A Philosopher Considers Cosmic Fine-Tuning

The physicist Bernard Carr once declared that "if you don't want God you better have a multiverse." What he meant is that the fine-tuning of the force strengths and constants that comprise the fabric of our universe have to be calibrated with an astonishing precision or else life could not exist.

That dozens of these values should be so exquisitely fine-tuned as to permit life is such an astronomically improbable state of affairs if our universe is the only one that exists that the only way to avoid the conclusion that it was intentionally designed to be this way is to accept the idea that there are an incomprehensibly vast number of other universes beyond our own that are all different.

If that's so, then the existence of one as fine-tuned for life as is ours becomes almost inevitable, just as the odds of getting a royal flush if one is dealt enough hands of cards becomes inevitable.

Yet the multiverse hypothesis seems to be foundering, and Phillip Goff, a philosopher at Durham University, explains why in a recent article at The Conversation. Goff writes:

One of the most startling scientific discoveries of recent decades is that physics appears to be fine-tuned for life. This means that for life to be possible, certain numbers in physics had to fall within a certain, very narrow range.

One of the examples of fine-tuning which has most baffled physicists is the strength of dark energy, the force that powers the accelerating expansion of the universe. If that force had been just an infinitesimally amount stronger, matter couldn’t clump together. No two particles would have ever combined, meaning no stars, planets, or any kind of structural complexity, and therefore no life.

If that force had been an infinitesimally amount weaker, it would not have counteracted gravity. This means the universe would have collapsed back on itself within the first split-second – again meaning no stars or planets or life. To allow for the possibility of life, the strength of dark energy had to be, like Goldilocks’s porridge, “just right”.

This is just one example, and there are many others.

The strength of dark energy is said to be fine-tuned to within one part in 10^123. For a point of comparison there are "only" 10^80 atoms in the entire known universe. Goff continues:

The most popular explanation for the fine-tuning of physics is that we live in one universe among a multiverse. If enough people buy lottery tickets, it becomes probable that somebody is going to have the right numbers to win. Likewise, if there are enough universes, with different numbers in their physics, it becomes likely that some universe is going to have the right numbers for life.

Goff, though formerly a believer in the multiverse, has been persuaded that the multiverse hypothesis is based on a fallacy. He illustrates the fallcy thus:

Suppose Betty is the only person playing in her local bingo hall one night, and in an incredible run of luck, all of her numbers come up in the first minute.

Betty thinks to herself: “Wow, there must be lots of people playing bingo in other bingo halls tonight!” Her reasoning is: if there are lots of people playing throughout the country, then it’s not so improbable that somebody would get all their numbers called out in the first minute.

But this is an instance of the inverse gambler’s fallacy. No matter how many people are or are not playing in other bingo halls throughout the land, probability theory says it is no more likely that Betty herself would have such a run of luck.

It’s like playing dice. If we get several sixes in a row, we wrongly assume that we are less likely to get sixes in the next few throws. And if we don’t get any sixes for a while, we wrongly assume that there must have been loads of sixes in the past.

But in reality, each throw has an exact and equal probability of one in six of getting a specific number.

Multiverse theorists commit the same fallacy. They think: “Wow, how improbable that our universe has the right numbers for life; there must be many other universes out there with the wrong numbers!” But this is just like Betty thinking she can explain her run of luck in terms of other people playing bingo.

When this particular universe was created, as in a die throw, it still had a specific, low chance of getting the right numbers.

Betty would be wrong to infer that many people are playing bingo. Likewise, multiverse theorists are wrong to infer from fine-tuning to many universes.

Goff then looks at the question whether there is scientific evidence for a multiverse and also examines a hypothesis called the "anthropic principle" which is another attempt to avoid the conclusion that fine-tuning points to an intelligent creator. You can read about that peculiar argument and also why there's only very tenuous scientific evidence for a multiverse at the link.

So, does Goff accept Bernard Carr's other option, that the universe we live in was created by God. Well, no. Instead he embraces the pantheistic idea that the cosmos is itself the intelligent, purposeful agent of its own creation:

[We] face a choice. Either it’s an incredible fluke that our universe happened to have the right numbers. Or the numbers are as they are because nature is somehow driven or directed to develop complexity and life by some invisible, inbuilt principle.

In my opinion, the first option is too improbable to take seriously. My book presents a theory of the second option – cosmic purpose – and discusses its implications for human meaning and purpose.

