New Miscellany: fine-tuning, climate, theodicy (General)

by dhw, Saturday, March 01, 2025, 09:05 (5 days ago) @ David Turell

Fine tuning

DAVID: You did not follow the articles/discussions of thirty years ago when the original principals of fine-tuning were strictly limited to physical factors making tis universe fine-tuned for life. Your climate approach is backward. Specifically the universe allows life throughout it, but life will appear only in an hospitable climate, wherever that exists.

dhw: When you say “the entire universe is fine-tuned for life to appear”, why must we restrict ourselves to what people were saying 30 years ago? And what on earth do you mean by a “backward approach”. You are the one looking backward! Look at the statements instead! How can you claim that the entire universe is “fine-tuned” for life to appear if life is only possible where there is a hospitable climate?

DAVID: It is a stepwise issue. First the universe must be constructed in a special way to allow life to appear. The universe it totally fine-tuned for life in that sense. Now, secondly, you wish to add climate friendly to life. I 'can't disagree.

I would guess that when you were a schoolboy, you were top of the class at science and bottom of the class at English Language. In all creative processes, you create the basis first, and last of all comes the fine-tuning or finishing touches. In no sense is the universe totally fine-tuned for life. How do we know? Because so far only one part of the universe is known to harbour life! I do not “wish to add” anything. Our climate is part of the fine-tuning that makes life possible on Earth.

Theoretical origin of life: finding phosphates

QUOTE: "To him, the combination of volcanic activity and soda lakes is “pretty close to a geological solution” to the phosphorus problem. Pasek thinks hydrothermal pools probably played a role, too. “There is room for both,” he says. But with any proposal about how life began billions of years ago, Preiner advises humility. “There’s uncertainty here that we just have to live with.'”

DAVID: this finding drives us to the conclusion that hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor would have provided phosphorous for the origin of life. Only oceans provided a continuous environment for any life forms that might appear.

This is one of many articles you have published recently that emphasize the complexity of the “fine tuning” that leads to life. How very wise of Preiner: the finishing touches are a complete mystery, but you can be quite sure that they are not present throughout the entire universe.

Theodicy

dhw: I have not ignored your “proportionality” argument, but have pointed out again and again that proportionality does not make evil disappear, and it is the evil that throws into question the conventional belief in an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God. Please take your head out of the sand and stop pretending that evil isn’t a problem for theologians.

DAVID: That is why theodicy exists for discussions.

dhw: Precisely. The evil is real, and that is why we discuss the problem. Proportionality explains nothing.

DAVID: It does for believers.

Only believers in God have the problem of reconciling his presumed goodness, omnipotence and omniscience with the evil for which, as first cause, he is responsible. Proportionality may be a comfort to you as you stick you head in the sand, but it does not explain anything.

Climate change

Timing a probable glacial period

QUOTES: Earth's obliquity is currently in the process of declining towards a minimum, which it will reach in 11,000 years or so; according to the team's calculations, the next ice age will kick off before then[/b]. (David’s bold):

"'According to the latest IPCC reports, humans have already started to alter the course of climate away from its natural trajectory by the emission of greenhouse gases..."

"'This means that the decisions we make now will have consequences into the far future.”

DAVID: an amazing correlation. Which means if an ice age is coming lets keep the Earth very warm. This is an interesting factor to throw into the climate debate.

If we continue to make the Earth warmer and warmer, fewer and fewer – if any – humans will live to see the next ice age. You may be sceptical of the panickers, but common sense should tell you that the hotter the climate gets, the less hospitable the Earth will become! If you don’t believe me, go and stand naked in the Sahara Desert for a few hours.

DAVID: Another article with this viewpoint:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2470262-we-now-know-how-much-emissions-have-delaye...

QUOTE: "This is in line with earlier modelling that suggests rising CO2 levels due to anthropogenic emissions will prevent the onset of the next glacial period for tens to hundreds of thousands of years,” says Andrey Ganopolski…

DAVID: we need global warming it seems.

Delaying the next glacial period won’t be much use to humanity if it has already been frizzled up by global warming. No, this is not panic. If temperatures continue to rise, the planet will be uninhabitable long before the next ice age is due, and the period in between will create hell on Earth. We shan’t be there to see it, but “decisions we take now will have consequences into the far future.”