There is a novel titled "Just six numbers".

Question

If any of these numbers were to different in force, value etc. life and the universe would not exist. Given our knowledge of statistics, the chances of these values being random cannot be calculated. Does'nt it seem that these values are such for a reason? Is it not possible something made it happen this way?

Answer 1

I doubt it.  If they were different, then the book wouldn't exist, but I got a feelin' the universe would happliy ignore anything we think or write about it and go merrily upon its way.  Don't ever forget this well known fact:  The Universe was here long before we "intelligent" monkeys started scratching figures in the sand.

Apples could fall before Newton, birds could fly before Bernoulli,  How did they ever do it without us to explain it.....

There is nothing in existence that is obligated to follow our math, our graphs, ....maybe once in a while one of our graphs coincide, but that doesn't really make us the original designers, does it?  Don't forget that if the entire universe as we know it was converted to India Ink, it still wouldn't be enough to draw all the functions the math people have come up with, heck, actually it wouldn't be enought to draw y = x^2 in its entirety....such be the nature of our infinity.

Why did you read a book of only six numbers?  You should read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Numbers-Cosmo...

It has 1.5 times the numbers you speak of, nine intead of six.  Actually that makes it 1.5 times as silly.

If there is such a thing as infinity, it is the hubris of man.

Answer 2

What motivates the notion that statistical reasoning is appropriate here?

The quantities to which you refer are the MEASUREMENT of a system in equilibrium.  They follow from it, not dictate it.  They aren't k***s that can be turned at will.

It's like a bowling ball on a circular trampoline.  If you argue that there are many, many places on the trampoline that the ball could be, and that the fact that you observe it to be at the exact center "must" be proof that some intelligent agent put the ball there, and nowhere else, then you are ignoring the real reasons why the ball is in the center of the trampoline.  It's there not because some deity defied all statistical probability and placed it in one blatantly significant position; it's there because the forces that affect bowling balls and trampolines dictate that there really can be only one place the ball will end up, no matter where it happened to land.

EDIT:

I agree that witnessing wasn't Rees' intent in writing the book, and that there is much value in studying the quantitative interactions in the universe.  However this book is habitually trotted out by advocates of Intelligent Design as "evidence" that the universe cannot probably have arisen by any means other than omnipotent fiat.  Many Creationist lines of reasoning are based around begging the question that this or that phenomenon cannot have arisen by chance, and making pseudostatistical arguments for it.  I imagine the questioner here will make the intent of the question plain.

Answer 3

No one knows.  This is a valid question, not some mindless witnessing.   Some of theorized that our existence is proof that there exists a near infinity of parallel universes.  Most are utterly barren.  Ours just happened to have the correct values for stars to form and for us to evolve and worry about such things.  My guess is when the Earth is consumed by the sun  man will never have puzzled out this question.  It may be that we are simply too unintelligent to understand reality.  

Answer 4

the universe would exist with, or without, those numbers being as they are. im not sure where they got these calculations, but they are nonsense.

Answer 5

What you have apparently failed to consider is that these numbers HAD TO be what they are in order for us to be here wondering about them. If their values were other than what they are, we wouldn't exist. It's called the Anthropic Principle.

Answer 6

Well, it's conjecture... there could be *billions* of other universes that exist right now where these numbers are different, and ours simply got it right.

The bottom line is, how can we ever tell if the universe was assembled... or just happened by accident?