Evidently, any theory, no matter how bizarre or lacking in evidential support, is preferable to having to accept that the universe is the creation of an intelligent, personal and transcendent God. Why?

Slouching Toward Totalitarianism

In her magisterial 1951 work titled The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt writes that totalitarian tyrannies grow out of the fragments of a highly atomized society comprised of lonely, alienated, and isolated individuals who have lost faith in the institutions of their culture and who lack both a knowledge of, and appreciation for, their history.

Rod Dreher picks up on this theme in his book Live Not by Lies. He writes that our contemporary young, despite the superficial connectedness they may feel as avid consumers of social media, are largely unhappy and isolated to a historically unprecedented degree.

Their loneliness and ennui manifest themselves in epidemic rates of teenage depression and suicide which psychologist Jean Twenge says have placed us "on the brink of the worst mental health crisis in decades." Much of the deterioration in the mental well-being of those born since 2000, she claims, "can be traced to their phones."

Walk into a restaurant or any gathering place where you might find groups of young (and maybe not-so-young) people sitting together and it's not unusual to see each of them alone in their own world, staring at their phones, or wearing ear buds or head sets that exclude any meaningful interaction with others.

I've visited people in their homes who keep the television on so loud that conversation is all but impossible, and, of course, lonely people congregate in night clubs where the music creates a din over which it's impossible to talk. Even in a crowd we're often functionally alone.

Dreher says that modern technology and social media are just two of the forces creating the conditions for what he calls a decadent, pre-totalitarian culture. Not only social atomization and widespread loneliness, but also the embrace of radical ideologies, the erosion of religious belief, and the loss of faith in our institutions leave society "vulnerable to the totalitarian temptation."

Totalitarian tyrants will do all they can to destroy a sense of community in the people they oppress because community is a support system that encourages resistance. It's much easier to control people when they lack the sense of identity that comes from belonging to something bigger than themselves.

Where in our modern society do we still find community? The family is disintegrating, churches are empty, neighborhoods are populated by people who frequently move on after a few years, and there are so many entertainment options that one feels it almost unusual to find someone who watches the same tv shows or the same podcasts.

Arendt asserts that when people lack community - a sense of belonging - they'll crave the fellowship and identity that an ideological commitment provides. They'll sign on to any movement that gives them a sense of importance and fills their otherwise empty lives with meaning, even if that meaning is at bottom an illusion.

It is precisely this promise of a meaningful life that propelled the Bolshevik communists to power in an effete Russia after 1917 and enabled the rise of Hitler in a worn out Germany in the 1930s.

Could we, too, be slouching toward totalitarianism?

During the covid pandemic our government imposed draconian restrictions on society that almost totally isolated people from each other. They closed schools, limited athletic events, and restricted the size of gatherings to a relatively few people who were required to hide their faces behind masks and maintain "social distance." If and when another deadly virus should strike would those in our government who harbor totalitarian inclinations be even more repressive?

What happened during the pandemic should give us pause. If we think tyranny couldn't happen here then perhaps we understand neither history nor human nature nor the fragile state of our contemporary culture.

Fledging Their Young

From time to time I've posted on birds that I've been fortunate to see in my little corner of the world. One bird that makes it into eastern Pennsylvania once or twice each winter is a resident of Greenland but which occasionally wanders south in the winter into the Middle Atlantic states.

The bird is called the Barnacle goose and it's perhaps the most handsome of all the geese seen in the United States. A couple of years ago, one of these birds turned up in a park about an hour and a half from my home, so, since I had never seen one before, I took a drive to see this one.

One thing that makes Barnacle geese especially interesting is the manner in which their young are fledged, which is spectacular. The young are hatched on ledges high up on cliff faces, but their natural milieu lies in the water hundreds of feet below. Watch this video to see the remarkable manner by which they get from the ledge to the water:

That any of them survive is surely one of the wonders of the animal kingdom.

Six Perplexing Problems in the Philosophy of Science

Mathematician Granville Sewell has a piece at Evolution News in which he lists six evidences of purposeful agency in the structure of the universe and the emergence of life. Not only are these strong evidences for what philosophers call intelligent design, but they also constitute six very difficult problems in the philosophy of science.

Sewell introduces his six with this:

The ACLU speaks for much of the media and of academia when it says the theory of intelligent design “simply says that some things that seem very complex could not have happened based on natural causes. So where it sees complexity, it declares that it must have been created by a supernatural entity. This is not science.”

