That’s the problem wit Routledge generally, which is all-in on the academic grift model of publishing for profit.

Though I see used copies do exist below thirty dollars, there might not be many. One can try interlibrary loan at your local public library—and I always encourage people to support their local public library.

Though be aware, it may still have merits, but that’s over twenty years old now. So it’s a bit out of date for the current conversation.

That is not a “non-argument.” The argument was stated after the sentence you quote. And you are the one absurdly claiming your inability to prove the premise your argument depends upon is “irrelevant.” It is literally the only relevant thing here.

Sorry, but everything you are saying is wrong.

Clearly a non-argument.

You cannot prove invariant constants. Full stop. You are done.

Totally irrelevant and out of place. Just a clear attempt to shift the burden of proof in a lost debate.

Your original argument cannot contribute anything here.

Thank you for your attention and for proving my argument irrefutable.

Cheers.

Sorry, but everything you are saying is wrong.

You cannot prove invariate constants. Full stop. You are done. You have no argument to continue. So continuing to waffle around this rather than accepting it is just wasting your time and ours.

There’s nothing more to discuss.

As I already explained at the top of the thread:

Your original argument cannot contribute anything here. My article already covers anything it purports to add, and what it fails to do, my article already does.

That’s not relevant to my point.

It is totally relevant. I just showed you a well known paradigmatic historic case that a consensus among physicists was proved wrong (and there are many other examples). That is one of the big reasons that physicists of today are way more cautious than you seem to be. 

You can check how cautious they are for yourself:

“It’s probably what I would expect in the sense that I don’t take any of the numbers very seriously. All this is telling us is that we don’t agree, right? That’s what I take from the survey results here. And that’s
good because we don’t know the answer to these questions. So, that’s fine with me.” — Sean Carrol.

“I would never say that the apparent fine-tuning of the constants of nature demands an explanation or necessitates some mechanism or anything like that. Of course, it could have been just an accident. We could just be lucky. They could just be brute facts. That’s something we have to take into consideration.” — Sean Carrol.

And here in this specific case you don’t even have a consensus, and one of the studies you brought up said it explicitly. When confronted with that fact, you dismissed it and moved on.

“More broadly, the survey highlights the importance of distinguishing between “most popular” and “consensus” when describing contemporary physics.”

None of your other remarks in that last comment are relevant to this or anything in my article.

You completely ignored my remark on the Coleman-De Luccia (CDL) tunneling mechanism which is crucial for the Multiverse based on String Theory Landscape to work — coming from the Bousso-Polchinski Model. Without such mechanism the multiverse you claim doesn’t exist.

It turns out that the CDL itself has also fine-tuned parameters: Domain Wall Tension, Vacuum Energy Density Difference, Quantized Flux Numbers, Dilaton Vacuum Expectation Value (VEV).

Domain Wall Tension (σ) is itself dependent on G. This means that for the CDL mechanism to select parameter G of our universe, the mathematical tunneling barrier itself must already know about and be calibrated as a function of an underlying G.

That means if you propose the Multiverse to solve one fine-tuning problem you are importing another fine-tuning problem. I said that explicitly: “the question will still remain: Why those parameters?” which you dismissed and ignored.

These are not mere details and cannot be ignored. And any other tunneling mechanism to this date suffers from this same problem.

You haven’t proved they are necessarily invariate, therefore we must account for the possibility they are not. It is therefore not possible to refute the fine tuning argument with your premise. Unproven premise in, means unproven conclusion out.

I never claimed they are necessarily invariant nor is a premise of my argument. You are strawmaning my position and my whole argument.

My argument works with probabilistic reasoning that never attributes zero probability as a premise. If you think otherwise, you misunderstood it. Maybe you are confused with the section 5 of my argument that the Law of Total Probability requires for analysis, however, it is definitely not a premise.

Trying to claim you know better than thousands of cosmological scientists is also a huge red flag for folly.

