This post might provide some useful background material for the following argument:
150 years ago Charles Darwin solved the problem of apparent design in biology with evolution. Now we've got an more perplexing design problem to solve -- the fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the Big Bang.
Entropy is a mathematically defined measure of disorganization. The more disorganized a system is, the more entropy is has, and the more organized a system is, the less entropy is has. One of the most all-pervasive realities of the universe is the law of increasing entropy. That is to say, the universe proceeds from a state of organization (low entropy) to a state of disorganization (high entropy) as it moves forward in time. Isolated areas of the universe, such a the Earth, may temporarily proceed in the other direction, from high entropy to low entropy (hence the development of life), but this decrease in entropy comes at the price of an increase in entropy in the universe as a whole. One demonstration of how entropy works is to imagine a deck of cards arranged in perfect order (organized, low entropy). Someone thoroughly shuffles them, and now their position relative to each other is nearly random (disorganized, high entropy). Without external intervention, the "deck of cards" that we call the universe grows progressively more disorganized as time goes on (it keep on getting "shuffled", so to speak).
Looking into the future of the universe, modern cosmology foresees that entropy will increase without limit until the heat death of the universe. A heat-dead universe is a very boring place with no complexity and no life. What's interesting, however, is that when you start there, extrapolating backwards to the universe's distant past, as it grows progressively more organized. By the time you get to the Big Bang, entropy is at its maximum. It's as if a random deck of cards was reshuffled until all the cards were in perfect order (or playing a scene of the shuffling of a deck of cards in reverse). Without this order, life of any form would have been impossible in the universe, because the universe would be unable to support the complexity required for life.
Prominent physicist and Oxford Professor Roger Penrose has estimated the odds against the Big Bang starting out in such an organized fashion as 1010123 to 1. My computer won't do double exponents, but if you wanted to write out that number in longhand you would need to write a 1 with 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeroes behind it. That's not the number itself, that's the number of zeroes you would have to write down to express the number longhand. The actual number is so large that the entire visible universe doesn't contain enough space for you to write it out longhand, even if your zeroes were microscopic in size. It would be more likely that every atom in the universe assembled itself into the universe we see today a half a second ago by pure random fluctuation , complete with everybody's memories, than for the universe to have started out with this vanishingly unlikely configuration purely by chance. Barring chance, some people are growing more and more confident that the universe is the product of intelligent design.
Recently cosmologists have been fond of explaining a related problem, the fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe, by proposing the existence of a multiverse -- a huge number of parallel universes, each with their own physical constants that vary randomly from universe to universe. If you've got enough universes, the argument goes, sooner or later you'll run into a universe as organized as ours was in the beginning. It's like saying that if you shuffle a deck enough times and deal yourself enough hands, sooner or later you'll pull a royal flush right off the top of the deck, just by chance. Likewise, string theory predicts a multiverse ensemble of 10500 universes, among which our universe is only one. The problem is that although 10500 is a large number, 1010123 is much, much larger. So much larger, in fact, that the odds against a universe as organized as ours showing up in even one of those 10500 universes is 2 X 10120 to 1 -- that's 2 with 120 zeroes behind it (do the math yourself!). As string theory pioneer Leonard Susskind said (when pondering the fine-tuning of the physical constants for the development of life), it's either intelligent design or the multiverse. And since string theory can't even begin to give us enough universes to explain the fine-tuning of the initial conditions (the shockingly low entropy conditions of the Big Bang), that leaves intelligent design as the only remaining explanation.
Some cosmologists don't like this very much, so they came up with an "answer". Not a mathematical theory or a groundbreaking new experiment, mind you. Instead, they came up with a definition. "Let's define the low-entropy initial conditions of the Big Bang as a new scientific law." Great, now that you have defined it as a law, there's no need to question or explain its unlikelihood anymore. Because you've just eliminated the problem through definitional fiat -- after all, it's a lot more difficult to actually solve a problem than to simply define it out of existence. It's like dealing yourself a royal flush off the top of the deck your very first hand, then positing a "Law of Initial Royal Flushes" to rebut charges of cheating leveled at you by the other players whose hands hold nothing of value. Indeed, it sort of reminds me of George Orwell's novel 1984. In Orwell's fictional world the authorities controlled people's thoughts by controlling the language. By changing the definitions of certain words, they made it impossible to think certain thoughts. This rendered the population blind to contradictions and hypocrisies that the government was trying to paper over. Now it seems that certain cosmologists are trying to do the same thing. For example:
"Why is there order in the universe?"
"Because the universe is governed by the laws of physics."
"Why is the universe governed by the laws of physics?"
"Because there is order in the universe."
Absolutely outrageous circular reasoning.
The laws of physics are based on inductive reasoning -- the idea that if something has happened the same way every time for long enough, it must continue to happen the same way in the future. After all, E has equaled MC2 every single time it's ever been measured. So of course the next time we measure it, it will be the same, right? Isn't the future a slave to the past? Isn't the mere fact that something has always happened that way evidence that it will continue to happen that way -- indeed, that it must happen that way?