Oh really? Is that all there is to it? Not exactly. Below is a modest attempt to provide a summary of the main scientific evidences for design in our world, for those who have been told that such evidence does not exist.

The six lines of evidence he lists and discusses are these:

1. The Fine-Tuning of Conditions on Earth
2. The Fine-Tuning of the Physical Laws of the Universe
3. The Origin of Life
4. The Evolution of Humans
5. The Origin of Human Consciousness
6. The Beginning of Time

He gives an explanation of each of these at the link, which the reader is encouraged to check out. Each of them is very difficult to explain on any naturalistic understanding of reality.

Some other examples he could have mentioned are insect metamorphosis, sexual reproduction, and the extraordinary fitness for life of many of the atoms on the periodic table (although perhaps he'd subsume this last example under #1 and #2).

In his recent book The Miracle of the Cell geneticist Michael Denton explains how the chemistry of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous, as well as several heavier elements, is precisely what it must be in order for there to be living things of even minimal complexity. This chemistry, Denton avers, must've been baked into the universe at the very outset of its existence, long before any life appeared.

It is, Denton says, a "primal blueprint" for life.

As in the other books in the series of which it is a part (Firemaker, Wonder of Water, and Children of Light) Denton takes us in The Miracle of the Cell on an excursus into the cell to show us that had not these elements had precisely the properties they do, living cells would be quite impossible.

He concludes this fascinating book (fascinating, but perhaps not for readers with scant background in chemistry or biology) with these words,

I believe that when the path [from chemistry to life] is finally elucidated, it will turn out to be extraordinary, one of the greatest scientific wonders, revealing a far deeper teleology [purpose] in nature than all the elements of natural fitness for the cell and for life documented so far.

Even more, I believe that the elucidation of that fateful route [to living cells] will be of far greater intellectual consequence than any other discovery in science since the birth of science in the sixteenth century. Indeed, I believe that the path, when discovered, will prove to be so obviously indicative of a profound teleology in the very ground of being that it will prove a watershed in the history of thought.

Conversely, if instead it is eventually established that there is no purely natural path across the great gulf from non-life to life, and that only the additional exertion of an intelligent agent could have assembled the first cell on Earth, that will be equally a watershed in human thought.

For readers with the equivalent of a high school education in chemistry or an undergraduate level education in biology almost every page of Denton's book contains captivating descriptions of the exquisite fine-tuning of the atoms and molecules necessary for the construction of a functioning biological cell.

I highly recommend it to readers with the appropriate background.

The Binding Problem

James Le Fanu, a medical doctor and science journalist, describes an interesting puzzle associated with how the brain works. in a forward to the book Restoration of Man, Le Fanu writes that the simplest of stimuli like the words chair or sit cause vast tracts of the brain to "light up" which prompts "a sense of bafflement at what the most mundane conversation must entail."

The sights and sounds of every transient moment are fragmented into "myriad separate components without the slightest hint of the integrating mechanism" that ties them all together into a coherent, unified experience of the world.

Le Fanu quotes Nobel Prize-winner David Hubel of Harvard who observes that, "The abiding tendency for attributes such as form, color and movement to be handled by separate structures in the brain immediately raises the question how all the information is finally assembled, say, for perceiving a bouncing red ball. They obviously must be assembled - but where and how we have no idea."

Philosophers refer to this as the "binding problem." How does the brain coordinate diverse sensory information (like color, shape, and location) into a unified perceptual experience, despite these features being processed in separate brain regions? It is an astonishing thing. Consider how much the brain must organize in order, for example, for a batter to hit a baseball. The brain must calculate the velocity and trajectory of the ball and initiate and coordinate all the movements of the various parts of the body necessary to execute the swing, and do it all within a fraction of a second.

If all of these functions are being carried out in different regions of the brain how are they integrated so precisely that the ball is successfully struck? What structure or mechanism carries out the integration function?

That question leads to others. Is there more to our mental experience than can be accounted for by the material organ called the brain? Do we also have an immaterial mind? If we knew all the physical facts about how the brain works would our knowledge be complete or would there still be something left over? How did random, purposeless genetic accidents produce an organ with such amazing capabilities?

A Nobel Prize is waiting for anyone who discovers the answers to any of these questions and can empirically demonstrate the truth of the answers beyond reasonable doubt.

Materialism and Intentionality

Many people believe that human beings are a composite of both mental and material substance. This view is called substance dualism and among philosophers it seems to be enjoying something of a resurgence. Still, the currently dominant view among philosophers remains, at least for the time being, materialism.

