 🤔

[panmichael]

This discussion is nonsensical. It effectively describes God as a "Maker of games" creating (simultaneously?) numberless universes and then throwing dice to see which ones evolve life and consciousness (like Athena springing from the head of Zeus)! - You need to do a hell of a lot better than this!

[ItsEverythingElse]

The early universe was very simple. Maybe to even exist any universe needs such fine tuning. Maybe a cyclic universe takes 10^500 attempts to create such a universe.

[babyl-on]

The statement that the "fine turning" of the universe for conciseness just does not seem credible to me. Just exactly why should human conciseness be the "center of the universe" and why so much attention is placed on proving that we are. The argument here is made against a straw man of human consciousness as supreme in the universe.

[joseleon]

It seems that no matter what, theist belief reduces to faith. Nonetheless, we must pursue natural phylosophy or science not mather what your beliefs are.

[SandipChitale]

At 2:10 she says that out of "vastly vastly vastly large number should the one that exist is ours" - she seems to (willfully?) misunderstand the many number of universes idea with different set of constants with different values. It is not that it is possible that they can exist, but they actually don't exist and only our universe exists. According to (some) fine tuning proposals, there are many existing, isolated universes that actually exist, but they are causally isolated from us, and we are only in the one that allows our existence. In (some of) these proposals there may exist other universes in which other forms of life (just not human or the kind of life on earth) may exist and those entities may be thinking about their universe the same way we do about our universe. And in fact some of these universes may be sterile in terms of what we would call life. Some may be short lived, mid-timeframe lived, long lived and so on. And if she does not understand or misunderstands the proposal then rest of her argument is moot.

[IntegralDeLinha]

You should interview Neil Sinhababu on the subject too. He has a very interesting twist. Maybe the universe isn't fine tuned. Depends on how friendly the psychophysical laws are.

[tedgrant]

He seems to be very interested in the mysteries of the universe.
For a long time, philosophers were interested in who holds up the sky.
It was thought that Atlas holds up the sky. We don't any more.

[REDPUMPERNICKEL]

Words like 'infinite', 'eternal' and 'nothing' are problematic for the linguistic thinking process.
Every attempt to imagine infinite space fails and
this because no matter how big one imagines
there is always infinitely more yet to be included.
Even so we use the word as though we understand it.

[SandipChitale]

The "must" in the fine tuned universe scenario is simply a hind-sight observation of the fact and not a a priory "must" that this universe was chosen for life. It happens to be the one that had life conducive set of values for constants of nature. Once again willful misunderstanding.

[optimusprimevil]

i don't get her hesitance on the anhropic principle as an argument for god, at the end of the day it doesn't matter if humans are unlikely or inevitable, on this planet or this galaxy or this universe, the fact is that we are here as conscious beings who's brains are the most complex things in our known universe, and that's so incredible you might as well call it god.

[rc]

there's certain limitations to how something in existence (from our perspective) is configured and it interacts with everything else... the laws of nature prevent certain outcomes from becoming a reality...

[jamesruscheinski]

are the classic probabilities of past physical reality a reflection of quantum probabilities from from future quantum reality?

[ronhudson]

If a God, why would God create multiple universes? Presumably before our universe, nothing existed. A universe like ours would be a great work-shop table upon which to build a life-creating medium.

[mnag]

So what god is that the Abrahamic god, the Muslim god maybe brahma or Vishnu who can we credit for the creation?
If there’s a creator it can be only one creator
This doesn’t get us closer to the truth!

[holgerjrgensen]

From the Stuff-side, it seems,
but it is Opposite,
the Eternal Balance and Order of Life and Consciousness,
is the Basics for all and any 'fine'tuning'.