COSMIC FINE TUNING....
"what banged and why?!"

There are four fundamental laws of physics
which determine the nature of the universe.
They are gravity, electromagnetism, and the
weak and strong nuclear forces.

All these factors (any of which could have
absolutely any value) are, in reality, so care-
fully balanced that the mathematics is
unbelievable. It has been likened to someone
firing an arrow from one side of the universe to
the other and hitting the bull's eye. Or put
another way the odds are conservatively estimated
to be 10 to the power of 55 [that's a 10 with 55
zeroes after it]. If any of those fundamental
values were not exactly balanced as they are by
each other we would not have an ordered, habitable
universe. A slight variation one way or another in
any of the four laws and the universe is a titanic
'black-hole', and a minor tweak the other way, the
universe is a diffuse cloud of gas - with no stars
or planets. Another twist; you can have stars and
planets but no Carbon [and hence no complex organic
molecules]. The universe we observe is exactly as
it should be to sustain intelligent life.

The standard objection to these observations is
that if it didn't exist, as is, we wouldn't be here
to discuss it. This misses the point entirely - it
is like the man put up before a firing squad to be
executed. Against all the odds the soldiers miss.
After the event someone comments that he has had a
lucky escape! Or could it be that the squad had
been bribed, were they drunk, had the rifles been
sabotaged, or was there some other logical explan-
ation? "None of these", says the prisoner, "because
if they hadn't missed I wouldn't be here to discuss
it". One would rightly conclude that the man was
being rather obtuse to put it mildly. There is a
legitimate existential question here.

The usual response is to bring up the 'lottery
analogy'. Of course the odds in favour of any
given winner winning in the lottery are vanishingly
small, but the odds that there will be a winner are
actually very good. Again, this misses the point
entirely. There aren't trillions and trillions of
players in this cosmic lottery. There is only one
and its our 55 figure number which came up. Again,
let me repeat, there is a legitimate existential
question which - despite our best efforts - cannot
be avoided.




tagline; Calendar of Doom. Anthropic Principle.
Cosmic Fine Tuning. Cosmic Precision Tuning.
Cosmological Argument. Goldilocks Enigma.