From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 10:04:36 EDT
I had said:
> But if form-conferring interventions (now called acts of intelligent design)
>>were going to be part of the picture anyway, why would a Designer go
>>through
>>the trouble of any fine-tuning (via thoughtfully setting the values of some
>>cosmic parameters) at all?
Josh replied:
> The fallacy here is the assumption that the fine tuning of the universe
> logically necessitates that it has evolved. Fine tuning does not mean the
> universe evolved. God may have created everything two seconds ago, in that
> case we would predict that the variables would be exactly as they are now,
> otherwise existence as it now is cannot stand. The present is upheld by the
> fine tuning, the history of the present is another question altogether.
> Indeed, the fine-tuning that we see may in fact be episodes of constant
> form-conferring intervention by God.
I think I see now why we are talking past one another.
Essentially all of the fine tuning arguments I have seen presume that the
"tuning" consists of the setting of the numerical values of a list of cosmic
parameters (prior to t = 0) so that the present state of the universe may be
the outcome of its formational history. It is not merely a matter of the
present being upheld by the fine tuning, but a matter of the present being
the product of a formational history made up of natural processes only.
For instance, the oft-quoted reference to the felicitous placement of the
energy levels of the carbon & oxygen nuclei makes sense only if you are
concerned to have the correct amount of carbon produced by the history of
thermonuclear fusion in stars. Many other examples of this sort could be
stated.
Howard Van Till
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