Most often the implication is how do you explain why the universe supports life without a God to have made it that way on purpose. What are the odds? (Of course, given that we’re asking, that lotto has already been won.) The idea that things would just work out that way without divine help, it is implied, is just too lucky to believe. (Of course that we would just happen to live in a world where a divine benefactor is looking out for us probably requires an equal measure of luck.) What we have here is a stalemate. Neither side can prove the other wrong or itself right either.
I’d really be interested in brainstorming the perceptions/experiences which give rise to belief in God. I strongly suspect God could be several notches down from creator-of-everything-out-of-nothing and still be adequate for accounting for the experiences which lead to intuiting God.
Its not about odds. If life wasn’t a possibility, no amount of fine tuning, time, repetitions or luck would make it possible, because these things are only capable of making something very unlikely (like a coin heading on tails a trillion times in a row) likely, not to make something impossible (actual zero chance) possible. Imagine a universe in which all possible combination of values for every constant did not produce life or consciousness, because it simply wasn’t a possibility. That is what I’m talking about.
Hi Mark, I’m not a theoretical physicist, so I wouldn’t know any better than you. But my thought is that a hypothesis is tested and judged by its ability to predict accurately.
I presume that means it is pretty reliable, though of course there are still anomalies and areas still not worked out, as those same authors note. But my guess is that it won’t be found to be all wrong by future theory and data, but refined.
So I just don’t think this thought is a way out of the dilemma posed by fine-tuning.
Yes, life is either a possibility or it isn’t. I used that phrase “what are the odds” to describe what I think is the implication of the fine tuning argument, that conditions compatible with life formation are unlikely unless chosen for deliberately by a divinity. But that’s just me trying to flesh out what isn’t stated bluntly by those who make that argument.
Good morning, Eric and thanks for responding. I obviously was not very clear but I meant - how reliable is theoretical physics for judging the viability of hypothetical versions of natural law which would result by tweaking various constants which we can find in the world around us. For describing and predicting what we will actually find in the universe as it exists now it is the best we have and no doubt quite good.
It just seems to me that it is one thing to say what the effects of changing a constant in an equation would be and quite another to actually change the constant which we find in nature. Presumably constants are called that for a reason - they don’t vary. If we arbitrarily changed them in a calculation we perform it has an effect on a calculation, but I don’t understand exactly what a theoretical physicist means by a possible range of values for something we actually find to be constant. In our universe, energy and matter are said to be interchangeable at a rate quantified by the speed of light, 299,792,458 meters per second, squared. If you could lower the speed of light, presumably the quantity of energy equivalent to a set amount of matter in our universe would be less. But how exactly does one slow the speed of light?
It just seems questionable to me whether the equations of theoretical physics which describe and reliably predict how things work in the world as we find it, would continue to apply to a hypothetical world in which what is constant in our world is changed. Are hypothetical worlds viable? To make an argument based on our good fortune at finding constants favorable to life when we don’t really know if the constant could be made to vary just seems unpersuasive to me.
Matthew,
As I have said, God is not God of the gaps. God is God of the Facts.
This means that apologetics as you have described this practice is wrong headed. It is wrong headed because it is dualistic, meaning that we have a struggle between Science and God.
However Christianity is not God vs humanity, Christianity is about humanity reconciled with God, working with God, knowing and loving God. Jesus is God with us. Science is Nature with us.
To correct apologetics we need to correct the ideology of apologetics or God of the Gaps. God is not the God of ignorance and confusion, God is the God of knowledge and harmony or God of the Facts.
Fine and good, but then what is the right way to explain reality.
Your statement is false, because it agrees with the view of the God of the gaps. Since the God of the gaps does not exist, then it does not matter if the dominos of the gaps deep falling. In fact that is good because the facts of science tell us more about God, Who God is and what God did.
Atheism thrives on chaos and confusion. The more we know about how God has given order and meaning to the universe, the better. Ecological evolution has given us all sorts of evidence that God has ordered created and ordered life and that Survival of the Fittest is a lie.
The Big Bang has clearly shown that the universe has a beginning. Hawking used for this was to point to the Black Hole singularity as the reverse of the Big Bang singularity. This fact has not changed and is strong evidence for Creation out of nothing, which has not been disproved.
Hi Mark, it is a good morning as I am on a short holiday in another city and free as a breeze! Good morning to you too!
The cosmologists tell us that one of the remarkable things about the universe,as far as we can tell, is that the laws of physics apply everywhere and at every time. If they didn’t, we couldn’t do theoretical cosmology (that is, develop equations and laws), we could only observe. That being the case, it seems that we can have reasonable confidence that we can apply these laws to predict how the universe would behave if we varied the laws or the constants.
It isn’t a matter of lowering the speed, but predicting what would be the case if the universe had begun with a different speed, or any other constant. If science could give a reason why the speed must be what it is, then we’d have a new physical law, but at the moment at least we have no reason to believe this constant had to be what it is by necessity.
I think your questions raise an interesting point - how do each of us know things about science? I am willing to accept the consensus view of expert scientists on the matters they are expert in (but not on other matters like history or philosophy, where i accept the views of those experts). So when psychologists and neuroscientists tell me that the human brain operates in certain ways, I accept that, but I don’t necessarily accept the philosophical conclusions some draw from that. When biologists tell me that the human eye can develop by natural selection, and physicists tell me that radiometric dating can tell us the age of the earth or of fossils or artefacts, I accept those findings. And I imagine like you, if a 6-day creationist told me that the radiometric dating might be wrong because we don’t know if the same conditions applied back then, I am not impressed because I accept that the consensus of scientists is more likely to be right.
So I think it is the same here. The consensus of cosmologists is that we CAN apply the laws with reasonable confidence into hypotheticals, and that DOES show that it is extremely unlikely that a single universe formed randomly would have taken on the “finely-tuned” values that they do. I accept those conclusions like I do the others I have mentioned. I think attempts to avoid the conclusions are not well-based.
Yeah, but I mean that in a broader context. I mean literally impossible, not only just “impossible without fine tuning”. For instance, no amount of fine tuning or time or luck would allow a starship that travels faster than light to be built if travelling faster than light is impossible. I’m no physicist so I don’t know if travelling faster than light could be possible if the constants of the universe were different, but lets assume it is not for the sake of the argument. Going by the same logic, if consciousness “wasn’t a thing” or “was impossible”, no matter how finely tuned the universe was, there would be none. I think the fact that conscious life is a possibility way more astonishing than fine tuning, even if it is as unlikely as apologists claim.
What possible universes are allowed? Maybe we can start there. Without a specific mechanism of how constants of nature or laws of nature are determined, I don’t see how anyone can answer this question.
Lee* Smolin. Do you know how he calculated this? He fixed the planck mass and varied the mass of the four stable particles and the mass associated with the cosmological constant randomly between 0 and 1. Yes, if you do indeed do what he did, you can get such a calculation. But while Smolin is brilliant, he doesn’t know if those are the values allowed for these five masses and if all of those values can be randomly selected. Unfortunately, he literally made a game where he set the odds that could occur and then calculated the odds of producing stars in his made up game. Cool calculation but completely arbitrary.
So where does this number actually come from? It’s pretty complicated so I made a 25 minute presentation on where it comes from and what it actually means:
I am finding it difficult to follow the conversation in this thread, even though it is interesting. So I ask @pevaquark, “Are you against the view that science requires a number of constants to function?” Or are you against arguments that claim to draw theological conclusions from discussions on constants and the inference of fine tuning?
I would appreciate clarification as it could make this discussion very interesting. Cheers.
Hi Matthew, did you prepare that YouTube just for this discussion, or did you have it already?
Anyway, I watched it, and I’m sorry, I wasn’t convinced. There is a lot of good explanation in there, but when you get to the bit where you explain (or dismiss) Penrose’s number as an example of fine-tuning, it seemed to me to be just an assertion.
This gets back to what I said in my last comments to you and to Mark, how do we get to know things, about science and other specialist subjects? I think there are only two ways. Either we are knowledgable enough to understand all the physics (the data, the hypotheses, the predictions, the models and how they explain the data, etc) or we have to rely, in whole or at least in part, on those who are sufficiently knowledgable.
I’ll give you an example. A few years back a friend passed on to me their copy of a Michael Behe book on evolution. (You would be aware he is a well-credentialled biochemist who subscribes to Intelligent Design as science.) I’m not a believer in ID, but I started to read it, but soon gave up for a simple reason - I didn’t know enough biochemistry or evolutionary biology to have any chance of spotting where he was wrong, if he was wrong. He would quite likely be capable of convincing me, and then I might read an evolutionary biologist who could convince me back to evolution again. This isn’t, hopefully, because I am stupid or gullible, but simply because I don’t know enough to make a judgment about his arguments. So I trust the consensus of biologists that evolution really happened, and then I can understand why ID isn’t good science.
Now it is the same here. You raise questions about how we can know the ranges of parameters and hence what universes are possible. Now I can see some answers to these questions - e.g. the entropy fine-tuning is about initial conditions and we know the rest of the range because the universe is going through it right now until entropy reaches its maximum. Some of the other fine-tuning examples don’t relate to ranges, if I understand them correctly, but to equalities - two large numbers cancelling each other out almost exactly.
But in the end, I cannot assess these things myself. I don’t know how to calculate the entropy of the universe or the Hoyle resonance or the vacuum energy of the universe. So I rely on those who do know. And those same people tell me that it seems that the universe could have been very different and a universe like ours is improbable as a random occurrence.
So I have a simple choice. I believe you or I believe Lewis & Barnes, Rees, Penrose, Susskind, Davies (all books I have read - only part of in Penrose’s case) plus all the other big names I have mentioned before. Add in Aron Wall, a quantum gravity researcher whose blog I read (I understand about half!) who also says the universe is finely tuned - see this set of slides for a talk - http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/fine21.pdf.
You are free to trust your own judgment against all the experts, but I think it is like Michael Behe standing against the evolutionary consensus (he is at least an expert whereas cosmology is not your field as I understand it), and I have no real choice but to stay with the experts. If your ideas are really correct, as Lewis & Barnes say, you really should publish them. I’m sorry if that sounds rude, it isn’t in any way intended to be, it’s just the way I respond to all matters like this. I read a little on cosmology, neuroscience, genetics, evolutionary biology, history & archaeology, and in all cases I accept the consensus conclusions of the experts on the facts.
I do think that we have to be careful not to claim too much for the fine-tuning/teleological argument, but I think that isn’t because of the science, but because of the philosophy.
I think further discussion of the science of fine-tuning may be fruitless, but I would be interested to further discuss “God of the Gaps” and I will respond to yours and Mark’s comments on that later. Thanks.
One could also point to the fact that Behe has failed to convince the experts in his field, which includes thousands of christians. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Behe is wrong, but it certainly casts doubt on his claims.
In my experience, it comes down to not being able to calculate any probabilities because we simply don’t know enough about how this stuff works. Let’s say that someone draws a number, and that number is 185466928275534272. What is the probability that they would have drawn that number, using just the information I have given you? You can’t calculate that probability, right? For all we know, all of the numbers that the person drew from were identical. For fine tuning, we don’t know if those constants can be different from what they are, or how many universes there are, so we simply don’t have enough information to make any claims about the probability of any universe forming or the probability of our universe forming.
Hi Eric- I made it technically for this, but the Penrose number was a new one so I wanted to understand where it came from and how Penrose interpreted it–the internet was not particularly helpful as all I could find were many apologetics websites slamming atheists for not believing there’s a God ‘with these odds.’ But as I’ve come to find with EVERY apologetics argument of the sort, the apologists do not come close to understanding what Penrose is actually arguing and what it means for our understanding of reality. Instead, they quote mine him and throw the quote at various people who do not believe as they do.
Perhaps I didn’t explain it the best then after that point. This graph I think is helpful in thinking about entropy of a gas vs. entropy due to gravity from Penrose’s book chapter on this topic:
In regards to the phase space diagram-Penrose makes a very convincing case that Gravity was doing nothing in the early universe. If it was, the original state would have had to have been so incredibly precise 1 part in 10^10^123. His argument, and the Penrose number help to prove that the early universe had no curvature - and thus gravity’s forces were doing nothing. Because gravity was doing nothing, there is no need for such extreme ‘precision’ or fine-tuning at all! That’s all that his argument is or was. Further use of this argument I will henceforth label as quote mining (from anyone, not just yourself).
What did you think about the Lee Smolin imaginary universe calculation? You cited it as an authoritative calculation of sorts on the ‘probability’ of such fine-tuning but yet, his probability/range of values were completely arbitrary and made up!
Okay. But you’ve demonstrated to me already here that you can possibly misunderstand what cosmologists are really saying or doing.
Yes, the dark energy/cosmological constant is based upon a lack of understanding between general relativity and quantum mechanics. Once we have an adequate theory of quantum gravity this ‘fine-tuning’ will go away. Here’s a video outlining the problem:
Well maybe, but nobody actually knows that!!! We can imagine ‘what our universe could have been’ and change various fundamental constants of nature but nobody knows what it could have been because we don’t know anything about how universes are made or fundamental constants are chosen.