This sounds more like an argument from authority that has no ground. Where did I claim or suggested to know better than thousands of cosmological scientists? That is a weird accusation.

It is not me criticising String Theory and the Multiverse out of the blue. Perhaps you will give more weight to the Nature publication by Joe Silk and George Ellis, who raise similar remarks and emphasized the necessity of experimental verification:

“Experiments have proved many beautiful and simple theories wrong, from the steady­state theory of cosmology to the
SU(5) Grand Unified Theory of particle physics, which aimed to unify the electroweak force and the strong
force.”

“Fundamentally, the multiverse explanation relies on string theory, which is as yet unverified, and on speculative
mechanisms for realizing different physics in different sister universes. It is not, in our opinion, robust, let alone testable.”

“The consequences of overclaiming the significance of certain theories are profound — the scientific method is at stake.”

Beyond that publication, this is also directly relevant to your article and it is completely aligned with what I’ve been defending:

“The scenario of many unobserved universes plays the same logical role as the scenario of an intelligent designer. Each provides an untestable hypothesis that, if true, makes something improbable seem quite probable.” — Lee Smolin

Most physicists used to think that the Ether could exist. But the final judge is always the experiment.

That’s not relevant to my point. You haven’t proved they are necessarily invariate, therefore we must account for the possibility they are not. It is therefore not possible to refute the fine tuning argument with your premise. Unproven premise in, means unproven conclusion out.

Trying to claim you know better than thousands of cosmological scientists is also a huge red flag for folly. But apart from that, we have to account for the facts as they are. And that’s what my article does, and your alternative doesn’t. And that’s that.

None of your other remarks in that last comment are relevant to this or anything in my article. For exactly that reason.

Most physicists think many fundamental constants could be different

Most physicists used to think that the Ether could exist. But the final judge is always the experiment.

given different initial conditions or selected underlying structures.

It seems that you don’t realise that this does not resolve the problem, but just shift it one step up. “Different initial conditions” over which background? Or “selected underlying structures” with what parameters?

This just implies that what we think is fundamental in current theories will be derived in more profound theories and the question will still remain: Why those parameters?

String Theory Landscape doesn’t answer that, actually it makes it worse. The 10^500 possibilities with an “obscure” untestable tunneling proposed mechanism (CDL) that has itself unexplained fine-tuned parameters.

They are right. Logic and science backs this possibility, even rendering it likely.

Saying it is likely is a very, very big stretch. It seems you are ignoring what experimentalists (somewhat instrumentalists/nominalists inclined) have to say and just talk with the theoreticians (somewhat mathematical realists/platonists inclined).

Therefore we must account for that in any address of fine tuning.

I completely agree and my argument also addressed that. And the probability decomposition conclusively demonstrates, in a mathematical way, that the FTA fails in both directions.

Again, I see no relevance to any of that.

The facts are these:

Most physicists think many fundamental constants could be different given different initial conditions or selected underlying structures.

They are right. Logic and science backs this possibility, even rendering it likely.

Therefore we must account for that in any address of fine tuning.

My article already does that.

So you aren’t adding anything of use here.

I don’t see how any of that follows.

Since Newton’s theory of gravity, physics has followed a successful 300+ year program by defining the applicable math beforehand — geometry, variational principles, abstract symmetries — through analysis and theory, and then defining parameters in a measurement-dependent approach.

It seems to me that the approach of trying to describe nature totally in an a priori mathematical way, including all parameters, and then just testing it afterwards — like some, if not all, Grand Unified Theories do — is a regression towards Pythagorean or Platonic “epistemic strategy”, just with highly advanced math. This kind of framework has been failing for over 2,500 years. I am not saying it is impossible to work, but it is secure to say that it is at least relatively unlikely given its track record. 

Based on the paradigmatic historical successful approach that all our “real world” physics relies upon, it is much more likely that when physicists answer “They are brute facts or need no further explanation” in the first poll or “They are brute facts that need no further explanation” in the second, they are assuming the constants are the way they are and require no further explanation.

