Fine Tuning

[Yerda]

I've been reading about the fine-tuning recently. In summary, this is the idea that...

...the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

From Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It seems that the incredible unlikelihood of our existence given different values require some sort of response. The common ones appear to be,

1. The values of parameters in the standard model and other theories couldn't have been any different as far as we know.
2. There are a near infinite number of possible universes and some of them would be likely to have life supporting constants.
3. It's just a coincidence.
   
4. It isn't fine tuned.
   
5. God did it.

Sabine Hossenfelder takes approach 1 in the public discussions I've seen and I have to say that this seems to me to be the most reasonable (disclaimer - I'm an atheist and it is fair to assume I'm biased towards explanations of the world that doen't require gods). Roughly, what she argues is that we can't construct probability distribution for events that we can never observe more than once. I find that compelling.

(2) is something I've seen often and I had accepted as plausible until recently but reasoning from a speculative "hypothesis" seems to be cheating. Explaining a scientific discovery regarding fine tuning with an unscientific proposal isn't a reasonable way to deal with the issue.

(3) seems to be fine, in principle, but completely unsatisfying. Like saying, "of course the universe is suitable for life or we wouldn't be here". This doesn't attempt to engage with the problem. Poor form if you ask me.

(4) is straight up bonkers. Just denial as far as I can see.

(5) is a stretch as I see it. I think the fine-tuning argument is the strongest one for gods but even if we could show that the universe could've been different we wouldn't be showing that some god choose for it to be life friendly. Also, it wouldn't favour any particular conception of a creator over any other, imo. That said, I could be persuaded that it is evidence for some sort of goddish thing under the right conditions.

Here's a couple of vids for anyone interested in looking into it:

- chat between physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Luke Barnes.

- Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis (physicist) and philosopher Philip Goff.

- short video on theologian David Lane Craig's channel.

- Closer To Truth episode


Please share your thoughts, arguments, angry denouncements, unhinged rants etc.

 

[osgart]

If there's a quadrillion things that could happen in the universe at any one time, then it is inevitable that only one of a quadrillion possibilities is going to happen.

The flip side of that is the mind boggling precision of some of these constants. The long line of precision things that have to happen is staggering.

Yet the possibility of a long line of staggering precise events is inevitable, because some sequence has to happen with a vast range of possibilities.

Life is not tailor made for this existence. And existence certainly isn't tailor made for life.

So maybe you could flip a coin and see if there is some sort of creative force out there with objectives of creating intelligent life. Then 5 billion years of evolution to get humans at this precise moment in time.

Then you have to figure what the end of our universe is going to be. Heat death, big crunch, etc.

What would be the main objective of creating life here as it is? Vs. Life being a cosmic accident.

 

[Altfish]

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

(2) is something I've seen often and I had accepted as plausible until recently but reasoning from a speculative "hypothesis" seems to be cheating. Explaining a scientific discovery regarding fine tuning with an unscientific proposal isn't a reasonable way to deal with the issue.

I agree with the thought you express. I disagree it applies to this point.
The many-universe model (aka, the multi-verse) isn't something scientists just magicked out of their heads. It's not some speculative "guess". Instead, a multi-verse is a prediction that naturally flows from several models that tries to deal with fundamental physics of the universe and / or with it's origins.

Models like string theory, inflation, certain interpretations of quantum theory, etc.
Yes, these are all pretty much "hypothesis". Some better supported then others. None however conclusive.

The main point though, is that this isn't just something people dreamed up late at night after having too much coffee. A multi-verse is in fact a very real possibility, as plausible as the various hypothesis / models from which it flows in the form of a prediction.

So certainly not conclusive, but at least plausible. Which in and of itself is miles ahead of any creationist bare assertion out there.

(3) seems to be fine, in principle, but completely unsatisfying. Like saying, "of course the universe is suitable for life or we wouldn't be here". This doesn't attempt to engage with the problem. Poor form if you ask me.

I agree it's unsatisfying. However, the universe doesn't owe us any satisfaction. It could indeed be that it is just a coincidence (and in the multi-verse model, it actually would be....). But coincidences can and do happen all the time. And there need not be any "special" explanation for them.
When you deal yourself a poker hand, you could hit a royal flush. It wouldn't need a "special" explanation. The odds of it happening are the exact same as for any other specific hand.

