Is The Atom An Example Of Cosmic Design And Fine-Tuning?

When one thinks that the Cosmos is both designed and fine-tuned, they mean that the Cosmos is both designed and fine-tuned for life in general but human life, mind and intelligence in particular. But standard Darwinian Evolution pretty much does away with the need for cosmic design and cosmic fine-tuning. But Darwinian Evolution can't account for any initial pre-life conditions that life would ultimately require. Is there anything in those cosmic pre-life parameters that is suggestive of design and fine-tuning? Well how about the atom itself?

When one thinks of the Anthropic Principle, that the Cosmos is both designed and fine-tuned, they mean that the Cosmos is both designed and fine-tuned for life in general but human life; human mind / intelligence in particular. But standard Darwinian Evolution, Natural Selection, pretty much does away with the need for cosmic design (and a designer) and cosmic fine-tuning (and a tuner). But Natural Selection and Darwinian Evolution can't account for those initial pre-life conditions that life itself would ultimately require. So is there anything in those cosmic pre-life parameters that is suggestive of design and fine-tuning? Well how about the atom itself?

The Cosmos would appear to be both designed and fine-tuned starting with atoms and right on up the line it goes.

Why design? Well the Cosmos appears to be ordered, predictable, deterministic, structured, have emergent complexity, symmetries, and variety. Ultimately it appears to have a mathematical foundation. Now this does NOT of necessity imply planning or a purpose or meaning or that the design was goal-oriented. Still, the word design does of course imply a designer.

We're probably aware of the story of the person who stumbled across a watch in the wilderness. Although this person had never seen a watch before, they realized that it was something complex and manufactured and designed and they reason therefore that there must have been a designer.

Untold millions have taken this tale, replaced the watch with some sort of complex biological structure like a human eye or a human brain, but even an amoeba, flatworm, fish or bird would do. These millions have concluded that such a complex and obviously designed structure / organism had a designer too who obviously was God or some sort of similar deity.

Since biological evolution has eliminated the need for a supernatural designer of biological things, I propose to look elsewhere for a complex but non-biological structure that has nothing to do with biological evolution and ask whether this non-biological thing need have had a designer.

I think it is fairly safe to say that if any one of the fundamental first-generation standard model particles (like say electrons) had not been programmed in to exist, including the two nuclear forces, we wouldn't be here since no atoms, hence molecules would or could exist.

So what I came up with was the atom; yes, the humble atom. Atoms are a marvelous piece of 'natural' engineering.

Consider the ingredients you need: the strong nuclear force particles; the weak nuclear force particles; the electromagnetic force particles; up-quarks and down-quarks in order to form the protons and the neutrons; and of course electrons. And all of these bits and pieces have to mesh like a clock - or even a watch. You can't just assemble these bits and pieces in just any old way and expect things to work out. Further, you can't expect natural selection; Darwinian evolution; survival of the fittest; and selfish genes to play any role here. These processes have nothing to do with the emergence of atoms from the fundamental particles, forces and fields that form the bedrock of the atomic realm. It's all governed by the laws, principles and relationships of quantum mechanics, all of which had to come from somewhere or from someone or from something.

For example, there's the Pauli Exclusion Principle which requires that not more than two electrons can occupy exactly the same 'orbit' and then only if they have differing quantum values, like spin-up and spin-down. This prevents all electrons being together like commuters crowded into a Tokyo subway carriage at rush hour. Then there's the energy levels that electrons are allowed to have while 'orbiting' around the nucleus. That can be in this level or that level or the next level but not at in-between levels. This prevents electrons from spiraling down and impacting the positively charged nucleus which, being negatively charged, electrons would otherwise want to do. Design and fine-tuning by any other name still appears to be design and fine-tuning.

Consider further that the partial (fractional) electrical charges on the up-quarks and the down-quarks had to arrange themselves just-so such that a proton is a unity of positive electric charge and a neutron is a unity of electric charge neutrality. Then, the positive electric charge on the proton has to balance just so (to an infinite number of decimal places, at least as close to infinity as one can actually measure and calculate) the negative electric charge of the electron. How can the electric charge of the electron be EXACTLY equal and opposite to that of the proton when they otherwise share nothing in common?

Atoms by themselves do not in and of themselves form life. Atoms have to have just-so configurations to link together to form molecules. If hydrogen atoms couldn't link up with oxygen atoms there could be no water and no water implies no life could arise. The same applies to dozens of other essential molecules that life, and the human species requires.

On the other hand, why isn't there a universal solvent or acid that disassembles molecules? Everything can be stored in at least one kind of container. That too seems to be essential for life as is the requirement that some things need to be in solution some of the time.

So who was the designer of the atom? The traditional theological answer would yet again be a deity or deities, but that hypothesis suffers from so much other baggage that it can be dismissed. There's of course Mother Nature, but that leaves everything to pure chance.

Who fine-tuned the atomic parameters? Why fine-tuning? Well fine-tuning implies that something(s) exist against all the odds. The unstated assumption being that fine-tuning requires a tuner. Regarding that fine-tuning, noted physicist Freeman Dyson once said that "it's almost as though the universe knew we were coming". Of course in the Simulation Hypothesis (see below), the cosmos really did 'know' we were preprogrammed and coming into existence and it all started with the design and fine-tuned engineering of the humble atom.

Who is the designer; who is the tuner? IMHO we exist in a "what if" cast-your-fate-to-the-wind scenario cast by a highly technologically advanced computer / software programmer. They fit the designer / fine-tuner bill of goods. In other words, the atom is well enough designed and fine-tuned to suggest that the Simulation Hypothesis, that is we 'exist' in a landscape of pure virtual reality, has quite some considerable merit.

One other point needs to be considered at this juncture. Why are all of the individual fundamentals the same? Why are all spin-up electrons or up-quarks or first generation neutrinos or even photons identical to all other spin-up electrons or up-quarks or first generation neutrinos or even photons? Perhaps the answer lies in the plausibility that each type of fundamental has been assigned their own unique computer / software coding.

Finally, consider that, or so it's claimed and I suspect with very good experimental reasoning, that an atom is literally 99.99% empty space. Yet we have the illusion that there is no empty space. That 99.99% emptiness suggests our computer / software programmer is being very economic with the bits and bytes while also being able to program in the illusion that there is no empty space.