Why is an explanation needed?
Fine Tuning of Universe
Sunshine warms our bodies and
grows our food. But why do we have sunshine? It
occurs
because
natural
processes — which depend on the mass of particles, conversion of
mass to energy (e = mcc), rate of nuclear reactions, and sizes of nuclear and
gravitational forces — are "just
right" to
produce
a balance between opposing forces. One force pulls the sun's fiery
atmosphere inward, while others push it outward, in a cosmic tug-of-war lasting
billions of years.
To understand
fine
tuning, imagine
that you are sitting in front of a control panel with dozens of dials. To
allow life, each dial — which
controls one property of the universe — must be fine-tuned to a specific
setting within a very narrow range. You are alive, reading this web-page,
because all dials
are properly tuned, so we have stable atoms and
molecules, stars that produce energy and heavy atoms (our bodies are
made from stardust!), the amazing chemistry of DNA, water, and enzymes,
and
much more.
An amazing discovery
of scientists, in recent decades, is that
many
properties of the universe are "just right" for life. Most
scientists are convinced that the fine-tuning constraints on a life-allowing
universe are very tight because small changes would
make the existence of intelligent life impossible, and that
the
probability of a universe having these properties (fine tuned to be "just
right for life")
is extremely low.
TWO
THEORIES claim
to explain why our universe is what it is:
• Intelligent Design
(of one universe)
The simplest causal
theory is
intelligent design plus
design-directed action, with our universe being designed and produced
by an extremely intelligent and powerful designer/producer who cleverly
designed this universe so it would support life.
• Multiverse (with many
universes)
Scientists
have analyzed the probability of a universe capable of supporting life-forms
that
are intelligent,
and have estimated the odds to be extremely low. If there is only one
universe, and it was not designed for life, we must conclude that we are
extremely lucky. But if, as proposed in a Multiverse Theory, we live
in a
multiverse containing an immense number
of universes, and if there enough universes and if their properties are
distributed across a wide range, the
odds would
favor having
at least one universe with intelligent life. Basically, a multiverse provides
a way to
beat the odds.
Intelligent
Design is compatible with a Multiverse, a Grand
Unified Theory, and the Anthropic Principle:
Does a
multiverse require intelligent design?
Robin Collins explains why
"even
if a ‘many-universes generator’ exists
it
seems
to need to be well designed" in order to produce a multitude of
universes
with widely varying
properties. Therefore, the two most plausible
theories
seem to be: • one universe
that
was
intelligently
designed, or • a multiverse (with many universes) that was intelligently
designed.
Therefore, the choice is not
EITHER design OR multiverse,
but
instead is
EITHER designed
universe
or designed multiverse OR non-designed
multiverse.
so currently we have
THREE plausible
explanations,
not just two, for explaining the fine-tuned "just right" world we observe.
Grand Unified Theory (with
Intelligent
Design of Nature?)
Some scientists hope that eventually
a "
grand unified theory of everything" will
show why it is necessary for the properties of nature to be what they are. Some
atheists are hoping this would support their theory of materialistic
non-design. But if scientists do discover/construct a grand unified theory
of physics,
wouldn't it be more
rational
to conclude — if there is only one way to combine everything into a set
of properties (if the unified theory applies to all universes within the
multiverse
*) and if this one set produces
a universe that allows life — that
the universe, operating as described in this elegantly unified theory, has been
cleverly designed?
* It
would
also be rational, as described above,
to
conclude that
a
mechanism which produces many universes with widely varying
unifying
properties, with different unifying properties in each universe, would
"need
to be well-designed." { To explain the origin of many
universes
within a multiverse,
scientists have proposed many mechanisms,
involving string theory, inflationary expansion, general relativity, quantum
mechanics
(with
vacuum
energy and bubbles, a "many worlds" interpretation,...),
colliding branes, collapsing black
holes,
and more. }
The Anthropic
Principle (with or without Intelligent Design of Observers)
Perhaps we should just say "so
what?" because if we are observing a universe, it obviously must have
properties that allow our existence. This
anthropic
principle — which states that
because humans exist, we must
observe a universe consistent with our existence (due to anthropic selection,
thus the
anthropic selection principle) —
is
logically valid, and
is compatible with either
the presence or absence of a designer, so it doesn't favor either
of the two theories.
{four anthropic principles}
Can scientific
evidence-and-logic help us distinguish between a single universe and a multiverse?
Universe or Multiverse? — Scientific
Evidence
According to most multiverse theories,
other universes are in a different space-time framework,
so in principle they cannot be observed. Or they are very far away, so
in practice they are unobservable. Therefore, the fact that we do not
observe any other universe does not count as scientific evidence against theories
proposing the existence of many other universes. Very
convenient.
Divine
Design versus Materialism? — Philosophy
not Certainty
Why does the universe have properties
that allow life? I think the most plausible
explanation is that it was designed and created by a divine designer/creator
whose intelligence and power are beyond our abilities to comprehend. But
this theory currently cannot be proved (beyond a reasonable doubt), and
alternative theories about "many
universes" also
seem impossible to prove or disprove, mainly because our evaluations are
hindered by an absence of empirical data about what existed and what happened
before the Big Bang Beginning of our universe.
Theistic and atheistic worldviews
propose different descriptions of reality (and explanations for it), including
different ideas about what existed before the beginning of the universe. An
atheist assumes the existence of
a materialistic
capability for creating our universe. A theist assumes the
existence of
God,
who has this capability. Each asks the other, "Can you explain
what caused the existence of what you assume as the starting point?" Neither
offers an answer that satisfies the other, and neither assumption can be
proved, so theism and atheism both offer a possible explanation for what
we observe.
