Statistical impossibility??

First off I am new at this fourm and all fourms for that matter. I have a possible topic. I have no source or data to back what I am going to state but here goes anyway. I have heard that some physicists have stated that it would be statisticaly impossible for all the factors that go into making a place in the universe suitable for life (as we know it) to come about given that there is only one universe. I have also heard that to get around the staggering statistics people have stated that there are many Universes that we just don't know about. I open the floor for anyone that can bring any intelligence into this topic, I know I have not said anything intelligent.

While you may have heard that, unless you have source where we can find out what exactly was said and the context I don't see how there could really be any discussion of the issue. See if you can come up with something that might form a basis for discussion.AbE:
Forgot to welcome you to EvC so a belated Hi There.Edited by AdminJar, : No reason given.

---

I think the OP is asking a question and makes it clear there isn't any backup.It could be discussed in that light.What forum though?

CathoicBioTeacher seems to be pondering an especially strong statement of the Anthropic Principle. I'd say CBTeacher should read a bit about the A. Principle, and then flesh out his OP. I'd put it in Big Bang and Cosmology after that.Just my 1.5 cents worth...Oh, yes: Weclome to EvC, CBTeacher!

---

Trust me.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Welcome. I'm Catholic too That's looked down upon around here, so watch out. The universe is big. I don't think physicists say that the statistical impossiblity is realted to just one universe. I think it is nearly statitically impossible for the suitability of life in one place within the universe, though. But, there are aproximately an infinite amount of places in the universe so with a brazillion chances, even though its nearly impossible, its still is going to happen. Make sense? emphasis addedthats an oxymoron...how can you have many of something prefixed with "Uni-", but I understancd what you typed. I don't think we have to include a multiverse or any extra-verses to overcome the nearly zero probability of life forming in any place in the universe because the universe is SO FREAKING HUGE that this improbability is overcome by the number of chances it gets. Actually, in a public forum you also open it to people who can't bring anything intellegent into the topic. Browse around, you'll find out

---

Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence.
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding is faith, faith, faith, faith.
Science has failed our world.
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
-System of a Down, "Science"

There are two points here:Firstly we don't really know how the constants involved actually came to take the values that they do. Any probability argument at this stage is little more than a wild guess.Secondly multiple "universes" are a consequence of some cosmologies - so this idea comes prior to the suggestion that it could solve the potential problem of how our universe came to have the particular constants that it does.

"life (as we know it)"Those three little words in parentheses, it seems to me, blow the whole claim out of the water. Even if it is accurate to say that it is statistically impossible for the precise set of physical characteristics that the universe presents to exist in one universe, for that fact to be significant one would have to assume that this set of physical characteristics is the only set that would produce life. If it's not, then the claim is fairly inconsequential.To illustrate: suppose that the odds of the universe exhibiting exactly the rules that it does to be 1 in a billion. I imagine that would qualify as being "statistically impossible." However, if there are one hundred million different possible combinations that would result in life of some sort, the odds drop to 1 in ten, hardly "statistically impossible." Obviously, since we have only this universe to base our experience on, there's no way to know how many different possible universes would be capable of producing life. But, without knowing that, one simply cannot say what the statistical probability is of the universe producing life.Sounds to me like the claim falls into the category of "We don't really know the answers, but gosh, it sure sounds unbelievable to me, so I don't believe it." This is more commonly called an argument from ignorance.The whole thing strikes me as being quite nonsensical. How can one determine the odds of any particular "factor" being present? What are the odds that the speed of light is 300,000,000 m/s as opposed to 250,000,000, or 10? What are the odds that pi is 3.14159265... as opposed to 2.49897543... or 42? What are the odds that gravity works to attract bodies to one another as opposed to repel?I understand that you cannot answer these questions, CBT, but can you at least understand why the questions themselves sound ridiculous? Or perhaps I'm simply misunderstanding the whole thing, and I'm the one that sounds ridiculous. If so, wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

me thinks this is the classic arse before elbow approach to statistical calulations ....firstly i would challenge any Physisict to be able to list all the factors ...life is a product of the universe as it IS , .. how the universe got to the way it is , why it got to the way it is , is irrelavent .."life as we know" is "life as we know" because of all the factors that go into the universe , not the the other way round ..."life as we know" it is a concequence of the factors that are there ... if you had different factors you wouuld have "life as THEY know it" .To say the statistical chance of this universes set of factors arrising is near impossible is meaningless .. firstly as we know it has happened , secondly it makes bad use of statistical method .simple eg i will know show you its statistical impossible for you to reply to this post .ok what are the statisical measures of the following :your great great grandparents meeting marrying and producting the the line that leads to you ( AS YOU ARE ) today ... given all the possible alternative that might have happened ...WITHOUT changing any of the laws of the universe ... statistically its impossibe out of all possible alternatives for you to be you ..

Welcome to EvC, CatholicBioTeacher! I found an interesting link which adds a bit of fuel to this debate. What do you think of it?(From the Link
Concerning the weak nuclear force:

If significantly stronger: fusion at the big bang would have proceeded directly to iron, giving us a star-free universe.

If significantly weaker: an all-helium universe would result.
Concerning the strong nuclear force:

If 2 percent stronger: this would prevent the formation of protons.

If 1 percent stronger: all carbon would have been turned into oxygen.

If 1 percent weaker: no carbon would have been formed from beryllium.
Concerning electromagnetism:

if slightly stronger: all red stars, no supernovae

if slightly weaker: all fast-burning blue dwarves

​

Edited by Phat, : added features for your viewing pleasure

Bizarro. (And the "humor" isn't funny.)

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

the problem i have with these if so -n-so was 1% different is that you can take ANY asspect of the universe and say look how we are not the same .the chance of getting this universe my be near impossible so what its the same as getting ANY other result . maybe this universe has a finite life span , the the big bang rolls the dice and another universe pops up , given enough rolls you get one of each possible universe .also that assume exsistance of any universe is more likely than no universe .and we are only looking at this universe because we live in it we think its speacial .. but its not we only think it is .....remember we are part of this universe ,we are the way we are because of the nature of the universe not the other way round .maybe we are the only form of life the poor universe can make , where as in many others there are hyper-intelligent gasious creatures thinking "gosh im glad i dont live in a universe where SNF is 1% weaker that carbon stuff sound very nasty "

Well the problem with these type of "probability" arguments is that they usually are based on fallacious assumptions that render them meaningless.The first assumption is that there is only one particular pathway that could have led to the universe having the parameters it does. But this is an unwarranted assumption.If you shuffle a deck of 52 cards, the odds of getting any particular arrangement of the cards is 1/(52!) or about 1 part in 10 to the 68th power. But you have to get some arrangement, and once you have shuffled, obviously the odds of you having the arrangement you now have are 1.Likewise, the assumption that there is only one possible pathway that could have led to our universe's current configuration, or only one configuration that could have supported life, is not warranted by the physics. And we are here, so this "card draw" worked.The second error is to assume that the individual odds of each fundamental constant in the universe having a particular value are all independent, so that the odds multiply, leading to what looks like very small odds.But this is also unwarranted. Physics constrains the relationships between fundamental constants. So the odds of having a particular set of constants are not independently multiplicative for all the individual constants.These "large number odds" areguments look superficially attractive to people wqho aren't used to thinking in terms of how such large numbers relate to each others, but I've yet to see one that isn't nonsense when more closely examined.FWIW I am also Catholic , albeit maybe more "liberal" theologically than some.Edited by paisano, : No reason given.

Not quite. This has been proposed, but not, as you suggest, to answer the question of fine-tuning.I believe that you are referring to the inflationary hypothesis, originally proposed by Alan Guth (whose book I have read, but some years ago, so I am not exactly an authority).Guth's proposal was intended, originally, to solve problems in cosmology, the "horizon problem" and the "flatness problem". It is summarized here.

quote:

---

Triggered by the symmetry breaking that separates off the strong force, models suggest an extraordinary inflationary phase in the era 10^-36 seconds to 10^-32 seconds. More expansion is presumed to have occurred in this instant than in the entire period ( 14 billion years?) since.

​

The inflationary epoch may have expanded the universe by 10²⁰ or 10³⁰ in this incredibly brief time. The inflationary hypothesis offers a way to deal with the horizon problem and the flatness problem of cosmological models.

​

Lemonick and Nash in a popular article for Time describe inflation as an "amendment to the original Big Bang" as follows: "when the universe was less than a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second old, it briefly went through a period of superchanged expansion, ballooning from the size of a proton to the size of a grapegruit (and thus expanding at many, many times the speed of light). Then the expansion slowed to a much more stately pace. Improbable as the theory sounds, it has held up in every observation astronomers have managed to make."

---

Now, what does this have to do with fine-tuning? Well, one of the physical implications of the inflationary hypothesis seems to be that our universe would be one of many universes in spacetime --- it is reasonable to call them different "universes" because we could never reach or observe another one. And these other universes would have physical constants different from our own. (This is a consequence of the absence of communication between the different universes.)So then it is only necessary to invoke the Weak Anthropic Principle to see why we live in one of those universes that can support life --- no matter how unlikely they happen to be.Is any of this true?As I have said, we cannot observe these other universes --- by definition, that's what makes them other universes. So the reason to believe that they exist is because their existence is a logical consequence of the inflationary hypothesis --- we can't have the IH without having all these extra universes.So it boils down to how much confidence you have in the inflationary hypothesis. As it says in the quotation above, it fits the astronomical observations.But it also rests on certain ideas about particle physics: about symmetry breaking and the origin of the strong nuclear force. So far as I know, the current state of play with this is that scientists say that in order to test this aspect of the hypothesis, they need someone to buy them a much bigger steel donut. For a partial list of stuff which might be true in this field, have a look here.You see the problem?I hope this was informative --- welcome to the forums, by the way.Edited by Dr Adequate, : 'Cos I found a missing link...Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Thank you to everyone who has posted a response to my question. I am sorry it could not have been more intelligent. I do not think I will be posting more questions for a long while. I will be spending my time researching the topics that the responders have given me, while reading the countless other interesting posts on this site. Thank you all for your warm welcome and hope to (some day) be able to offer some intelligent thoughts on the subject of creation versus evolution that I have become interested in.