heddle
Posts: 124
Joined: Nov. 2005
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Steve,
Since you went to the trouble of setting up this thread, maybe we can have a serious discussion of fine tuning and others can join in. However, the tone of your first post does not indicate that you are actually interested in a serious deliberation.
I’ll start general comment regarding your three points. Can you provide a link, anywhere, on PT or my blog or anywhere, where I said that any of these points (even if I had made the points as you present them) proves ID? If so I’ll retract it. A think that any reasonable person reading what I have written on this subject or attending one of my talks would acknowledge that I have presented the CC fine tuning as one of many examples of fine tuning, and it is the totality of the fine tuning that makes, from Occam’s razor, Cosmological ID the preferred choice (over, say, mulitverses). In short, I have never even stated that all the fine tuning, let alone a single example of it, “proves” ID.
Now to your specific points:
| Quote | | 1. the 120 OOM difference between the CC and the naive expectation of what it would be, proves ID |
I have already addressed that I never claimed it proved ID, and again I ask for a link. I wonder why you say “naïve expectation?” Could it be that you believe the theoretical calculations are on shaky ground? Have you investigated the quantum-gravity and GUT field-theoretic calculations that have been done, and feel justified in characterizing them as naïve? Does it bother you that when people like Krauss or Weinberg or Hawking discuss the discrepancy between theory and observation they never simply shrug it off as merely reflecting the naiveté of the calculations?
| Quote | | 2. “the 60 OOM size of the CC in reduced Planck units, proves ID” |
I have already addressed that I never claimed it proved ID, and again I ask for a link. The 60 OOM, if I used it, probably referred to the matter density or the expansion rate and not the CC.
| Quote | | 3. the unknown ratio deltaCC/CC, called Sensitivity, proves ID |
I have already addressed that I never claimed it proved ID, and again I ask for a link. I have also provided a conservative upper limit estimate for the fractional sensitivity of the CC of one percent.
Now, on the whole issue of sensitivity, I want to point out that this is not a new concept in the fine tuning arguments. People have always argued (right or wrong) things like if the n/p mass ratio changed by, say, two percent then the universe couldn’t support life. That is the way all fine tuning arguments tend to be presented (except the CC, which has the additional twist of 120 OOM discrepancy between theory and observation). You keep bringing it up like it is some new twist to the fine tuning argument that I invented. When I talk I do emphasize that the sensitivity is what is important, not the lack of a fundamental theory that explains the values of the physical constants.
Finally, you placed this ultimatum on me:
| Quote | | I won't be participating unless he actually gives us a number for Sensitivity.” |
For the CC I did: less than 1%. For the n/p mass ratio I did: ~2%. I’ll give estimates for all or most of the fine tuning examples I know of.
But now my ultimatium. I am not going to waste my time arguing with someone who has demonstrated that they cannot admit error. I certainly can, I have done so on PT. And if you provide the links where I claimed any of your points 1-3 proved ID I’ll admit I was wrong. Now you you need to admit you were wrong, or explain how you were misinterpreted when .you wrote:
| Quote | | It remains a fact that your 120 OOM is particular to a set of units. |
Shortly followed by:
| Quote | | Obviously if you compare two numbers in any given system, their relative size doesn’t change by switching to a different system. That’s obviously not what I was talking about. |
It is not obvious at all. Unless I see some semblance of intellectual honesty, so I know I won’t be wasting my time, then I won’t participate.
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Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. --Sam Harris
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