No. Not unless you establish logical necessity or external intervention. The implications of inductive reasoning decisively falsify the idea that the laws of physics are logically necessary, because inductive reasoning itself is incapable of establishing logical necessity. Indeed, if the laws of physics were logically necessary, in the same sense that two plus two must equal four and nothing else, no coherent multiverse theory could exist, because logical necessity would dictate that the laws of physics could not vary from universe to universe, as is required if the multiverse is to explain fine-tuning. As for external necessity, what could be external to the universe? (Shut up, I don't wanna hear the "G-word", it's not allowed in a serious intellectual discussion such as this one! VERY intellectually unfashionable!)
Imagine a trillions of monkeys banging randomly on trillions of keyboards. After zillions of years, one of these immortal monkeys accidentally types out half the text of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Absent somebody "monkeying" with the keyboard or the transcript (or the monkey's intelligence), what might you expect to find on the very next page of this simian masterpiece? Gibberish. My point is that the future is not a slave to the past unless so mandated by external necessity.
The "laws" of physics are established by inductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning cannot establish logical necessity (see the Problem of Induction for a more involved explanation of the limits of inductive reasoning). Positing physical necessity without reference to an external agent is circular reasoning, because the laws of physics cannot establish themselves, they can only reveal themselves through careful observation. There is no apparent external reason to believe that just because we have always observed E=MC2 to hold, that it will continue to hold in the future. We need external necessity to explain the continuity and intelligibility of the universe. Calling it a "law" is just a way of assuming your way past the question at issue ("Why is the universe intelligible?") by definitional fiat, just as those 1010123 cosmologists propose. Order requires an explanation, chaos doesn't. Why is the universe ordered? If it is a logical necessity, then the laws of physics must be the same in every universe (this defeating the only alternative to the intelligent design solution to the fine-tuning argument) -- or, perhaps, logic itself must vary from universe to universe, meaning that 2+2 might equal 5 in the next door universe, thereby rendering a coherent multiverse theory impossible.
If the laws of physics (and the physical constants) are not logically necessary, how can they be explained? I don't mean why they are the specific values they are, but why order exists at all in the universe. Scientists have been papering over this for centuries by reference to imaginary laws. The question "Why order?" is screaming for an answer and has been for centuries. Another explanation for "the way things are" is needed.
Imagine a roulette wheel in Vegas at a moment when it has hit 16 blacks in a row. What are the odds of it hitting black on the next spin? Ignoring the House take, the odds are still precisely 50/50 unless you assume somebody's cheating. Now, let's extrapolate backwards to the 9th spin of the 16-black run. Suppose a gambler theorizes that he's in the middle of a "black run" and that therefore, the next spins will necessarily hit black. He bets on it, and his theory is confirmed 8 times in a row. The odds against that happening by chance ore 256 to 1. Now he's really sure his theory is correct, and bets all he has on the next spin. But he's disastrously mistaken - the odds of hitting black are still 50/50. Likewise, the laws of physics are "confirmed" through observation, and thus are no more valid than the gambler's "back run" unless you appeal to a mystical, organizing principle. The point is that scientific materialists are forced to appeal to a mystical organizing principle just as theists are. Their model simply subtracts conscious intelligence, that's all. But why should that be? In everyday life we routinely attribute organization to conscious intelligence -- why not the cosmos?
Certainly a stem cell, for example, is organized but explainable by evolution without direct appeal to intelligence -- but we need to assume the laws of physics for evolution can operate. All evolution has done is to kick the problem up another notch -- the organization of a cell is revealed to be a concrete expression of the abstract organization of the laws of physics.
One physicist said he'd believe in intelligent design if he discovered a region of the cosmos where "miracles " occurred, laws of physics not operable, chaos. Wait a minute -- order is evidence of no intelligence, chaos is evidence of intelligence? Backwards reasoning. Newton -- occult. Find watches -- organized, evidence of intelligent design. Then we discover that the watches are made in an automated factory (evolution) -- does this prove watches were not intelligently deigned? No, because the factory itself is designed.
The universe is intelligible because the only thing that is absolutely about reality is a surpassing Intelligence -- everything else that exists is derived from this Intelligence, and it orders the universe. We don't need to establish necessity for this Intelligence because it possesses libertarian free will and thus does not have to do anything - E=mc2 doesn't even have to hold the next time it is tested. The universe is semi-predictable, however, if we assume that this Intelligence (who also possesses free will) possesses purpose, and that one of its purposes is to make the world predictable for intelligent life forms(or, if that idea seems too arrogant for us egotistical humans to flatter ourselves with, to conform the universe to the artistic principles of harmony and pattern). Yes, life is special, intelligence is special, even most atheists agree with that, otherwise there would be no need to explain the fine-tuning of the universe by concocting a multiverse. Another potential purpose the passionate love of of mathematical beauty.
Hmm...starting to sound like somebody I know...
It's utterly obvious, folks. Scientific materialism is morally bankrupt, utterly futile intellectual vanity.
Sympathetic Literature:
The Origin of Laws.
No comments:
Post a Comment