So while I certainly agree that it wouldn't be very satisfying, it's not like it can be ruled out at this point...

(4) is straight up bonkers. Just denial as far as I can see.

Is it? That's not clear to me.
Take explanation one. If that is the case (that it couldn't have been any other way, because the constants are actually universal constants that could NOT take on another value, because they are what they are), then indeed there is no "fine tuning". There would be nothing to "tune" in that case.

(5) is a stretch as I see it. I think the fine-tuning argument is the strongest one for gods but even if we could show that the universe could've been different we wouldn't be showing that some god choose for it to be life friendly. Also, it wouldn't favour any particular conception of a creator over any other, imo. That said, I could be persuaded that it is evidence for some sort of goddish thing under the right conditions.

Here, I completely disagree.
There is no reason whatsoever to posit gods here.

Consider the idea of the multi-verse. There IS reason to posit a multi-verse. There IS a motivation to do so. That motivation is the models of certain aspects of the universe from which a prediction of a multi-verse naturally flows.

But there is nothing at all that predicts any kind of god thingy, other then people having a priori beliefs that a god exists and created things, for mostly no other reason then their geographic location and culture they find themselves in. Hardly convincing.

 

[Heyo]

I've been reading about the fine-tuning recently. In summary, this is the idea that...

...the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

From Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It seems that the incredible unlikelihood of our existence given different values require some sort of response. The common ones appear to be,

1. The values of parameters in the standard model and other theories couldn't have been any different as far as we know.
2. There are a near infinite number of possible universes and some of them would be likely to have life supporting constants.
3. It's just a coincidence.
   
4. It isn't fine tuned.
   
5. God did it.

Sabine Hossenfelder takes approach 1 in the public discussions I've seen and I have to say that this seems to me to be the most reasonable (disclaimer - I'm an atheist and it is fair to assume I'm biased towards explanations of the world that doen't require gods). Roughly, what she argues is that we can't construct probability distribution for events that we can never observe more than once. I find that compelling.

(2) is something I've seen often and I had accepted as plausible until recently but reasoning from a speculative "hypothesis" seems to be cheating. Explaining a scientific discovery regarding fine tuning with an unscientific proposal isn't a reasonable way to deal with the issue.

(3) seems to be fine, in principle, but completely unsatisfying. Like saying, "of course the universe is suitable for life or we wouldn't be here". This doesn't attempt to engage with the problem. Poor form if you ask me.

(4) is straight up bonkers. Just denial as far as I can see.

(5) is a stretch as I see it. I think the fine-tuning argument is the strongest one for gods but even if we could show that the universe could've been different we wouldn't be showing that some god choose for it to be life friendly. Also, it wouldn't favour any particular conception of a creator over any other, imo. That said, I could be persuaded that it is evidence for some sort of goddish thing under the right conditions.

Here's a couple of vids for anyone interested in looking into it:

- chat between physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Luke Barnes.

- Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis (physicist) and philosopher Philip Goff.

- short video on theologian David Lane Craig's channel.

- Closer To Truth episode


Please share your thoughts, arguments, angry denouncements, unhinged rants etc.

The fine tuning argument is taken from the fine tuning problem, discussed in physics, misunderstood and misused.
The fine tuning problem is the fact that our theories can't predict the physical constants. We have to measure them. A complete theory of everything would have to have explanations why the constants are what they are.
The fine tuning argument in the form that the universe is fine tuned for live is absolutely ridiculous. The only place in the universe we know life does exist is a small part of the surface of one little planet. If anything, the universe is fine tuned for the creation of black holes.

 

[MikeF]

I've been reading about the fine-tuning recently. In summary, this is the idea that...

...the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

From Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It seems that the incredible unlikelihood of our existence given different values require some sort of response. The common ones appear to be,

1. The values of parameters in the standard model and other theories couldn't have been any different as far as we know.
2. There are a near infinite number of possible universes and some of them would be likely to have life supporting constants.
3. It's just a coincidence.
   