Materialism is the view that everything, including us, is reducible to matter and the atoms that make matter up. Materialists deny that there's anything about us that's immaterial. They deny that we possess an immaterial mind or soul, and they insist that electrochemical processes in the brain can account for all of our mental activity.

Philosopher Ed Feser argues that this view is simply false and he adduces something called intentionality as just one of several phenomena that cannot be explained as solely a function of matter or neurological processes:

One aspect of the mind that philosophers have traditionally considered particularly difficult to account for in materialist terms is intentionality, which is that feature of a mental state in virtue of which it means, is about, represents, points to, or is directed at something, usually something beyond itself.

Your thought about your car, for example, is about your car – it means or represents your car, and thus “points to” or is “directed at” your car. In this way it is like the word “car,” which is about, or represents, cars in general.

Notice, though, that considered merely as a set of ink marks or (if spoken) sound waves, “car” doesn’t represent or mean anything at all; it is, by itself anyway, nothing but a meaningless pattern of ink marks or sound waves, and acquires whatever meaning it has from language users like us, who, with our capacity for thought, are able to impart meaning to physical shapes, sounds, and the like.

Now the puzzle intentionality poses for materialism can be summarized this way: Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc.

In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.

The debate has fascinating implications. If there's more to us than just the chemicals that make us up, if there's something immaterial that's an essential element of our being, then is that immaterial mind (or soul) something that's not subject to death as physical matter is? Might there be something about us that continues to exist even after the body dies?

Materialists scoff at the idea, but materialism no longer commands the allegiance of philosophers like it did in the 19th and 20th centuries. There's too much it can't explain and intentionality is just one example.

Terrorism and the Left

Karol Markowicz at the New York Post notes that there's very little mention of the domestic terrorism being waged against Tesla, Tesla dealerships, and Tesla owners by Democrats and their leftist allies in the media.

People are being doxxed and swatted, their cars are being vandalized and their lives and livelihoods threatened by left-wing thugs who, like all ideological extremists, have taken to violence against those with whom they disagree.

Here's Markowicz:

Another Donald Trump presidential term, another spate of violence going largely ignored — or even smirked at — by Democrats and their media friends.

Tesla dealerships are being firebombed and shot at, while Tesla vehicles are vandalized and their owners assaulted.

Trump-supporting influencers are getting “swatted,” set up for dangerous police encounters by opponents who phone in hoax distress calls.

Relatives of Trump-aligned public figures — including the sister of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Elon Musk’s brother — are receiving bomb threats.

This cannot go on.

She adds that,

The multiple attacks on Teslas aren’t mere vandalism. This is terrorism exactly as the dictionary describes it: “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”

These “vandals” are terrorizing Tesla the company, as well as Tesla owners — going so far as to dox them with an online map — all because they don’t like the opinions of its CEO.

It’s calculated to scare, to terrorize, people away from driving Teslas in order to apply political pressure on Musk.

It’s “nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday.

Fortunately, a number of these vandals have been arrested and hopefully they'll be fully prosecuted. If justice is served they'll be facing five-year mandatory minimum sentences and could receive up to twenty years to contemplate their stupidity.

Markowicz has more details and links in her NY Post column. This apparent indifference among progressives to terroristic assaults on the property and people who drive Teslas is seemingly of a piece with the left's resistance to Trump's attempt to remove felons who are here illegally. Every attempt to expel violent criminals and terrorist sympathizers is met with court challenges intended to delay, obstruct, and prevent the removal of these threats to our families and well-being, which raises a question:

Why would anyone want these people to remain in the U.S.?

There was no indication from the left that they objected to the massive influx of unvetted migrants when the Biden administration opened our borders to let in millions of aliens, including tens of thousands of convicted criminals, but now that the Trump administration is doing all it can to repatriate them the left is demanding that they be vetted and throwing up every obstacle to prevent their deportation.

Why?

One might be forgiven for thinking that the so-what attitude toward domestic terrorism and the strenuous efforts to keep foreign murderers, rapists, and extortionists in our neighborhoods suggests that leftists are deliberately doing whatever they can to degrade and undermine our society.

Of course, to suggest such a thing is to invite accusations of paranoia, but then anyone who has read any political history could tell us that violence, terror, and social destabilization have been the modus operandi of the left going back to at least the French Revolution of 1789.

Evidently, it still is today.