Tag Archive for: fine-tuning argument

Robin Collins And Atheist Peter Millican Discuss The Fine-Tuning Of The Universe For Life

Robin Collins And Atheist Peter Millican Discuss The Fine-Tuning Of The Universe For Life

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By Wintery Knight

You might remember Peter Millican from the debate he had with William Lane Craig. I ranked that debate as one of the 3 best I have ever seen, along with the first Craig vs. Dacey debate and the second Craig vs. Sinnott-Armstrong debate.

Details:

Science has revealed that the fundamental constants and forces of the cosmos appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned to allow a universe in which life can develop. Is God the best explanation of the incredibly improbable odds of the universe we live in being a life-permitting one?

Robin Collins is a Christian philosopher and a leading advocate of the argument for God from cosmic design. Peter Millican is an atheist philosopher at Oxford University. They debate the issues.

From ‘Unbelievable?’ on ‘Premier Christian Radio,’ Saturday 19th March 2016.

The debate:

As usual, when the atheist is an expert, there is no snark or paraphrasing in the summary.

Summary

Brierley: What is the fine-tuning argument?

Collins: the fine-tuning is the structure of the universe is extremely precisely set to allow the existing of conscious, embodied agents who are capable of moral behavior. There are 3 kinds of fine-tuning: 1) the laws of nature (mathematical formulas), 2) the constants of physics (numbers that are plugged into the equations), 3) the initial conditions of the universe. The fine-tuning exists not just because there are lots of possibilities, but there is something special about the actual state of affairs that we see. Every set of laws, parameters and initial conditions is equally improbable, but the vast majority of permutations do not permit life. The possible explanations: theism or the multiverse.

Brierley: How improbable are the numbers?

Collins: Once case is the cosmological constant (dark energy density), with is 1 part in (10 raised to a 120th power). If larger, the universe expands too rapidly for galaxies and stars to form after the Big Bang. If smaller, the universe collapses in on itself before life could form. Another case is the initial distribution of mass energy to give us the low entropy we have that is necessary for life. The fine-tuning there is 1 part in (10 raised to the 10th power raised to the 123rd power).

Brierley: What do you think of the argument?

Millican: The argument is worth taking very seriously. I am a fan of the argument. The other arguments for God’s existence such as the ontological and cosmological arguments are very weak. But the fine-tuning argument has the right structure to deliver the conclusion that theists want. And it is different from the traditional design argument tended to focus on biological nature, which is not a strong argument. But the fine-tuning argument is strong because it precedes any sort of biological evolution. Although the design is present at the beginning of the universe, it is not visible until much later. The argument points to at least deism, and possibly theism. The argument is not based on ignorance; it is rooted in “the latest results from the frontiers of science” (his phrase).

Brierley: Is this the best argument from natural theology?

Collins: The cosmological argument makes theism viable intuitively, but there are some things that are puzzling, like the concept of the necessary being. But the fine-tuning argument is decisive.

Brierley: What’s are some objections to the fine-tuning argument?

Millican: The argument is based on recent physics, so we should be cautious because we maybe we will discover a natural explanation.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: The cosmological constant has been around since 1980. But the direction that physics is moving in is that there are more constants and quantities being discovered that need to be fine-tuned, not less. Even if you had a grand unified theory, that would have to be the fine-tuning pushed into it.

(BREAK)

Millican: Since we have no experience of other laws and values from other universes, we don’t know whether these values can be other than they are. Psychologically, humans are prone to seeing purpose and patterns where there is none, so maybe that’s happening here.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: It is possible to determine probabilities on a single universe case, for example using multiple ways of calculating Avogadro’s number all converging on the same number makes it more probable.

Millican: Yes, I willing to accept that these constants can take on other values, (“principle of indifference”). But maybe this principle be applied if the improbability were pushed up into the theory?

Collins: Even if you had a grand theory, selecting the grand theory from others would retain the improbability.

Brierley: What about the multiverse?

Millican: What if there are many, many different universes, and we happen to be in the one that is finely-tuned, then we should not be surprised to observe fine-tuning. Maybe a multiverse theory will be discovered in the future that would allow us to have these many universes with randomized constants and quantities. “I do think that it is a little bit of a promissory note.” I don’t think physics is pointing to this right now.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: I agree it’s a promissory note. This is the strongest objection to the fine-tuning argument. But there are objections to the multiverse: 1) the fine-tuning is kicked back up to the multiverse generator has to be set just right to produce universes with different constants, 2) the multiverse is more likely to produce a small universe with Boltzmann brains that pop into existence and then out again, rather than a universe that contains conscious, embodied intelligent agents. I am working on a third response now that would show that the same constants that allow complex embodied life ALSO allow the universe to be discoverable. This would negate the observer-selection effect required by the multiverse objection.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Millican: I don’t see why the multiverse generator has to be fine-tuned since we don’t know what the multiverse generator is. I’m not impressed by the Boltzmann brains but won’t discuss. We should be cautious about inferring design because maybe this is a case where we are seeing purpose and design where there is none.

Brierley: Can you negate the discoverability of the universe by saying that it might be psychological?

Collins: These things are not psychological. The selected value for the cosmic microwave background radiation is fine-tuned for life and discoverability. It’s not merely a discoverability selection effect; it’s optimal for discoverability. If baryon-photon value were much smaller, we would have known that it was not optimal. So that judgment cannot be explained by

Millican: That’s a very interesting new twist.

Brierley: Give us your best objection.

Millican: I have two. 1) Even if you admit to the fine-tuning, this doesn’t show a being who is omnipotent and omniscient. What the fine-tuning shows is that the designer is doing the best it can given the constraints from nature. If I were God, I would not have made the universe so big, and I wouldn’t have made it last 14 billion years, just to make one small area that supports life. An all-powerful God would have made the universe much smaller, and much younger. 2) The fine-tuning allows life to exist in other solar systems in other galaxies. What does this alien life elsewhere mean for traditional Christian theology? The existence of other alien civilizations argues against the truth of any one religion.

Brierley: Respond to those.

Collins: First objection: with a finite Creator, you run into the problem of having to push the design of that creature up one level, so you don’t really solve the fine-tuning problem. An unlimited being (non-material, not composed of parts) does not require fine-tuning. The fine-tuning is more compatible with theism than atheism. Second objection: I actually do think that it is likely that are other universes, and life in other galaxies and stars, and the doctrine of the Incarnation is easily adaptable to that because God can take on multiple natures to appear to different alien civilizations.

Other resources (from WK)

If you liked this discussion, be sure and check out a full-length lecture by Robin Collins on the fine-tuning, and a shorter lecture on his very latest work. And also this the Common Sense Atheism podcast, featuring cosmologist Luke Barnes, who answers about a dozen objections to the fine-tuning argument.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2kN27rF

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Modern Thinkers Designe Universe

Modern Thinkers Increasingly Confirm a Designed Universe

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By Joel Furches

The idea that the universe might bear some marks of design has traditionally been denied in academic circles. Evolutionary Biologist Richard Dawkins has famously stated that:

“The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” [“God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85]

And writer Raj Bains points out that:

“Right now, it is raining methane on Titan. The planet Uranus is orbiting the sun sideways, while Venus spins backwards. There are stars exploding, black holes gorging, galaxies colliding. And here we sit, on a planet pock-marked by collisions, rocked by earthquakes, shaken by storms. A planet doomed to be fried in radiation as its magnetic fields collapse, until finally the sun grows into a red giant and leaves nothing of the Earth but dust. Here we sit, glasses on our noses, inhalers in our pockets, braces on our teeth, waiting to die as our heart muscle expires, our cells become cancerous, or a blood vessel just pops, and sometimes in unnatural ways too. Here we sit, and some of us say, behold, look at the order of it all.”

In fact, scientists who have affirmed that the universe might contain marks of design have found themselves the subject of hostility in academic environments. Dr. Jeffrey Schloss, who is the Professor of Biology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, says:

“…it is absolute professional suicide to be a young earth creationist in a geology department or an anti-evolutionist in a biology department at any institution outside of a few parochial colleges. And it may be just as bad to be an [Intelligent Design] advocate in any science department.” [emphasis added]

And Edge journalist John Brockman writes:

“To date, scientists have held back with regard to engaging the proponents of ‘intelligent design’ on the battlefield of scientific discourse, reasoning being that by simply having a discussion, the ID crowd gains a respectable platform for their views.”

For years, any idea that there might be some kind of “design” in the natural world has been regarded as the domain of religious ideologues and conspiracy nuts – not of any serious scientist. However, there have been a number of prominent figures in technology and science fields who have recently affirmed the idea of a designed reality – whether implicitly or openly.

Take Elon Musk: Musk is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, who recently had a conversation on stage at a tech conference in California about video games. Musk made the following statement:

“40 years ago we had Pong – two rectangles and a dot. That’s where we were.

“Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, we’ll have augmented reality.

“If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable.”

Musk went on to say that if, in the future, simulations were indistinguishable from reality, and, that billions of such simulations would be running at any given time, that the chances of any given person is living in the real world is a billion to one. That is to say, any person at this point in time is more likely to be a simulated character inside a simulated world, than they are to be a real person in the physical universe.

Musk is not the only person to chase down that line of thought. Science popularizer Bill Nye, who once stated “You can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science, is something else,” said in answer to the simulation hypothesis: “I think you can argue that whoever has written the simulation – whatever super entity has written the simulation – could make it so sophisticated that even your memories are a result of this being programmed by the simulator or simulatrix,”

Astrophysicist and popular media figure Neil deGrasse Tyson, who once made the statement that “God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time goes on,” hosted a discussion on the simulation hypothesis at the 17th annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate this year at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. Interestingly, the discussion wandered into questions previously explored only by theologians: things like “why would a simulator choose to put certain features into the simulation” and “would a simulation allow for such things as resurrection and eternal life.”

In fact, at one point one of the panel suggested that there is no way to know that the world was a simulation unless the programmer were to directly reveal it to humans – like re-ordering the stars to spell out “YOU ARE IN A SIMULATION.” This rings surprisingly close to Lawrence Krauss’ statement about what he would accept as evidence for God.

It must be pointed out that in order for this to even be a discussion, those involved would have to concede some aspects of design in the natural world. If the world could not possibly be the product of design, then it is clear that it is not a simulation. If people such as Tyson are willing to even entertain the concept that the observable world might be a simulation, then they would have to admit that it could be the product of design.

However, the simulation argument is not the only thing in current news that puts forth the possibility of design in the natural world. Recently, world-leading theoretical physicist Michio Kaku made waves by announcing that he had discovered proof of design in the natural world.

Kaku’s evidence comes in the form of String Theory and the Grand Unified Equation which, he says, would “…allow us to unify all the forces of nature, and allow us to read the mind of God.”

Says Kaku:

“All this is pure mathematics. And so the final resolution could be that God is a mathematician. And …the mind of God, we believe, is Cosmic Music – the music of strings, resonating through eleven-dimensional hyperspace.”

Kaku makes a great deal of Supersymmetry and the unification of physics and mathematics in order to explain the functioning of the natural world, such that, even if he was using the term “Mind of God” metaphorically, it could not escape notice that he frames his understanding of the order and functioning of the universe in terms of “mind.”

It is becoming less and less clear in academic and scientific circles that the universe is without order or intent. As science and philosophy advance, discussions about reality cannot avoid the language of design.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2vZscYx

 

 

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