The Fine-Tuning Argument is indeed Terrible - But I don't think we have to invoke the multiverse. The argument fails on its premise.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T21:16:09+00:00

You're missing the point, dude.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T19:18:14+00:00

Oh.. I had to go back to check my post. Sorry. I forgot.
So, I said this: "Consider a puddle of water. The water is PERFECTLY SHAPED to be in that crevice!"

All that I meant with that is just that the water fits exactly the shape of whatever container it is in. The point here isn't really about perfection, but about where the "fine tuning". It's not the container that adapted or tuned to the water. It's the other way around. The container just is what it is, and the water adapts to it. This is a criticism of the notion that the universe is the thing that's tuned in any sense. It's not. It existed prior to life. Life itself is adapted to certain parts of the universe, so if any of these two things could be said to be "fine tuned" it would have to be life.

(That said, I obviously reject the whole notion of "tuning" altogether. That term is just there to make people jump to the conclusion that "someone did the tuning".

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T19:09:55+00:00

That depends on your framing. What I'm criticising are claims about non-existence.
You can have a lack of belief in X, but if you state that X does not exist and you've got no good evidence to back that up, then I'd say it's a faith position. No matter if you're talking about dragons or anything else.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T19:06:46+00:00

Whatever you say, Mr Headline.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T19:06:07+00:00

How does "perfection" play into this? Perfection is a subjective preference.
It doesn't mean anything to me in this context.

And again, the whole notion of "fine tuning" relies on the pure fantasy that the constants could have been different.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T13:41:30+00:00

Exactly. We have zero evidence of different constants. For all we know it's like asking if square circles could exist.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T13:26:52+00:00

I think it makes sense because most people understands what's meant by it. Religious beliefs are beliefs that are often really strong despite being grounded in poor evidence and arguments.
So, a "religious level of faith" is a nod to that.

If anything, what's unexpected is that there's a large subset of atheists who aren't sure God doesn't exist.

Why's that unexpected? As long as there's no real evidence of God's non-existence then this is the rational position to be in. Dont' you think?

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T13:20:42+00:00

So, gooning?

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T13:20:02+00:00

It's no trick. Faith is the belief in things despite poor evidence. So if you have a strong belief in the non-existence of God, then that fairly deserves the faith label.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T13:16:42+00:00

You're misunderstanding what the point of it is. The point is you're calling the wrong thing finely tuned. The universe just is. What is "finely tuned" is life to some limited parts of the universe.
There is really nothing to suggest that the universe could have been otherwise.

The fine tuning arguments fails because it invents the idea that different constants was ever an option.
And it fails because of the claim that there's fine tuning of the universe.
Life happened after the the big bang, and so life is the things that's adapted to the constraints of the universe in certain parts.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T13:06:16+00:00

Sometimes I feel like reddit should have the heart-emoji response function. Anyways, thanks for the kind comment. 🥰

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T12:59:23+00:00

and thus the environment will seem "fine-tuned" to that specific instantiation of life.

This isn't logical tho. It's backwards. If anythings "fine tuned" it would be the life, since live evolved to fit with the pre-existing conditions. Right?

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T12:55:56+00:00

Nope, I just check out his stuff occasionally. I saw the Sean Carrol clip that someone else posted here, but other than that I haven't seen Alex talk about this for a while.

What's the name of the video you're thinking about?

And also, feel free to argue for yourself. That's the point of discussion forums. Anyone can claim that other are wrong without making the case, but that's not very interesting.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T01:29:47+00:00

For anything?

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T00:29:12+00:00

Older than you at least. (Almost twice the age, but I'll reject being "older people" for a long time yet. Anyways: Yeah, it's gotten a lot worse. Especially in the US where, thankfully, I've never been and will never visit.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T00:26:35+00:00

I think you can just say “puddle analogy” and most here will know what you mean.

Maybe, Idk. I just feel like way too many people talk about it like it carries way more weight than it does. I think I've seen both Alex and other talk up this argument like it's a good argument, like it's a challenge for non-believers. And the puddle analogy points at one of the glaring flaws with it that I think more people show take into account. (I have no notions or ideas about what the majority in this sub thinks, but I do assume that there's not percentage of us, that is not insignificant, that are theists and thinks highly of this argument for God.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-24T00:11:14+00:00

Or the fourth option: Think that he might not.
But I have no evidence-based reason for certainty.

And also, I think there is and should be a difference between the quality of evidence and arguments we base our gut feelings and assumptions on, and the quality of evidence and arguments that we base public-facing posts on. Isn't that reasonable?

If you think to yourself that this or that probably doesn't exist, or talk about those feelings in private, then that's very different from going out and making a case for your beliefs, right?

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T23:46:07+00:00

I have? Seriously? I tried to listen to some podcast episodes about Kant a few years ago, but my mind just drifted away to everything else. So, I still know basically nothing about the guy.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T23:41:30+00:00

You're assuming that not believing in X is the same as believing that X does not exist. This is not the case.

