Tim Maudlin - Fallacies in Fine-Tuning

What mistakes are made in the fine-tuning debate? Whether errors of fact, opinion, logic, or extrapolation, where are the pitfalls in fine-tuning? Is there really fine-tuning in nature, from fundamental physics to cosmology, and if so, how to perceive and explain them without falling foul of the fallacies?

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Tim Maudlin is a philosopher of science and a Professor of Philosophy at New York University.


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.

[sonamoo]

Resorting to multiverse to account for fine tuning seems to be one of the most unprofessional and irresponsible even lazy answer.

[continentalgin]

Earth has conditions favorable to biological evolution. Although astronomers have found somewhat 'Earth-like' planets far away, we don't yet have proof (available to the public, anyway) that humans could live comfortably anywhere else in the universe. So, the universe may be NOT fine tuned for us.

[bluelotus]

Even the staunchest supporters of blind chance devoid of sense and purpose cannot avoid sense and purpose, for whatever they say makes sense to them and has the specific purpose to establish a certain belief.

[kevinfisher]

Excellent video. I particularly liked how you approached the topic with a skeptical eye.

I think any examination of the fine tuning problem leaves you with only three solution “buckets” (please correct me if you can think of others). 1. My what an astounding coincidence 2. Infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters 3. Purpose precedes creation.
And as Sabine points out all three are more expressions of faith than actual science.

[ronhudson]

Why do so many scientists of varying stripes constantly frame their research with the sub-text of disproving God? They are searching for the actual state, status and origins of the universe we live within. Finding the answers to those questions says nothing about God. If there is God then those mechanisms must then be the way God made everything happen.

[dongshengdi]

You see Mathematics in nature But I see poetry.
DNA molecule has the same property of “sequence specificity” that characterizes codes and language. DNA sequences do not just possess “information” in the strictly mathematical sense described by pioneering information theorist Claude Shannon. Shannon related the amount of information in a sequence of symbols to the improbability of the sequence (and the reduction of uncertainty associated with it). But DNA base sequences do not just exhibit a mathematically measurable degree of improbability. Instead, DNA contains information in the richer and more ordinary dictionary sense of “alternative sequences or arrangements of characters that produce a specific effect.” DNA base sequences convey instructions. They perform functions and produce specific effects. Thus, they not only possess “Shannon information, ” but also what has been called “specified” or “functional information.”

[khaderlander]

To keep it interesting God let's us explore all the potential possibilities. An all knowing God through his mercy will not burden us beyond our scope. The Lord of worlds has given us an observable universes as an instrument of knowledge to signify something else a sufficient cause of all causes. Relationship is a continuous affair and exploration if one has all the pieces of the jigsaw it takes time to put all the pieces together to have a coherent image. The cosmos are meaning set up in images and however understands this is among the people of discernment.

[mylord]

The crucial point for me in regards to the fine tuning argument is whether the fine tuning argument leads to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, or Mormonism, etc. Even if the fine tuning argument suggests that there should be a "god" whether any of these religions comes from that "god" is an entirely different matter.

[HoraceTorysScaryStories]

Honest question: Why do physicists talk about multiverses, probabilities, etc. to try to "solve" the problem of fine tuning, when it's never been demonstrated there can be tuning at all? With a sample size of 1 universe, how do you have an argument from fine tuning if no one knows that the constants could have been different at all?

[KaliFissure]

The fine tuning of Lambda is no doubt a topological feature of universe. If the universe was a singular connected whole.

Neutron decay cosmology. The neutrons which invert at moment of neutron star collapse into black hole are transported from highest energy density conditions to lowest energy density points of space, deep voids. There they travel 14ish light minutes then decay into amorphous atomic hydrogen. This decay from neutron to hydrogen includes a volume increase of 10^14 times. This is expansion. The amorphous hydrogen not having proper orbital electron can’t emit or absorb photons. This is part of dark matter. The hydrogen then follows usual evolution path to nebula to proto star to star until at some time in distant future once again that neutron is a at edge of event horizon

Event horizons act like thermodynamic energy pressure release valves. Likely this is all done by topological means.

Time is a compact dimension one single Planck second long. The universe is in synchrony which creates a hyperplane of the present. On this side of membrane is matter and the other antimatter. An inflow here is an outflow from there. Clockwise away here is counterclockwise towards there. This is why baryon asymmetry. Also why electron is 1/2 spin. It does one orbit on this apparent side as electron and then does orbit on the antimatter side.

[johnstebbins]

The question of fine tuning basically asks how it is that the constants of physics along with initial conditions could result in the extraordinary order that would be necessary to sustain life. Evolution does not explain it at all, not because evolution isn't true, but because right now it is way too low resolution. How is it possible that we've evolved from single cell organisms in barely more than half a billion years? Perhaps eventually we'll be able to model the process on a computer. But perhaps also we won't ever be able to do so. We have as yet found no full scientific explanation of how it could happen by chance without an Intelligent Designer. I agree that it's useless to assign a probability, but that just means that the possibility of intelligent design is not zero!

[tracemiller]

I'm on the inside thinking outward. To verify my thinking is to be thinking from the complete outside, inward.

[bkpuqnn]

More clever we try to be, more stupid we sound...

[godthecreatoryhvh]

Hello Dr Lawrence and all your great followers they have such great and intelligent debat. From Your humble Creator. philippe 😎

[traildoggy]

Explaining why the snake's tail fits exactly into its own mouth.

[brandonhodnett]

The multiverse in NO way disproves intelligent design, who created the multiverse and MOST importantly how did the laws that govern the multiverse come about? Intelligent design is the only rational explanation…laws cannot make themselves. Not to mention why anything at all exists in the first place.

[jimspatz]

who's working the camera? Simplify it.

[richardsylvanus]

I gave this video a thumbs up only because it had audio, unlike the previous video.

[markshipley]

Perhaps the correct term is self-tuning.

[vjntstar]

If the universe is fine tuned for anything it is for "empty space". There is so much of it and everything else (including us) is just in the way of having more empty space.