4. It isn't fine tuned.
   
5. God did it.

Sabine Hossenfelder takes approach 1 in the public discussions I've seen and I have to say that this seems to me to be the most reasonable (disclaimer - I'm an atheist and it is fair to assume I'm biased towards explanations of the world that doen't require gods). Roughly, what she argues is that we can't construct probability distribution for events that we can never observe more than once. I find that compelling.

(2) is something I've seen often and I had accepted as plausible until recently but reasoning from a speculative "hypothesis" seems to be cheating. Explaining a scientific discovery regarding fine tuning with an unscientific proposal isn't a reasonable way to deal with the issue.

(3) seems to be fine, in principle, but completely unsatisfying. Like saying, "of course the universe is suitable for life or we wouldn't be here". This doesn't attempt to engage with the problem. Poor form if you ask me.

(4) is straight up bonkers. Just denial as far as I can see.

(5) is a stretch as I see it. I think the fine-tuning argument is the strongest one for gods but even if we could show that the universe could've been different we wouldn't be showing that some god choose for it to be life friendly. Also, it wouldn't favour any particular conception of a creator over any other, imo. That said, I could be persuaded that it is evidence for some sort of goddish thing under the right conditions.

Here's a couple of vids for anyone interested in looking into it:

- chat between physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Luke Barnes.

- Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis (physicist) and philosopher Philip Goff.

- short video on theologian David Lane Craig's channel.

- Closer To Truth episode


Please share your thoughts, arguments, angry denouncements, unhinged rants etc.

The universe is what it is. That life formed, it is only reasonable that the life is suited to the universe in which it arose. Whether or not anyone finds that satisfying seems immaterial. It's not about us.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I've been reading about the fine-tuning recently. In summary, this is the idea that...

...the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

From Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It seems that the incredible unlikelihood of our existence given different values require some sort of response. The common ones appear to be,

1. The values of parameters in the standard model and other theories couldn't have been any different as far as we know.
2. There are a near infinite number of possible universes and some of them would be likely to have life supporting constants.
3. It's just a coincidence.
   
4. It isn't fine tuned.
   
5. God did it.

Sabine Hossenfelder takes approach 1 in the public discussions I've seen and I have to say that this seems to me to be the most reasonable (disclaimer - I'm an atheist and it is fair to assume I'm biased towards explanations of the world that doen't require gods). Roughly, what she argues is that we can't construct probability distribution for events that we can never observe more than once. I find that compelling.

(2) is something I've seen often and I had accepted as plausible until recently but reasoning from a speculative "hypothesis" seems to be cheating. Explaining a scientific discovery regarding fine tuning with an unscientific proposal isn't a reasonable way to deal with the issue.

(3) seems to be fine, in principle, but completely unsatisfying. Like saying, "of course the universe is suitable for life or we wouldn't be here". This doesn't attempt to engage with the problem. Poor form if you ask me.

(4) is straight up bonkers. Just denial as far as I can see.

(5) is a stretch as I see it. I think the fine-tuning argument is the strongest one for gods but even if we could show that the universe could've been different we wouldn't be showing that some god choose for it to be life friendly. Also, it wouldn't favour any particular conception of a creator over any other, imo. That said, I could be persuaded that it is evidence for some sort of goddish thing under the right conditions.

Here's a couple of vids for anyone interested in looking into it:

- chat between physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Luke Barnes.

- Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis (physicist) and philosopher Philip Goff.

- short video on theologian David Lane Craig's channel.

- Closer To Truth episode


Please share your thoughts, arguments, angry denouncements, unhinged rants etc.

The "fine tuning" argument is question-begging nonsense.

Approached honestly, it would be nothing more than a tautology: "the universe is exactly as it is, and if it were different, it would be different." Trivially true, but useless for actually arguing for anything.

For "fine tuning" to be compelling at all, you would need to first establish that the universe we have was some sort of desired goal... i.e. you need to assume the existence of the god you're trying to prove.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

The problem I have with fine tuning is it's physicists talking outside their knowledge base. There is a reason why there are so much fewer religious biologists than physicists and I think part of it is not thinking of life as this static thing. To a biologist, fine tuning (when used in questions surrounding probability of life) makes no sense because life *adapted to* the environment it formed in, not the other way around. This is true of pre-life self replicators and organic chemistry too. When peptide chains form, only the ones conducive that environment will survive unbroken. The environment isn't fine tuned to the peptide chain, the peptide chain was tuned by the environment.

