Re: Sabine Hossenfleder reports on a study that finds that the universe is not fine tuned for life

On Tue, 26 Nov 2024 11:01:04 +0000, j.nobel.daggett@gmail.com
(LDagget) wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:51:47 +0000, Ernest Major wrote:
>

On 24/11/2024 21:40, John Harshman wrote:

On 11/24/24 8:44 AM, Ernest Major wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXzV7zdl4oU

>
Interesting paper, but I find her delivery annoying. It seems that we're
supposed to like a scientific result to the extent that it argues
against a theory she dislikes for unexplained reasons. And why does a
lack of fine-tuning argue against a multiverse anyway?
>

>
I think that the argument is that in a multiverse the majority of
observers exist in universes that are "fine tuned" for the existence of
observers, and therefore if you pick an observer at random it is
unlikely that it will be in a universe which is not fine tuned. That we
find ourselves in a universe that it not fine tuned (at least according
to the reviewed paper) is contrary to the expectations of a theory
incorporating multiverses. But I saw no quantification of how unlikely
this observation is, and regardless I'm cautious of drawing statistical
conclusions from samples of one.

>
One could incorporate the Fermi Paradox and suggest that we are in
a universe which is only marginally favorable to the rise of life
capable of interstellar travel (or signaling), and wave away all
the uncertainties about those contingent probabilities.
>
These don't seem to be speculations worthy of more than perhaps
a good friend buying you another beer that they were probably
going to buy you anyway.

The Fermi Paradox has nothing to do with mutiverse has nothing to do
with fine tuning.  I realize discussions about "multiverse" can be
trivialized to a semantic labelling of what to name things which
extend beyond what can be observed, but doing so doesn't help to
identify what those things are.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge