Research, discussions, thought, its a rather broad field after all.
This universe is finite both in beginning and end, that seems obvious given entropy. Did you note the quotes I offered, one was from Hawking…
“The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”
-Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (quoted in multiple sources)
“Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word ‘miraculous’ without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word.”
- George Ellis
Maybe “arbitrary” is the issue, what I mean by it is, there are a fixed set of parameters which enable this universe to exist at all, these parameters do not seem to be necessary; that is, its the only possible configuration or calibration, but modulated, regulated (more on this latter).
Barely coherent? What makes you think that?
Well, far be it from me to shirk my burden of proof (full disclosure, I used Google (which I think is an AI) Search for these citations)
- Gravitational Constant (G)
Governs the strength of gravity.
If gravity were slightly stronger, stars would burn too fast and collapse; slightly weaker, they would never ignite.
Source: Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers (2000). - Electromagnetic Force Constant (α, the fine-structure constant)
Controls the strength of electromagnetic interaction between charged particles.
A small change alters chemistry itself: atoms would not form stable bonds, and light-matter interactions would be radically different.
Source: Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (1977). - Strong Nuclear Force Constant
Determines how strongly protons and neutrons bind in nuclei.
If it were just 2 percent stronger, all hydrogen would fuse into helium early in the universe; if slightly weaker, no atoms heavier than hydrogen could exist.
Source: John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986). - Weak Nuclear Force
Controls radioactive decay and hydrogen fusion in stars.
If weaker, stars could not synthesize the heavier elements needed for life; if stronger, supernovae and cosmic radiation would sterilize everything. - Ratio of Electron Mass to Proton Mass
Sets the scale for chemistry.
If the electron were much heavier, orbitals would collapse and molecules would not form; if much lighter, bonding would be too weak to hold matter together. - Ratio of Electrons to Protons
The universe is almost perfectly charge-balanced: for every 10⁹ photons, there is roughly one proton and one electron.
A tiny asymmetry (about one part in a billion) is what allows matter to exist at all instead of annihilating completely with antimatter.
Source: Paul Davies, The Accidental Universe (1982). - Cosmological Constant (Λ)
Determines the rate of cosmic expansion.
If slightly larger, matter would never have clumped into stars and galaxies; if slightly smaller, the universe would have recollapsed before life began.
Source: Steven Weinberg, Physical Review Letters, 1987. - Baryon-to-Photon Ratio
Controls density fluctuations in the early universe.
Too high or too low and galaxies, stars, and planets cannot form. - Rate of Cosmic Expansion (H₀)
Fine-tuned balance between gravitational attraction and expansion speed.
Too rapid: no galaxies; too slow: premature collapse. - Carbon Resonance in the Hoyle State
The energy level of carbon-12 allows stars to produce carbon efficiently through nuclear fusion.
Change that resonance by even a few percent and carbon (and therefore life) vanishes.
Source: Fred Hoyle, Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 1954.
So at some point we have to acknowledge this universe resides in a Goldilocks zone and isn’t a necessary state, for it to exist a lot of elements had to be just right. Now you could argue, all the elements I’ve cited (which are not all that exist) are necessary, as opposed to arbitrary, but imo, that has more issues than mine. Btw, I trust you are satisfied with the foundation for at least my claim to fine tuning.
Eternal Inflation and the Multiverse (Andrei Linde, Alan Guth, et al.)
In this model, inflation; the rapid expansion that followed the Big Bang never completely ends. Instead, it continues in different regions, creating countless “bubble universes.” Each bubble can have its own vacuum state and therefore its own set of physical constants and laws. Our universe happens to be one bubble where the constants fall in the narrow range that permits life.
This idea is often paired with the Anthropic Principle: we shouldn’t be surprised that the constants here appear fine-tuned, because only in such a universe could observers exist to notice.
“Eternal inflation predicts that our universe is just one of many bubbles in a much larger multiverse, each with different physical properties.”
— Andrei Linde, Scientific American, 1998
String Landscape Theory (Leonard Susskind, Raphael Bousso, et al.)
String theory allows an enormous number of possible solutions for the vacuum configuration of the universe — estimates often cited are around 10^500 different possible universes.
Each configuration produces different values for physical constants such as the cosmological constant, gravitational coupling, and particle masses.
The argument is that our universe is simply one that fell into a viable configuration for life — not designed, but a statistical inevitability across a vast landscape of possibilities.
“The anthropic principle is not a cop-out; it is the realization that in a landscape of perhaps 10^500 different vacua, it is no surprise that some tiny fraction will have the right conditions for life.”
— Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design (2005)
If you’d like more, just ask. 
Fred Hoyle (Astrophysicist, discoverer of carbon resonance)
“A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.”
— Engineering and Science, 1981, vol. 45, p. 12
“This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been, namely to an accuracy of one part in 10 to the power of 10^123. It’s an extraordinary figure… I cannot even recall seeing anything else in physics that comes anywhere near so impressive.”
— Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind (1989), p. 444
Now, “everyone” is somewhat hyperbolic, though, I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the oddity of this fact, and Penrose isn’t a theist or some crack-pot Christian wanna-be physicist. If you’d like I can give you 10 or 100 more, you name the number of scientists who have acknowledge this oddity of our universe. Just sayin…
Sure, Entropy is steadily killing this universe, driving it toward complete dissolution, and it’s ultimate dissolution is only a matter of time. The appeal to “countless universes” doesn’t solve that problem; it merely enlarges the set. Entropy still rules them all, and every energy system ends the same way, in smooth, featureless equilibrium.
The idea that any structured system could arise spontaneously from that kind of total energetic uniformity is, given what we know, astonishingly implausible. Yet this universe did arise and not chaotically, but with the precise tuning needed for stability and life.
So the bet against entropy, the hope that the smooth stillness of total decay might somehow be perturbed again into a new Big Bang, is a long one indeed, especially for a worldview that denies any agency beyond matter itself.
So, let’s start with what we both can agree on: this universe is governed. It’s regulated. The fact that it behaves according to consistent mathematical relations isn’t a matter of debate, it’s the very reason science works. The oddity isn’t that we can describe the laws mathematically, but that there are laws to describe in the first place.
And Mathematics isn’t causative; it’s descriptive. It doesn’t make gravity pull or light travel at a constant speed. It only lets us describe the behavior we observe, a behavior that, for reasons no one fully understands, are consistent, intelligible, and extraordinarily precise.
The regulation constants; the fundamental forces, particle ratios, and coupling strengths, are tuned with a precision that defies chance. Adjust a few of them by even the smallest fraction, and this universe dissolves into chaos or never forms at all. I can provide citations for every one of those tolerances if you like.
To say this level of precision “just happened” is not an explanation; it’s a refusal to give one. If you discovered a perfectly calibrated instrument, say, a clock keeping flawless time you wouldn’t assume it assembled itself by chance. You’d know it was engineered. The same reasoning applies to the constants and forces that regulate this universe: they work together with exquisite coordination and precision, and both point unmistakably to design.
So yes, I’m arguing from evidence: the stability, intelligibility, and fine-tuned precision of the physical laws themselves. They are not random. They are not chaotic. They are regulated, and regulation, by definition, implies preference and that is the hallmark, the fingerprint of Intelligence.
I’m not sure it does. When we encounter a finely tuned mechanism; one that regulates countless potential failure states into a narrow band of stable, functional outcomes, the inference to design isn’t unwarranted. It’s the same reasoning applied in every other field of investigation. Watches, computers, and aircraft all display coordinated systems of constraint and function. We don’t call that coincidence; we call it engineering.
This connects directly to Dr. Axe’s work. In an unimaginably vast probability space where only a vanishingly small fraction of configurations yield functional outcomes, that level of precision; that sort has no natural analogue. Nothing in unguided nature selects such fine-grained, information-rich states by chance. The space is so overwhelmingly tilted toward disorder that Design becomes the default inference, not the extraordinary one.
Moreover, the genetic and physical regulation that sustains life operates on the same principle. It suppresses chaos, maintains order, and channels energy into work, all are hallmarks of goal-oriented design. So yes, the inference to a “who-like,” preference-bearing agency definitely is an assumption, but it remains the most coherent explanation of what we actually observe daily.
I’m not sure that’s entirely true. Physics has been remarkably successful in mathematically describing this universe, both descriptively and predictively. As Einstein himself said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” That alone should give us pause.
We live every moment within a causal framework. Cause and effect are not philosophical abstractions; they are the very foundation of science itself, including biology. Your entire perspective; the evolutionary chain that produced you, depends on causation operating consistently for hundreds of millions of years.
Sometimes what is most fundamental becomes invisible precisely because it is constant. We swim in causality like fish in water, unaware of the medium that sustains us.
I view this as an “inside out” observation, using our present reality we exierience in this highly regulated universe, and applying it beyond its boundaries, and we know it has boundaries. Now it may be there is literally nothing outside this Universe, but the paradox of “something from actual nothing”, particularly something this fine tuned… imo, that takes far more faith to believe than ID.
The issue I see with your reasoning is, time here, may not be the only “clock”, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. But one thing is certain, at one point this universe did not exist, and at another it did, I think that is a fact very few Scientists dispute.
And asking what caused a non-process or non-event isn’t unproductive, in fact, we use inference re sourcing every single day, generally I find it’s only avoided when we dislike where it might lead. What Intelligent Design asks is simple: apply the same standards of inference in biology and astrophysics that we already use in archaeology or forensic science. When we find ordered systems exhibiting clear markers of function and purpose, we infer Intelligence, we don’t carve out exceptions; no one seriously suspected the Rosetta Stone was produced by unguided nature; wind and water.
Creating protected categories of explanation, where only materialist orthodoxy is permitted is not science, imo, it more like a method for validation of a preconceived ideology. The request ID makes is modest: that evidence be allowed to point where it points, even if that means admitting that some order appears designed. To me, that seems the reasonable position.
(AI was used in this post exclusively for research and proof reading (my spelling and grammar are horrific), all the thoughts, arguments and assessments are mine exclusively, completely, w/o exception)