Has anyone tried Victor Stenger's MonkeyGod toy universe program?

[marcus]

Has anyone tried Victor Stenger's "MonkeyGod" toy universe program?

I haven't yet.
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/monkey.html

I heard about it on the Cosmic Horizons blog:
http://cosmic-horizons.blogspot.com/2011/09/peer-review-fallacy-of-fine-tuning.html
which was reviewing the Stenger book called "The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning"

==sample quote from review==

... not particularly satisfied by it all, although this book does demonstrate that some of the claims of fine tuning are not as fine-tuned as originally thought. In fact, the author has a little web interface called MonkeyGod which allows you to make your own universe and see if you will get stars and heavy elements (the ingredients of life).

In summary, this is something we should probably give some serious thought to, and this book is not a bad place to start.
==endquote==

 

[Drakkith]

What's the point to the calculator?

 

[marcus]

Drakkith, there is some explanation here (but not enough)
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/MonkeyGod.pdf

He refers to a book he wrote over 10 years ago. Apparently this calculator goes with the book.
I think the aim is to let you vary some a few basic physical constants and see whether you still get long-lived stars and a range of chemical elements to support complex chemistry.

Looks to me like there's a lot of room for improvement. I was hoping someone who had tried it would explain, but it looks like no one here has or wants to.

 

[Drakkith]

Ah ok.