All fine tuning tells us is that there is a narrow band of situations where life in its known form could arise. Not that life is statistically impossible without a designer or even that life in other forms wouldn't have arisen in different forms according to different environmental pressures.

Pulling an ace of spades from a deck is 1 in 52. But pulling any other particular card is also 1 in 52.

 

[Bathos Logos]

I've been reading about the fine-tuning recently. In summary, this is the idea that...

...the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.

From Fine-Tuning (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It seems that the incredible unlikelihood of our existence given different values require some sort of response. The common ones appear to be,

1. The values of parameters in the standard model and other theories couldn't have been any different as far as we know.
2. There are a near infinite number of possible universes and some of them would be likely to have life supporting constants.
3. It's just a coincidence.
   
4. It isn't fine tuned.
   
5. God did it.

Sabine Hossenfelder takes approach 1 in the public discussions I've seen and I have to say that this seems to me to be the most reasonable (disclaimer - I'm an atheist and it is fair to assume I'm biased towards explanations of the world that doen't require gods). Roughly, what she argues is that we can't construct probability distribution for events that we can never observe more than once. I find that compelling.

(2) is something I've seen often and I had accepted as plausible until recently but reasoning from a speculative "hypothesis" seems to be cheating. Explaining a scientific discovery regarding fine tuning with an unscientific proposal isn't a reasonable way to deal with the issue.

(3) seems to be fine, in principle, but completely unsatisfying. Like saying, "of course the universe is suitable for life or we wouldn't be here". This doesn't attempt to engage with the problem. Poor form if you ask me.

(4) is straight up bonkers. Just denial as far as I can see.

(5) is a stretch as I see it. I think the fine-tuning argument is the strongest one for gods but even if we could show that the universe could've been different we wouldn't be showing that some god choose for it to be life friendly. Also, it wouldn't favour any particular conception of a creator over any other, imo. That said, I could be persuaded that it is evidence for some sort of goddish thing under the right conditions.

Please share your thoughts, arguments, angry denouncements, unhinged rants etc.

I feel that all this "fine tuning" stuff assumes that we know the limits of what can constitute an "animate object" or "living thing" and that anything and everything that could be considered as such meets our (possibly) myopic definitions of what "life" is and can be made of. A change of the "parameters" or values of forces would surely destroy our version of "life" and in certain versions (and to be sure, these "versions" are nothing but mere hypotheticals anyway - as in, like your complaint with #2 on your list, it is pretty unscientific to posit that the values could be anything else, and the only scientific part is modeling what would happen if they were and observing those results - which are not, at all, "real" results in any way) things like molecules may not even be capable of forming. But isn't it presumptuous to state that, with all of the activity that would still, surely go on (gravity pulling things together, charged particles attracting or repelling one another, etc.) can we state, with certainty, that absolutely nothing would become animate by some self-served means? When even at fundamental levels where we consider nothing "alive" necessarily, we still see things like crystals growing, atoms seeking more stable relationships with other elements around them, gravity smashing things into new forms and relationships, pitting different types of matter against one another, liquids able to be host to any number of ions and elements, and sloshing all around mixing things up in random soups of who-knows-what. It seems strange to have only our universe to view and state, with certainty, that barely any other universe imaginable would produce anything of note. How can anyone be certain of this? They "ran the models"? I wouldn't trust that with even $1 of my money given the wide scope of activity we're talking about here.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

He makes A LOT of assumptions about theism, and certainly many of his claims do not hold up throughout all of theism.

 

[RestlessSoul]

The "fine tuning" argument is question-begging nonsense.

Approached honestly, it would be nothing more than a tautology: "the universe is exactly as it is, and if it were different, it would be different." Trivially true, but useless for actually arguing for anything.

For "fine tuning" to be compelling at all, you would need to first establish that the universe we have was some sort of desired goal... i.e. you need to assume the existence of the god you're trying to prove.

