>Another naturalistic response to the apparent design of nature (v. design
-in- nature) is to say that it is not blind chance that is responsible for
the apparent design (perhaps with an infinitely cycling big bang), but blind
necessity (if there is no cycling). That is, things just couldn't have been
otherwise, and so there is no need for an explanation, the argument goes.
>
This is a very interesting point. First let me agree that in various
discussions I've seen this possibility is presented as if it were a
show stopper. If (when) we find a TOE then all these things which
appear to be coincidences will be explained blah blah blah .....
One of the reasons I like the anthropic principle so much is that
there always seem to be new surprises in store, with arguments being
turned on there head in unusual ways, especially if one tends to
think of the design argument in the "orthodox" way.
Steve Clark hit it on the head, I think, when he wrote:
"This sounds like the anthropic argument for a designer.
How does this naturalistic response that "things just
couldn't have been otherwise" differ from the anthropic
argument?" -- SC
This is actually an integral part of the argument from design based
on fine-tuning as given by its most prominant advocates, including
John Leslie. I recall an interesting case where some fellow (can't
remember who) came up with a familiar objection that went something
like: "Oh yeah, well if you're right then the universe should be
teeming with life, yet as far as we know we are alone in the universe".
A very unusual use of a familiar objection. Normally the apparent
uniqueness of life on Earth is used as an argument for rather than
against design.
As to how the naturalistic response differs, my own experience has
shown that it does not and that the argument is given by naturalists
who are unfamiliar with the form of the design argument given by
Leslie and others.
To further illustrate, let me repeat a quote from Dennis Sciama
that I've posted here several times:
====================================================================
This simple but powerful argument leads us to ask the question:
*how much* can I deduce about the universe from the fact that
I exist? It turns out that various elementary particle, nuclear,
atomic and molecular properties of matter have to be very finely
tuned for conditions in the universe to have permitted my
development--many examples are given by Barrow and Tipler and
elsewhere in this book. These finely tuned properties will
probably also eventually be accounted for by fundamental
theory. But why should fundamental theory _happen_ to lead
to these properties?
There seem to be three possible answers to this question:
(a) It is a complete chance.
(b) God regards me as such a desirable product of the universe
that he has fine-tuned it so as to guarantee my development.
(c) There exist other, disjoint, universes with other laws
and constants of nature.
-- D.W. Sciama, "The Anthropic Principle and the Non-Uniqueness
of the Universe," in _The Anthropic Principle_, Proceedings
of the Second Venice Conference on Cosmology and Philosophy,
F. Bertola and U. Curi, ed., Cambridge University Press,
1993, pp. 107-109.
=====================================================================
The key statement is
"These finely tuned properties will
probably also eventually be accounted for by fundamental
theory. But why should fundamental theory _happen_ to lead
to these properties?"
Sciama is obviously not too impressed by the let's wait for a fundamental
theory approach. Why? First of all, there is no reason to expect that
there will be only one TOE. Sciama envisions the possibility that
there will be an ensemble of TOE's leading one again to the basic
anthropic question, why does our universe just happen to have the
finely tuned TOE (TOE's don't have to be finely tuned for life).
His answer: there are also an ensemble of Universes, each with a
different TOE. We're in the Universe with the finely tuned TOE
simply because we can't be in any of the others (this is the anthropic
selection principle).
Now comes a really interesting point. The naive naturalist (this is the
naturalist who we have caught off guard by informing them that their
argument against design is really an argument for design ;-) will
say: "Aha, but suppose we find that there is only one TOE. Then
I've got you." In fact, this is Sciama's worst nightmare, since if
there is only one TOE, the hypothetical ensemble of Universes are all
identical, and there is no longer any anthropic selection effect
(there is nothing to select from). "Surprise, surprise, surprise",
as our friend Gomer would say :-).
As a footnote let me add that my use of fine-tuning may be a bit
confusing at first since, unfortunately, fine-tuning has been tied
to the argument from improbability in many popularizations. For
example, if one says that a certain parameter is finely tuned to
one part in 10^50 then it's natural to take this a step further
and say that the probability of getting that particular parameter
is 10^-50. Natural, but also incorrect, since if there is a
fundamental law which gaurantees that that particular value of
that particular parameter must arise, then the probability of
getting it is one. Nevertheless, the parameter is still finely
tuned.
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Brian Harper | "People of that kind are academics, scholars,
Associate Professor | and that is the nastiest kind of man I know."
Applied Mechanics | -- Blaise Pascal
Ohio State University |
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