Show me one actual probability argument based upon all the possible universe’s that can be created with an actual range of values they can take. Smolin’s calculation just made up his own range of values for example. Penrose’s argument proved that gravity was doing nothing in the early universe and because it was not–the universe will always arrange itself in maximum entropy (i.e. like a diffuse gas) but from the future period when gravity can act, such a system is one of minimum entropy! That’s cool!
What do you think they are arguing? Why are not all of these cosmologists convinced there is any god and not the same one as you and I believe? Surely the experts would be able to clearly see the handiwork of our creator!
Again, what experts in these areas are doing are changing around various fundamental properties of our universe but none of them know what values such constants can even take!
As I said above, it is not wrong to say that life like our requires that such and such constants be constrained within these boundaries-that is the legitimate theoretical physics that these cosmologists are actually doing. But they don’t know what values they can even take so to make any probability arguments at all are misleading and chances are, they will be quote mined by eager students to prove their God.
But sometimes you misunderstand what they are doing/saying/coming from.
Okay. But a lot of fine-tuning arguments are based upon things we don’t know a whole lot about. I will say again, most theoretical modeling of when cosmologists or other physicists determine that ‘hey this constant (when you hold all these others constant) must fit within this certain range’ is certain good theoretical physics. They are basically scanning ‘parameter space’ trying to find combinations of constants that permit for the physics we know to be required for life like ours.
No I’m definitely not against this fact. And I’m not against the parameter space scans that different physicists use when they say ‘hey these are the range of values that such constants of nature could have had for life like ours to exist.’
Probably more so this one, but I’m not necessarily opposed to ‘theological conclusions’ as much as I am against people looking at these types of arguments and claiming it is proof of God’s handiwork. To me, it is interesting that most of the argument’s for God’s handiwork typically involve scientific concepts that we do not yet know much about. To say that ‘the fine structure constant could not have been larger or smaller by 1%’ (not a specific value but just to demonstrate what I am saying) is a perfectly fine thing to say. To then infer that this is proof of God creating the universe to me is a god of the gaps argument because we don’t even know what range of values the fine structure constant can take. For all we know, the odds of such happening could be ‘unity’ as there are other reasons as to why our value ended up the way it did. We simply don’t know enough to infer at this point.
But at the end of the day, am I against people being in awe over narrow ranges these constants could have taken? Certainly not. Are such ideas consistent with the Christian God? Maybe, but I couldn’t even say what a universe that is designed by God vs. not designed by God could look like. Or what would it look like if Allah made the universe vs. Yahweh? I see Muslim apologists making the exact same arguments as Christian apologists for how science proves that their God made it.
Thanks for engaging with what I wrote. Just a few responses …
What you say is exactly the point I am making (I thought that was clear). Just as I can reasonably choose to accept the conclusions of the consensus over Behe’s conclusions, in the same way I accept the conclusions of the consensus of cosmologists over those of Matthew.
But the point is that (1) Some cosmologists do calculate the probabilities. Everyone knows they are only approximate, but Penrose’s 10^10^123 is so large that approximation is no problem. (2) In my limited reading, most cosmologists don’t calculate probabilities, but just say that our universe arising with these properties by chance is enormously unlikely. So you may not have “enough information”, but apparently Penrose, Smolin et al did.
Generally I agree with you regarding proof of God from science - science cannot prove such a thing. However, on arguments that if we vary some constants to make them larger or smaller, we may draw conclusions - I find this argument spurious. The point is they must be given the constant value, it is a contradiction to vary something that is constant. And even if we do not fully understand some notion of science, that does not mean we may anticipate a negation of the constants we use now - that (lol) is tantamount to destroying science as we know it. We cannot vary the charge of an electron, plank’s constant, do away with pi, and so on. Our precision may improve if we obtain more accurate values, but the constants remain.
So what can we make of these incontrovertible concepts of science? If I commence with the belief that God is creator, than I conclude the creation points to its creator. If I do not believe in God, than as a scientist I am forced to reject random events caused the creation and all that is in it.
If onoh I am interested in ideology, than this may be fertile ground for all sorts of arguments.
I’m not following what you mean here. “Random” usually implies some arbitrariness, but that may not be the case even without God. Randomness can actually be pretty hard to achieve even on purpose. In general current conditions often seem to depend on past conditions, and as science has shown that tends to be predictable according to natural law.