You’ve got this the wrong way round. The tautology is the anthropic principle, which is sometimes employed to resolve the fine tuning problem by asserting that; we observe the universe as it is, because that is the way it has to be in order to for us to be here observing it.

Here’s Hawking on fine tuning;

“The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron…The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life…it seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no-one able to wonder at that beauty. One can take this either as evidence of divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science or as a support for a strong anthropic principle.”
- Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

 

[Subduction Zone]

He makes A LOT of assumptions about theism, and certainly many of his claims do not hold up throughout all of theism.

Are you sure about that? Please note he never said that all theistic beliefs would be as he said if naturalism was true, only that a good number of them would be and they are. Do you have a specific complaint?

 

[rational experiences]

A human. Natural.

Any condition that allowed you to be a natural human is exact healthy.

Yet even a healthy human body changes.

So you know support of life is fleeting ever changing.

Science hence said I must use the word evolution to support my awareness so hence I cannot announce creating creation has stopped.

Straight away my words states no place for theorising.

Words. I observe as a human first position.

Evolution is not observed as I'm still inheriting.

Second advice my words human discuss natural only anything position first.

So I cannot use the word as a theory.

I was already taught the legality of the word was with God naturally.

Planet rock fixed.

Heavens gas spirit types fixed yet evolving.
Ice fixed.
Light fixed.

Words said so.

I owned balances.

Rock sealed.
Natural light above cooled.
To allow water to exist and oxygen to be supplied cooled status. At ground.
With a clear no light sky.

Words natural were with God.

Not with science ever.

Science hence cannot use my holy words.

Legal advice.

New branch as designer civilisation brother lied. Criminal action proven.

Science theist machine brother lied. Criminal action proven.

Religious science brother lied. No criminal action.

Legal system today.

Words don't equate science. Legal.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Are you sure about that? Please note he never said that all theistic beliefs would be as he said if naturalism was true, only that a good number of them would be and they are. Do you have a specific complaint?

I apparently missed him say that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I apparently missed him say that.

The context was rather clear to me. He never claimed that all beliefs are that way.

 

[Yerda]

The universe is what it is. That life formed, it is only reasonable that the life is suited to the universe in which it arose. Whether or not anyone finds that satisfying seems immaterial. It's not about us.

It isn't a satisying answer to the question of why the constants take values that allow for life. If they could have been anything or taken a wide range of values (where most of the range would have ruled out complexity and therefore us) then it calls for an explanation, don't you think?

Of course life couldn't observe a universe where life wasn't permitted but that doesn't answer the question of why the universe allows for life if most of the parameter landscape wouldn't.

The fine tuning argument is taken from the fine tuning problem, discussed in physics, misunderstood and misused.
The fine tuning problem is the fact that our theories can't predict the physical constants. We have to measure them. A complete theory of everything would have to have explanations why the constants are what they are.
The fine tuning argument in the form that the universe is fine tuned for live is absolutely ridiculous. The only place in the universe we know life does exist is a small part of the surface of one little planet. If anything, the universe is fine tuned for the creation of black holes.

If one constant (I can't remember which - I'll find out) had taken a larger or smaller value we wouldn't have had anything anything more complex than helium. No complexity -> no life. This is assuming that some weird life couldn't have arisen in a helium universe but that assumption seems plausible to me. At least not ridiculous.

The idea of a deeper theory producing an explanation for why the constants are what they are is exciting. There's hopefully new physics out there to discover.

For "fine tuning" to be compelling at all, you would need to first establish that the universe we have was some sort of desired goal... i.e. you need to assume the existence of the god you're trying to prove.

I think what theists are getting at is that if we can reasonably assume that the values of the constants is really unlikely then we need an explanation. If there is a selective process or principle then a deity is a natural step for them.

That seems like a stretch to me but not fallacious.

The problem I have with fine tuning is it's physicists talking outside their knowledge base. There is a reason why there are so much fewer religious biologists than physicists and I think part of it is not thinking of life as this static thing. To a biologist, fine tuning (when used in questions surrounding probability of life) makes no sense because life *adapted to* the environment it formed in, not the other way around. This is true of pre-life self replicators and organic chemistry too. When peptide chains form, only the ones conducive that environment will survive unbroken. The environment isn't fine tuned to the peptide chain, the peptide chain was tuned by the environment.

