Goldilocks is a criminal and there are no dials:

A rant against the notion of a "finely tuned" universe.

You ever hear that we live in a “Goldilocks Universe”?

You remember Goldilocks from the children’s story, right? Troubled youth commits a B&E on a peaceful family of bears. Goes to steal some porridge. One bowl is too hot, one too cold, one just right. Tries to sleep during the home invasion. One bed is too hard, one too soft, one just right.

Then the bears come home and eat the girl. Justice prevails.

(I forget the story exactly. It’s been a while).

The first time I heard of this “Goldilocks Principle” it was in regards planet Earth. The distance our home is from the sun is “just right” to support human life. Not too hot, not too cold, just right.

The “Goldilocks Universe” version of this idea relates to the notion that the universe we inhabit is very “finely tuned”. There are things called “cosmological constants”, aspects of reality that, had they been different, life couldn’t exist. In fact, had they been different, stars, planets, etc, could not have formed in a recognizable way.

The usual list of these “finely tuned constants” is comprised of things like the charge of an electron, the gravitational constant, the ratio of the masses of a proton and electron, aaaaaand others that I’m too dumb to describe succinctly.

When you hear smart people musing about this topic, you’ll hear them say things like how “improbable” it is that we live in a universe where the “dials” of these cosmological constants are set in such a precise way that the universe could form and life could exist.

They’ll say that there’s such a very narrow allowable range for these values to be, such that anything like our universe could come into existence, that it’s amazing that these values were “set” in such a way.

Some people use the “finely tuned” constants concept to bolster their intuitions that there must be a God who created the universe in this rare, specific way, such that we humans could come into existence.

Other smart and imaginative folks will imagine a multitude of universes, perhaps an infinite amount, in which these “dials” are set differently in each one.

Some lazy writers imagine multiverses of different Spidermen (and women) and make us all detest Marvel Comics for their frippery.

But hold on. Slow down. Back up. Quit begging all these questions, smarty-pants peoples.

As I’ve argued previously, there is only one data point here. As far as we know, there exists only one universe. We imagine others. We imagine a neat concept such as “dials” with which one could “tune” things like cosmological constants.

But that’s all this is: imagination.

It doesn’t make any sense at all to insist that these constants “could have been” different. Says who? Again, we only have this one universe to examine. We invented these “dials” out of pure imagination and conceit — much like Spider-Ham.

Honestly, what the hell is that thing supposed to be?

Marvel multiverses aside, human imagination is an amazing and wonderful thing. It’s how we invent our way into a better future. It’s how we discover. It’s how we think.

But it can also be employed to fool ourselves if we aren’t careful. There are no “dials”, as far as we know. Same for alternate universes. As far as we know, the cosmological constants couldn’t have been anything other than they are and there’s only one universe, this one.

To imagine otherwise is fun. And hey, maybe your wild imaginings will some day turn out to be true. But don’t put the cart before the horse and insist that what you’ve imagined must be so.

Oh, and quit relying on multiple universes, comic book writers. Eric July is right. It’s lazy, and we’re all sick of it.

Naturally,

Adam

Oh, and if you want to hear me rant about weird things on Twitter(X), you can find me there as “@Rerazer”