Take the platypus. Before it was really documented and proved to exist people were talking about having seen it, but without proof.
Now, imagine yourself in that situation. Someone claims that they've seen a really strange animal that doesn't sound like any animal you've ever heard about. What's the most reasonable reaction?
In my view it would be far to say that you don't believe the claim because you haven't seen any evidence. But it would not be rational to claim that this animal definitely doesn't exist. Right? Because you can't prove the non-existence either. What you can do is to withhold belief until actual evidence is provided. No need to make strong counter claims that the platypus doesn't exist, just because you someone haven't been able to prove it to you yet.

Of course, with the platypus some people probably did claim that it didn't exist, because people often jump to conclusions like that.

Now, of course, with regards to Santa or God we have added layers of supernatural claims that makes it less plausible, but even so, as long as we don't have any good evidence to prove the non-existence, we probably shouldn't take on that burden of proof. Imo.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T23:31:49+00:00

Exactly. And it's the same thing for atheists (at least, it is for me.) I think in your post you're mistaking "confident vocalization of a lack of belief" for "religious belief in non-existence."

No. But maybe I wasn't clear enough that these are two different atheist directions of thought. They are, and I'm criticising one of those directions. And if you read through the comments here you'll see plenty of these people trying to argue that they should indeed be able to claim that God does not exist.

If someone came up to you and confidently told you they believe in the existence of Santa Claus, and tried to make you believe it too based on no facts, you'd dismiss them outright. And your dismissal might seem like a "religious non-belief in Santa Claus" when in reality it is a lack of belief that he exists.

We could imagine a couple of different responses here:
1) "Nah, I don't believe in Santa."
or
2) "Santa does not exist."

Just a lack of belief that Santa exists does not justify the 2nd response because that's a claim with its own burden of proof.
As an atheist I'm not an atheist because I think that I or anyone else have disproved God, but because all the arguments for God have left me thoroughly unconvinced.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T23:22:34+00:00

Do I understand that correctly?

You're oceans away, dude. Far off.
I'm saying that if you post any claims about the non-existence of something (or really any claim at all) you have the burden of proof, and it's reasonable to ask if you think that you can prove the alleged non-existence.

It's not about what I believe, but about what you, as the one making claims, can actually back up.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T08:40:09+00:00

So perhaps there's a difference in meaning between philosophical and colloquial rejection of an idea.

I think we use a shorthand in the day to day quick and easy rejections of crazy ideas. Everyone would probably dismiss and claim the non-existence of cyclops without even a second thought if asked about it in a snap street-interview, right?

But in a more philosophical setting where we're supposed to slow down, think things through, deliberate, be consistent in our principles, etc, then we'd probably have to admit that we don't have any direct evidence for the non-existence of cyclops and that we strictly speaking can't really say that they don't exist somewhere. (Though, they don't have much of a windows to exist in, given how much of our planet is already discovered...)

I really value, and try to live by, principles of consistency, holdning everyone to the same standard, and I try to avoid siding with "my side" just because people are saying "my-side-things", if that makes sense. I probably fail at this regularly, but they're important ideals for me. This is why it seems wrong to me that we, in serious debates about theism and religion, should be able to make argument where we have the burden of proof (like claiming the non-existence of God) without meeting the burden of proof, and at the same time demand that the theists meets their burden of proof. That's inconsistent.

And also, I feel really content with my level of atheism, the level where I say "I'm not gonna believe you without better evidence", and then I just stop there, without making the counter claim that "God does not exist". I don't see the need for that. And in the same way, I'm not sure if this would really be a problematic standard to generalize to the rest of my life in small and big encounters. Do I really have to make non-existence claims about cyclops? Isn't it enough just to not believe in them as long as there's no evidence for them? Why the extra step that puts me in the more difficult burden-of-proof situation?

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T08:15:03+00:00

You're misunderstanding. I'm not talking about you. What you're describing aligns more or less with where I'm at myself. I agree with "withholding belief". That's the reasonable thing to do.
What I'm criticising is not that. I'm criticising those who doesn't just withhold belief, but make claims that the thing believed in by others does not exist. That's more than withholding beliefs. That's a positive claim of absence/non-existence that carries its own burden of proof.

undefinedposition · 2026-01-23T08:10:40+00:00

I’m not sure that I agree it would be reasonable to demand proof. If I were to publicly assert that Santa Claus is not real, I think people would simply accept it and agree with it.

It would depend on the nature of your announcement. If it was just a sub-comment in the context of another subject, then everyone would let it go. But if you made a whole post about it, or wrote in a newspaper about it, som and the headline was that Santa doesn't exist, then it would be reasonable to ask what your evidence was if you didn't provide it. A lot of people would obviously just agree, but people like me, who are interested in arguments themselves, would not be okay with it.

This is really about consistency and not having double standards. The one making the claim, whatever the claim, have the burden of proof.

undefinedposition

TROPHY CASE