All fine tuning tells us is that there is a narrow band of situations where life in its known form could arise. Not that life is statistically impossible without a designer or even that life in other forms wouldn't have arisen in different forms according to different environmental pressures.

Pulling an ace of spades from a deck is 1 in 52. But pulling any other particular card is also 1 in 52.

I think the physicists are saying that there would be no chemistry in most of the parameter landscape.

Some of them also say that the universe could be more life-friendly. We aren't in the optimal life-making universe.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think what theists are getting at is that if we can reasonably assume that the values of the constants is really unlikely then we need an explanation. If there is a selective process or principle then a deity is a natural step for them.

That seems like a stretch to me but not fallacious.

It's not just about the outcome being really unlikely.

I mean, grab any random deck of cards near you, shuffle it, and then deal it out. The odds that that unique sequence of cards would appear is about 1 in 8 x 10^67. Do you think these low odds mean that someone or something must have made your shuffle non-random without you realizing it?

There would be two rational ways to get from "this is really unlikely" to "this probably needs a special explanation or cause":

1. The thing is much less likely than the other possibilities, but happened anyway. But nobody in these debates ever deals with the likelihood of the alternative explanation (i.e. God).

2. The thing is unlikely and significant. But when it comes to "fine tuning" there's no reason besides human hubris to assume that the conditions for life are significant without assuming that they were the intended end goal of God.

So there's question-begging either way. If you go with approach #1, you're assuming that God is likely enough to be a reasonable alternative explanation, and if you go with #2, you need to assume that life was a desired end goal in the creation of the universe.

Either way, it's fallacious reasoning.

 

[Yerda]

It's not just about the outcome being really unlikely.

I mean, grab any random deck of cards near you, shuffle it, and then deal it out. The odds that that unique sequence of cards would appear is about 1 in 8 x 10^67. Do you think these low odds mean that someone or something must have made your shuffle non-random without you realizing it?

If we specified a tiny subspace of the entire possible outcome space before hand, and said unless we land in this subset the shuffle is invalid, and then we proceeded to shuffle and did infact land in the specific subspace I'm sure we'd both be looking for an explanation.

Maybe, the cards had been shuffled an infinite amount of times. Maybe it was just preposterously lucky. Maybe the deck is rigged. Or maybe someone chose the cards. You wouldn't claim I was begging the question if I proposed a chooser, would you?

 

[Subduction Zone]

If we specified a tiny subspace of the entire possible outcome space before hand, and said unless we land in this subset the shuffle is invalid, and then we proceeded to shuffle and did infact land in the specific subspace I'm sure we'd both be looking for an explanation.

Maybe, the cards had been shuffled an infinite amount of times. Maybe it was just preposterously lucky. Maybe the deck is rigged. Or maybe someone chose the cards. You wouldn't claim I was begging the question if I proposed a chooser, would you?

The deck may be rigged. One of the problems with the constants is that we do not know if they are variable or not. The fine tuning argument for God has the unjustified assumption that they are variable.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If we specified a tiny subspace of the entire possible outcome space before hand, and said unless we land in this subset the shuffle is invalid, and then we proceeded to shuffle and did infact land in the specific subspace I'm sure we'd both be looking for an explanation.

Maybe, the cards had been shuffled an infinite amount of times. Maybe it was just preposterously lucky. Maybe the deck is rigged. Or maybe someone chose the cards. You wouldn't claim I was begging the question if I proposed a chooser, would you?

But we didn't decide on a particular outcome beforehand - i.e. before the universe was created.

We can only look backward, so what you're describing is the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy... which is still fallacious.

An even if we were able to make a prediction like you describe for the next time a universe was created and that prediction came true, I wouldn't say you were being irrational for suggesting that a "chooser" should be one of the explanations to be considered, but I probably would say you were being irrational if you jumped to that conclusion and said there must be a "chooser" without establishing why it's a better answer than all the other potential explanations.