The authors of the Copenhagen Survey seem to agree: “In our survey, brute facts that need no explanation was a more popular option than both.” Since the option there uses the connective “or” — “They are brute facts or need no further explanation.” And note that the authors themselves inferred “that need no explanation” — revealing their own reading of what respondents meant.

If those specific physicists firmly believed the constants could be otherwise, they would explore reasons or mechanisms behind it choosing the remaining — including the “other” — options. On the other hand, if interpreted as conclusive in the other direction based on the technical philosophical definition of “brute facts” the options of the survey are obviously asymmetrical and both polls were not neutral, given that — and this is very important — they were, with the exception of the “Other” option, not open-ended polls but rather multiple choice. Differently from what you suggested when saying “Set by a principle means necessary and is the only nonvariable response labeled and counted.” It was not labeled, but offered instead.

I also happen to know a lot of physicists and what they think about this. And it simply isn’t what you are claiming.

I also have to remind you that I never claimed necessity nor “set by principle” throughout this entire conversation. I explicitly claimed: “outside of logical possibility, mathematical possibility, and physical speculation, there is no evidence — let alone solid evidence — that the fundamental empirical parameters of physics could be variables rather than constants.” I also previously asked directly: “The point being: what, outside of logical possibility, mathematical possibility, and speculative physical hypotheses, makes you think that these parameters could have been different? Is there any evidence for this?” — My real position is to remain somewhat agnostic until evidence points conclusively otherwise. And my position is totally compatible with attributing lower probability to this possibility given our present knowledge coming from today’s working models.

If physics ever finds a path to show fundamental constants could be variable across time or space on a solid, tested ground, this would represent a revolution in physics (which I’m open to). For instance, variable fundamental constants means that Noether Symmetries as they are would break.

So your claim that “we even have a poll of real scientists on this now: fewer than 10% think “necessity” explains the constants” finds no echo in what I have been defending. Moreover, you seem to suggest some sort of consensus among physicists that the constants could indeed be different or variable as a positive stance and not merely as a possibility or a working hypothesis. But the Big Mysteries Survey warns exactly against that: “More broadly, the survey highlights the importance of distinguishing between “most popular” and “consensus” when describing contemporary physics to wider audiences.”  

And it is important to remember, as stated in the conclusion of the Copenhagen Survey: “Polling scientists does not decide the resolution of scientific controversies.” 

As Ethan Siegel, a source you’ve already cited yourself, put it brilliantly: “Beyond the realm of what’s known, everyone, even among the great minds of today, is merely guessing.” And then he concludes by stating: “The best thing, honestly, that one can take away from this survey is just how eager physicists are to express their strongly-held opinions about matters where having one is unjustified on scientific grounds.”

But all this polling conversation is actually a big digression, as it would only bear weight on the probability of the constants being different — P(M|Nat) — in my original argument, which already anticipated and addressed any attempt to raise it:

First: “By the law of total probability, when P(M | Nat) is defined:

P(E | Nat) = P(E | M, Nat)·P(M | Nat) + P(E | ¬M, Nat)·P(¬M | Nat)”

Then: “It is worth clarifying here that any attempt to claim that P(M | Nat) is not low also has consequences for P(E | M, Nat). To propose a hypothetical naturalistic mechanism for M — such as the multiverse, commonly rejected by FTA defenders, or natural selection of constants — renders P(E | M, Nat) non-negligible compared to the magnitude of 10⁻¹³⁴, and consequently makes P(E | Nat) much larger than the figure normally presented. In other words, claiming that P(M | Nat) is not low creates a dilemma in the face of the probability decomposition, since P(M | Nat) + P(¬M | Nat) = 1 and P(E | M, Nat) is itself dependent on whatever mechanisms ground P(M | Nat).”

Finally: “If (iii) holds — that is, if P(M | Nat) is undefined — it follows logically that P(E | Nat) is also undefined, and therefore no analysis is possible. Premise 1 does not follow, and the FTA carries no evidential weight.”