Thread by @inftoe

Another topic that confuses physicists no less than the heat death of the universe (which we discussed in is.gd/VQzfVI) is the fine tuning of the universe, and inexorably following it (no matter how hard try to come up with alternatives) the anthropic principle.
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This confusion is much stronger, because on the other side of the barricade there looms not soulless thermodynamics, which, after all, is still physics, but a much more alien enemy - someone's intelligent design.
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And this problem cannot be bypassed, ignored, or postponed for later. It is a fact: the values of the constants on which the existence of our universe is based are exactly such that this existence is possible.
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It is enough to change by fractions of a percent, for example, the speed of light, the mass or charge of an electron, the force of gravity - and the universe will become unsuitable for the emergence of life in it, and, maybe, will not exist at all.
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The researchers are so confused that they cannot even formulate the concept of fine tuning, that is, more or less clearly determine the set of the constants that cannot be changed. There are various formulations, but none of them is complete.
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Whichever of the parameters we take, changing it would lead to disaster. E.g., quite roughly: planets can rotate around the Sun only in the 3d universe, because the law of inverse squares operates in it, and in 4d the law of inverse cubes would operate, with the sad result.
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Or thinner: the universe is in a state of unstable gravitational equilibrium, the slightest change in the existing average density of matter or the gravitational constant would lead it to either collapse or scatter.
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Or thin at all: an increase in the Coulomb force would reduce the stability of atoms of the elements of the periodic system, and a decrease would reduce the stability of chemical molecules. In both cases, depletion of chemistry would make protein life impossible.
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It looks like we can't really touch anything at all. The entire universe is an extremely finely tuned instrument. Any intervention leads to inevitable disaster.
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But physics considers only the static aspect of fine-tuning, avoiding the dynamic one, which is not for its wage.
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But if the meteorite had not fallen, the dinosaurs would have dominated until now, not allowing mammals to develop, and there would have been no need to talk about any intelligence, because the physiology of reptiles is not enough to support a highly developed brain.
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And if Marx had not invented his marxism, which exacerbated the ideological confrontation, then humanity not have had either the current nuclear energy, or rocket technology, or computer technology generated in the hot and cold wars.
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And physics and cosmology have no explanation for fine tuning to take seriously. All they were able to do more or less constructively was to formulate an anthropic principle, suggesting that the universe in its present form, for some reason, exists for the sake of humanity.
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Of course, such a blatant non-materialistic approach is criticized in every possible way, since it contradicts the dominant idea based on a vulgar interpretation of the cosmological principle: the universe is the same everywhere, therefore we are a banal phenomenon in it.
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Here physics finally explodes the brain, because this idea conflicts with observations: there is no evidence that not only the mind, but even at least primitive life is present somewhere other than the Earth.
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At that, even slightly optimistic estimates of the Drake equation require that the galaxy be full of intelligent life. It is necessary to try very hard to artificially underestimate its parameters in order to adjust its value to the observed empty state of the universe.
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That is, everything contradicts everything: the anthropic principle – to the Drake's equation, that – to the observations, and all together – to beliefs based on the cosmological principle.
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As usual in such cases, cognition, finding itself in a blind alley, having no hope of solving the problem, begins to generate a stream of fictive ideas in the hope that some will accidentally work.
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The idea of a multiverse is now considered the most fruitful one. They say that there are such a huge number of universes (maybe 10⁹⁰, or 10⁵⁰⁰) that in at least one of them all physical laws, constants and conditions coincided by chance, so that life became possible.
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And we observe all this beauty only because we exist in this very universe. And in any other universe we would not observe anything, because we would not be there.
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It's funny that stereotypical everyday thinking makes authors perceive the multiverse as spatially distributed. Why not bring the absurd to the absolute and assume that the universes in the multiverse exist at one point, but one after the other?
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That is, there is a kind of global lottery machine that throws out randomly composed sets of laws and constants until, among them, there is one in which life is possible – and this will be our universe.
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And since this lottery takes place outside of time, all these sets exist simultaneously (it is a little scary that in this place someone will joyfully exclaim: "Hurray, superposition of universes!"; and someone will happily add: "in the singularity of a black hole!").
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And since all the sets exist simultaneously, then in fact only one of them really exists: the one in which we live. So, the rationale for fine tuning using the multiverse is very simple: "it is what it is". OK, the cognition process has been successfully completed, use.
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The problem of fine tuning is so dangerous that it makes one encroach on even the sacred. For example, the alternative to the multiverse idea of many regions within the universe with different sets of constants is nothing more than a rejection of the cosmological principle.
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And cannot do without a universal picklock of modern cosmology: black holes. The fountain of fictions contains, among other, such dashing ideas as cosmological natural selection, lavishly giving to black holes the ability to create universes with inheritance and mutations.
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And, of course, the minds weaker in spirit, having fallen in an exhausting struggle with reality, are ready to surrender to the idea of some kind of higher mind that has finely tuned our universe. It is preferable not to discuss who tuned the universe of this higher mind.
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Well, back from this panic-stricken zoo of ideas to what really is.
As already mentioned many times, the universe is only information, and nothing else:

https://twitter.com/inftoe/status/1218826934190321665

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Everything in the universe is multilevel combinations of the elementary concepts "the same" (S) and "the other" (O), compiled according to the rules for combining information:

https://twitter.com/inftoe/status/1418615923192344577

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The number of all possible combinations made according to these rules at each level L is calculated recursively by the formula:
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The number of combinations at levels:
• 1: 1 (is.gd/ppOuh1)
• 2: 2 (is.gd/ovTMQC)
• 3:10 (is.gd/txpYue)
• 4: 6128 (is.gd/CE8jOG)
• 5: ~8·10¹⁸⁴⁵ (is.gd/5aBmgn)
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As we can see, as the level rises, the number of combinations grows dramatically. What are these combinations?
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At the lower levels, these are the basic concepts of the universe. At the zero level – "the same"/"the other", at the first – "being", at the second – "observer" and "observable", at the third – concepts of the metric.
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The semantics of combinations from level to level becomes more and more certain and concrete. The abstractness of semantics decreases, reality grows. At higher levels, combinations more and more cease to be concepts, but become more and more phenomena of the real world.
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Each combination, since it contains the information of the combinations of which it is composed, is an observer of these combinations.
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At the same time, since the constituent combinations are all different, from the point of view of the observer, these differences obtain some semantic load.
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The higher the level, the more complex the observers contained on it, and the more specific and diverse the semantics of their observations. However, since they observe all the lower levels, the semantics of the simplest concepts is available to them.
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In particular, the above semantics of basic concepts is not something assigned to them by someone higher, but this is the semantics that we humans perceive as observers from the levels of complexity at which we are, because we ourselves are their most complex combinations.
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Since each observer is a complex information structure with properties, the totality of which is formed by the observations of which it consists, it has a different attitude to the observed underlying combinations.
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Some combinations, of course, are not included in its composition, it does not contain their information, that is, it does not observe them at all.
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Other combinations are directly or indirectly included in its composition, but play an insignificant role in it, that is, from the point of view of the observer, they are weakly observed.
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Some of the constituent combinations play a significant role in the semantics of the observer, they are well observed by it, it is they which mainly determine its own semantics.
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It turns out that from the point of view of overlying observers, the combinations below them differ in observability: some are not observed, others are weakly observed, some are observed well. There is a some selection of combinations according to their observability.
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Observers, whose semantics are close, observe approximately the same composition of the underlying combinations. So, among the entire set of possible combinations, a certain area is formed, conventionally speaking, a cone, common to a set of similar observers at its top.
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Now let's once again pay attention to the number of combinations. At the 4th level there are 6128 of them, at the 5th – ~8·10¹⁸⁴⁵. How many on the 6th and subsequent – we will be not even guess. Observers clearly have plenty to choose from to observe in their "cone".
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Now let's add a picture of what observations are in reality. When the retina of your eye catches a photon, or when a molecule of your skin receives a push energy from a molecule of warm air, these are observations.
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When a quark inside a proton absorbs a gluon emitted by a neighboring quark, this is an observation.
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When a photon in its flight through the universe is deflected by the gravity of the passing galaxy – this is an observation.
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When the concept of the second level "observer" (SO)S is combined with the concept of zero level "the same" S, it forms the concept of "own azimuth of the observer" ((SO)S)S – and this is an observation.
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All of these observations in fact create new observers. But complex observers (like us, or quarks), who basically retain their structure when observe, get the impression that we, keeping ourselves, are moving upward through life and path of cognition of the universe.
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A little distracted from the topic of the thread: this is the very real arrow of time, the absence of which is complained about by Ethan Siegel @StartsWithABang in the article about the thermodynamic arrow of time: forbes.com/sites/startswi…
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Unlike all other physical processes (excluding thermodynamic one, which is not fundamental), the receipt of information is irreversible in time: after this act, the information remains with both the observer and the observed. This is the true arrow of time.
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Back to our fine tune.
On the one hand, as we have already understood, observers better observe what is observed in the lower layers, which is more consistent with their own structure, which will not surprise those who are familiar with information theory.
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On the other hand, the observer's own structure is determined just by what it observes, which closes the logic: what it observes acquires semantics from its point of view, that is, it observes the realized universe.
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And an unimaginable number of combinations (~8·10¹⁸⁴⁵ even at the 5th level) provides a variety sufficient to have observations at high levels of the structure of the universe that do not conflict with each other so deep that logic of realization becomes impossible.
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Thus, in an unimaginable sea of possible combinations, a distinguished structure (mentioned "observation cone") is formed, located below the observer, which it observes as its universe. The combinations in this structure are "beings", they are real from its point of view.
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That is, the observer, which concept (SO)S is fundamentally defined at the second level of combinations, is the same creator of the universe as the observable objective reality, the concept (SO)O of which is defined on equal terms at the same level.
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Observers which are similar to each other (for example, people) have approximately the same observation cone, that is, the universe from their point of view is approximately the same for all of them.
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And these observations are such as to ensure the existence of these observers, since it is by these observations they are formed.
This is the real reason for the fine-tuned universe.
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We, humanity, from our positions in the complexity structure of the universe, observe it with the very set of constants and physical laws that ensures our existence, because being at the top of the cone, only them we can observe below ourselves.
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And yes, this is an informational anthropic principle. We, being observers, ourselves see our cozy universe such that it was able to create us.
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As you already understood, the discussion of the fine tuning of the universe was an occasion to outline the basics of theory of complexity, theory of observations and theory of realization, which together compose the information theory of everything, InfToE.
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