Something I've never understood about the fine tuning problem (and it might have been covered by the arguments, in the interview I just didn't understand it), is our perception that the finely tuned numbers are actually arbitrary. Maybe they just seem arbitrary based on our system of measurement, and they're actually complementary parts of a greater whole. For instance, if I take a sheet of paper, and cut it into several pieces and scatter them. Someone finds these pieces, and figures out if you arrange them in a certain way, these pieces form a square. They find this quite exceptional.. measure the length of the sides and angles of each piece, e.g. 2.673478...cm x 4.893467474...cm joined at a 39.000000227 degree angle.. and exclaim these figures are extremely finely tuned by something to make a square. But in fact, no tuning happened at all, its just the way we're looking at it or the way we have bisected our observations. So its not arbitrarily tuned numbers, its the way we have cut up the universe (as a sheet of paper) to observe it which contributes to this phenomenon. So, I guess my point with this is that I don't understand why its a problem or at least how it carries such weight in philosophical discussions. Anyway, apologies for the ramble, wanted to finish that thought in my head. Great podcast! Lots to think about
Great question an example - one worth expanding on in a future AMA episode. I'll just give a brief response here. Firstly to be clear about what fine tuning is - there are around 20 numbers in our best current theories of physics that we consider to be 'fundamental'. These include numbers like the gravitational constant, the speed of light in a vacuum, and so on. We can't predict these numbers from known theory. Rather they need to be measured, and we do have empirical estimates for. Now one can imagine (or run simulations of) universes in which some of these constants have slightly different values, and when we do that we discover that there is only an incredibly narrow range of possible values that could conceivably result in a universe with thinking beings to ponder this very topic. The issue is not that have a parochial perspective of what other types of life could conceivably exist, because for almost every combination values of the physical constants, the resulting universe would be so outrageously inhospitable that one really can't imagine anything like life existing there. (e.g. a universe where there are not even any atoms). The fact that we don't have any theory explaining why the constants should fall in the extremely narrow (i.e. fine tuned) range that they do is just begging for an explanation. Your example does however raise the interesting question of whether we're missing something that explains why these constants in fact had to be this way. Perhaps it's non-sensical to imagine different values for these physical constants. Perhaps they simply have to be this way for a yet unknown, more fundamental reason. And indeed this is (or was...) one of the things we were hoping to get out of string theory. String theories have inbuilt constraints that many physicists hope (or hoped...) would explain other aspects of the physical world that currently seem arbitrary. Sadly this hasn't (yet...) yielded much insight, partly because as it turns out that there are a HUGE number of consistent string theories, so even if any one could explain a given set of physical constants, the question remains why that particular string theory. So fine tuning persists
@@MatthewGeleta thanks for the detailed and quality reply, its given me a lot to think over! Looking forward to any future episodes regarding this, or any other topics. I enjoy the structure and clarity of your discussions with these great minds.
Something I've never understood about the fine tuning problem (and it might have been covered by the arguments, in the interview I just didn't understand it), is our perception that the finely tuned numbers are actually arbitrary. Maybe they just seem arbitrary based on our system of measurement, and they're actually complementary parts of a greater whole.
For instance, if I take a sheet of paper, and cut it into several pieces and scatter them. Someone finds these pieces, and figures out if you arrange them in a certain way, these pieces form a square. They find this quite exceptional.. measure the length of the sides and angles of each piece, e.g. 2.673478...cm x 4.893467474...cm joined at a 39.000000227 degree angle.. and exclaim these figures are extremely finely tuned by something to make a square. But in fact, no tuning happened at all, its just the way we're looking at it or the way we have bisected our observations. So its not arbitrarily tuned numbers, its the way we have cut up the universe (as a sheet of paper) to observe it which contributes to this phenomenon.
So, I guess my point with this is that I don't understand why its a problem or at least how it carries such weight in philosophical discussions.
Anyway, apologies for the ramble, wanted to finish that thought in my head.
Great podcast! Lots to think about
Great point! I feel the same about this and other arguments.
Great question an example - one worth expanding on in a future AMA episode. I'll just give a brief response here.
Firstly to be clear about what fine tuning is - there are around 20 numbers in our best current theories of physics that we consider to be 'fundamental'. These include numbers like the gravitational constant, the speed of light in a vacuum, and so on. We can't predict these numbers from known theory. Rather they need to be measured, and we do have empirical estimates for.
Now one can imagine (or run simulations of) universes in which some of these constants have slightly different values, and when we do that we discover that there is only an incredibly narrow range of possible values that could conceivably result in a universe with thinking beings to ponder this very topic. The issue is not that have a parochial perspective of what other types of life could conceivably exist, because for almost every combination values of the physical constants, the resulting universe would be so outrageously inhospitable that one really can't imagine anything like life existing there. (e.g. a universe where there are not even any atoms). The fact that we don't have any theory explaining why the constants should fall in the extremely narrow (i.e. fine tuned) range that they do is just begging for an explanation.
Your example does however raise the interesting question of whether we're missing something that explains why these constants in fact had to be this way. Perhaps it's non-sensical to imagine different values for these physical constants. Perhaps they simply have to be this way for a yet unknown, more fundamental reason. And indeed this is (or was...) one of the things we were hoping to get out of string theory. String theories have inbuilt constraints that many physicists hope (or hoped...) would explain other aspects of the physical world that currently seem arbitrary. Sadly this hasn't (yet...) yielded much insight, partly because as it turns out that there are a HUGE number of consistent string theories, so even if any one could explain a given set of physical constants, the question remains why that particular string theory. So fine tuning persists
@@MatthewGeleta thanks for the detailed and quality reply, its given me a lot to think over!
Looking forward to any future episodes regarding this, or any other topics. I enjoy the structure and clarity of your discussions with these great minds.