I suppose it is really origins which inspires the talk of randomness. If one leans toward creation, then anything not created on purpose will seem haphazard and arbitrary.
I need to say first that I believe in God, so any attempt to articulate non-belief is bound to sound awkward.
Having said that, I struggle with a concept that (if I understand it), life and all species would be the result of, perhaps an arbitrary series of events that may not be reproducible, as some evolutionists seem to claim. At a more fundamental level, the constants are needed to do science, science thus is based on these non-arbitrary, non-random constants, and thus one can draw the conclusion that (somehow), we can ONLY study a Universe that is set - to give it a philosophical flavour, the Universe is as it is.
I understand that we need to add variety to this scenario, and as a theist, I am inclined to use poetic language to articulate my response to such beauty and variety.
I’m only going to address a couple of your comments, because this will show why I have disregarded the rest.
The question is whether the universe’s laws and parameters are highly unusual or improbable. I am saying that the expert cosmologists, in the main, conclude that they are.
I made it clear that I base my views on highly technical matters like this, on the consensus views of the genuine experts. So I, like most people examining evolution, disregard the ID of Michael Behe even though he is a competent biochemist, because the vast majority of biologists say he is mistaken, and they are much more competent to make a judgment on this highly technical matter. I presume, as a BioLogos moderator, you think the same? So on the same principle, I have to disregard your views when they are contradicted by the consensus of experts. Your answer to this was: “Okay. But you’ve demonstrated to me already here that you can possibly misunderstand what cosmologists are really saying or doing.”
OK, let’s see if I have misunderstood what the cosmologists say about the science of fine-tuning.
I have read books by Rees, Davies, Susskind, Polkinghorne, and parts of books or writings by a few of the others, and they all seem to me to be saying what Barnes represents them to be saying. Now, do you think there is any way to understand what Barnes is saying other than what I have said, or are you saying Barnes also misunderstands what these scientists have concluded?
Aron Wall, in his talk that I linked to before, says: ““Fine tuning” is the observation that some (not all) of these parameters seem to take on special values needed for life (and other complex structures) to exist. It is NOT CONTROVERSIAL among physicists that these “anthropic coincidences” exist. Even atheistic physicists who work in the relevant areas mostly acknowledge it is true.“ He then goes on to give examples of fine-tuning (and a few that aren’t so fine).
Do you think I have misunderstood Aron Wall, or that he has misunderstood the science?
I am saying that while I may not understand much of the scientific detail, I have NOT misunderstood the basic statement of fine-tuning. Are you still saying that I have? Can you explain, in the light of all these cosmologists supporting the idea of scientific fine-tuning, how
it is me who has misunderstood them rather than you? I am genuinely puzzled and amazed how you can say that.
Perhaps this is the source of our misunderstanding and disagreement. I said right at the start I was discussing scientific fine-tuning, and would defer discussion of the theistic argument until later. So your mention of God and “our creator” here is not addressing what I was addressing.
But I can answer your question in part. I don’t think any cosmologist I have referenced is a theist except for Aron Wall. Barnes may be a theist, but his book is co-written with an atheist. Yet the many cosmologists I have read all accept the science of fine tuning, but seem to adopt the multiverse as the explanation. Davies gives a few hints at something vaguely deistic, but that’s all. Susskind mentions God, to say that nothing he has said rules God in or out. Rees specifically says that there are 4 possible explanations of fine-tuning - coincidence, providence, an underlying theory of everything or the multiverse - and opts for the multiverse. Lewis and Barnes debate all the same possibilities.
So I honestly can’t understand where your question came from, except maybe you’re conflating scientific fine-tuning with the apologetic fine-tuning argument. Can you explain why you said this?
So I hope I have shown why everything else you have said isn’t relevant, because of these two points. Perhaps if you can answer these two points, we can see if there is anything left to discuss on scientific fine-tuning. Thanks.
This is all they can say when speaking with their science hats on. Sometimes, believe it or not, especially in books, scientists go beyond what they really can demomstrate and know.
Unusual- we don’t know what universes are possible.
Improbable- we don’t know what the ranges of constants can be.
By doing parameter space scans we find that many of the parameters of the universe must fall in a narrow range to get a universe or life like ours- that’s all any of these have been. I can do my own calculation like Smolin and instead set the odds to make each value exactly 100% except for the Fine structure constant which can either be its present value or exactly double. This the odds of our universe then would be 50%. This is no more valid or invalid compared to Smolin and nobody can prove me wrong.
