I am struggling with a dilemma that I find so confusing that I resort to the written word to attempt to sort out the problem.
The starting point is the notion of ”fine-tuned universe”, the commonly held belief among cosmologists that the universe is unaccountably ‘fine-tuned’ to permit the existence of life. They point out that, if any of the fundamental defining physical constants of our universe were even a little bit different, life would be impossible. This is such an unexpected situation that they have spent careers trying to explain this extremely fortuitous situation. As I describe elsewhere, the greatest physicist of the last half-century, Stephen Hawkings, was particularly perplexed by these facts and devoted a great deal of effort to explain them.
In the same essay in which I explained Hawkings’ efforts, I went on to explain why he and all the other cosmologists who accept the notion of the “fine-tuned universe” are not just wrong, but grossly, obviously wrong.
I hasten to point out that there are plenty of scientists who reject the notion of the fine-tuned universe; the Wikipedia article I cite above describes the objections to the notion of the fine-tuned universe. Yet the fact remains that some of the smartest people on the planet embrace that notion.
This brings me to the quandary I face: if I can easily demolish this idea of a fine-tuned universe when so many indubitably brilliant people accept it, does this not mean that I’m smarter than they are? I am deeply disturbed by that thought — it sounds like egotism rampant. Hence the dilemma: am I that smart or am I that egotistical?
I don’t know.