Does that mean that the "right" conditions were the product of chance? If there's no design, then it seems that's the only possible alternative.
Or am I missing something here? Care to offer a defense of order arising from chance? How is it possible for "fine-tuning" to be the result of a random process? Certainly, if the universal process were the outcome of a process of trial and error over long time periods, still doesn't that imply that some standard of success is objective to the process? And that the emergence and sustenance of life is the sine qua non of that success?
I'm more open-minded than you think, PH. I sincerely welcome your insights into such matters.
In a universe governed by natural law, everything is determined. No chance, no design (well, I don't know about "The Beginning," nor does anyone else). But from that moment on, neither design nor chance is involved. (Quantum mechanics seems to be an exception, about which I'm not prepared to speak, but I suspect that eventually even those interactions will be seen to be determined.) In my view, everything is determined by natural law -- until you get to us, with some limited degree of free will. And free will isn't chance either. Nor, I suspect, is it "design" as you've been using that term.
Or am I missing something here? Care to offer a defense of order arising from chance?
Not from chance, but we see a lot of order arising naturally. Salt crystals, snowflakes, trees, and even Betty Boops.
How is it possible for "fine-tuning" to be the result of a random process?
If you mean the initial state at the time of the big bang, I don't know how those conditions were set, nor does anyone else. Perhaps they are the way they had to be, because of some as yet unknown natural law. I don't know and you don't know and no one knows (as of now). If you mean fine-tuning of events thereafter, nothing which happened after the big bang was random. As I said, it's all determined by natural law. Like the planets in their orbits.
Certainly, if the universal process were the outcome of a process of trial and error over long time periods, still doesn't that imply that some standard of success is objective to the process
I suspect you're confusing the history of the universe with the evolution of life on earth. There's a lot of apparent trial and error in biological evolution. The objective standard there is survival and procreation. You already know that. For the non-living universe, the events which have happened since the big bang were all predetermined, as I said. No trial and error at all. Just a big freight train roaring downhill, so to speak.
And that the emergence and sustenance of life is the sine qua non of that success?
No. You're personifying the whole universe. Go ahead if it makes you happy, but I just don't see it.