If divine design and materialism
are both possibilities, and a choice is not forced by logical necessity, the
choice can be strongly
influenced by
personal preference
for a particular
worldview
and its associated philosophy
of life.
Divine
Design without Proof? — Worldviews and Faith
Should this lack of proof
bother us? No. In
fact, I think "a state of uncertainty" is the way God wants it
to be, because
a lack of certainty forces each
of us — no matter what
we believe in our worldview —
to live by faith
in what we believe. What
is the spiritual significance of this uncertainty,
with humans apparently unable to logically prove or disprove the existence
and actions of God?
Why
isn't God more obvious?
If you're curious about questions — Why
do scientists think there is a fine-tuning of characteristics, constants,
and conditions? Why is an undesigned single universe extremely
improbable, requiring a multiverse to "beat the odds"? How
could a multiverse be produced, and how scientifically plausible is
this
scenario
for
cosmology? How
could different universes have different properties? Where are
the other universes? If an active God does exist, why hasn't
he provided proof for his existence and activity? — these
questions are examined (with the help of ideas from Robin Collins,
Victor Stenger, and William Lane Craig) in Part
2 of Anthropic Principle, Fine Tuning,
and Theology: Multiverse and/or Intelligent Design. Or
you can look at pages by a wider variety of authors in the homepage
for Intelligent
Design
of Nature & Origin of The Universe.
|
APPENDIX
Properties depend
on Characteristics, Constants, and Conditions:
CHARACTERISTICS — matter/energy
(from quarks or strings?) in elementary particles (protons, electrons,...),
+ and - charge, wave/particle duality and resulting quantizations,
space & time, four forces, causal relationships (summarized by
Newton, Einstein,...), ... ;
CONSTANTS — for
sizes (of energy quantization, four forces, charge & mass of particles,...);
CONDITIONS — initial
rate of expansion after Big Bang, initial excess of matter over antimatter,
...
Beating
the Odds
The principle is simple. If enough
universes exist,
everything
that
can happen will happen!
For example, in a five-card poker
hand the odds of getting a royal flush are 1 in 649,740. But with 450,365
deals, your chance of getting a royal flush is 50%. And as the number of
opportunities increase, your odds improve dramatically; with 9 million
deals (only 20 times the 50% break-even number) the odds are a million-to-one
in your favor!
A multiverse can "explain
away" all
evidence for intelligent design, at any level: for a fine-tuned universe,
a natural origin of life, or you winning 10 straight lotteries. For example,
IF the probabilities are 10-2000 for a
life-allowing universe and 10-1000 for a natural origin of life within
such a universe, giving an overall probability of 10-3000, all we
need is 103002 universes (if properties are widely distributed,...)
and life becomes a statistical certainty, with odds of 1043-to-one
in favor
of
life. *
If the life is intelligent enough
to ask "why are we here" the specific
universe where this occurs (due to the anthropic selection
principle) would
seem "special", and if the life is less
intelligent the
universe
would
still be special and rare, even if this is not recognized by the life within
it.
* Due
to
a
lack
of
experience,
it's
difficult
for
us
to
understand the immense size of these
numbers; we're unable to visualize 1043,
and
103002 is
MUCH larger but
is
not
infinite.
an IOU — This
section will
be revised to include
the
crucial distinction between "an immense number of universes" and
"an infinite number of universes",
between
immensity and infinity, between claiming
that
"EVERYTHING...
will
happen" (as I mistakenly say above, assuming infinity) and "MANY THINGS
will
happen" (this is a better claim, assuming an immense number of universes
but
not
an infinite
number).
Anthropic Principle (four
versions)
The term "anthropic
principle" was introduced
in 1973 by Brandon Carter. Later, distinctions were made between
four anthropic principles: Weak and Strong (by Carter), Participatory
(John Wheeler), and Final (John Barrow & Frank
Tipler, 1986, in The Anthropic
Cosmological Principle).
WEAK Anthropic Principle
(WAP): We can exist because intelligent life requires a universe
with a special set of properties, which (of course)
we do observe. ( This "basic anthropic principle" is
logically correct, but it doesn't help us determine if our world is
designed, as explained
above. )
STRONG Anthropic Principle
(SAP): The universe must have the properties that are needed
to produce life, i.e. a universe without life is impossible. ( Does
SAP propose an intelligent design of our universe? Does it claim
that
a multiverse is impossible, since most universes in a multiverse would
not have life? Or would the SAP-requirement apply only to the
multiverse, by claiming that a multiverse without life is impossible? )
PARTICIPATORY Anthropic
Principle (PAP): The eventual emergence of observers is necessary
to bring our universe into existence. ( This
theory is based on a speculative philosophical
interpretation of quantum physics in which an "act
of observation" produces reality, so "if no observers then no
reality." )
FINAL Anthropic Principle
(FAP): After intelligent life has emerged in the universe, it
will never die out. ( Barrow & Tipler also claim
that life will evolve toward an Omega Point when "the
totality of life... is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient" in
a pantheistic version of God. Martin Gardner calls this the Completely
Ridiculous Anthropic Principle, CRAP, and I agree that life will not
evolve into
God, and that never-ending life is not naturalistically inevitable,
it is guaranteed only if God wants it to happen and makes it happen. ) |
this page is http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/anthropic-cr.htm
copyright ©1998 by Craig Rusbult, all rights reserved
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