X marks the whatsit
Heresy Corner quotes David Deutsch, a theoretical physicist and computer scientist at Oxford, on the ‘anthropic principle’ as an argument for the existence of god.
I do not believe that the ‘fine-tuning’ of physical constants provides any sort of argument for the existence of God or anything else supernatural. That is because if the constants had been set intentionally by supernatural entities, then the intentions of those entities must themselves have been at least as ‘fine-tuned’ when they set the constants, and that fine-tuning would remain unexplained. Hence that supernatural hypothesis does not even address the fine-tuning problem, let alone solve it.
More generally arguing for supernatural explanations on the grounds that the current scientific explanation for something or other is flawed or lacking is always a mistake. There are two main reasons for that. One is that there are always unsolved problems. But they get solved. Science continues to make progress even (or especially) after making great discoveries, because the discoveries themselves reveal further problems. Therefore the existence of an unsolved problem in physics is not evidence for a supernatural explanation any more than the existence of an unsolved crime is evidence that a ghost committed it.
The second reason is that supernatural explanations are always empty explanations. That is to say, ‘the gods did it’ is invariably a bad explanation because, as you can see, to invoke that explanation I didn’t even have to say what it is they did. It could ‘explain’ anything whatsoever and hence actually explains nothing.
That second one is very compelling, I always think. ‘The gods did it’ is an absolutely crappy explanation, because it can mean anything or everything or nothing – and as Dr Deutsch indicates, if it can mean anything or everything, then it means nothing – it’s just a gesture. It might as well be X. X did it. Okay…well that gets us precisely nowhere; now let’s try to dig a little deeper.
Excellent post. This one got a beating on the Simpsons, when the Lucy Lawless character gazumped the scifi-fantasy nerds embarrassing questions on continuity or wierd science as follows:
Nerd: “yada yada horse was white yada horse in next shot black yada yada”
LL:”Anytime you notice a thing like that, Wizards did it.”
Nerd: “But in episode xxix,…”
LL: “Wizards!”
First one’s pretty compelling too. I’ve never thought that the so-called ‘anthropic principle’ – calling it that is already a petitio – contains a reasonable argument. After all, we’re here, so, whatever the reason, the universe is constituted so as to permit life to evolve in this particular region of space. That’s it. So-called ‘fine tuning’ may have something to do with – has to have something to do with it – since, whatever it is, it allows life forms like us to develop. And that’s all that we can say. This doesn’t demand a designer any more than the existence of rodents requires a designer. Why ever did anyone think it did? (For ‘fine tuning’ read ‘intelligent deisgn’.)
Off topic, I know, Ophelia, but thanks for the link to Soran Reader’s piece in the Times Higher Education Supplement. She’s right, personal experience here has a way of focusing the mind.
Though perhaps not ultimately persuasive, I think a stronger case for design can be made. For starters, the anthropic principle assumes that the properties of the universe are contingent–the universe could have been otherwise than it is. Second, it assumes that most other ways the universe could have been are ways that are not compatible with life. Thus, a universe that can sustain life is supposed to be highly improbable if left to “chance.” The best explanation is supposed to be that it isn’t the result of chance, but design. For example, suppose we roll a million sided die, where one side is red and all the rest are black. If the die landed on the red side, would not we suspect that this was no accident, that the best explanation was that it was the result of design? That is the underlying reasoning. Third, it assumes that this is the only universe. If there were multiple universes (and perhaps even something like “selection” acting on universes), then we might expect, “in the long run,” that a universe like ours would form as a result of mere “chance.” If we grant these assumptions, the argument fares better. Now, does the same argument apply to this designer? If it does, then it leads to a regress. So, it looks like the argument requires something to break the regress, e.g., a non-contingent designer (it breaks the regress insofar as a necessary being does not need to be explained). Is this argument any good? I think it is problematic at several places, but one place where I am especially suspicious is the appeal to the fact that alternative possible universes would not support life. Suppose that is true? Would not it be true of every possible universe that it would possess a property uniquely enjoyed by it? If so, then the argument could be applied to any way the universe could have turned out to be! Ah, but life is “special” or “interesting” you may say! Well, sure, to US it is.
Welcome, Eric. Interesting that (as she says herself) she hadn’t put two and two together before, isn’t it.
Yes, it is interesting. I had, long before. But I had not put two and two together regarding god and evil. I think that’s worse somehow, but Reader is a reader in philosophy, ethics, even. It doesn’t say how things turned out. That was the 7th. Do you know?
Marty.
The universe is contingent. So it is. It could have been other than it is. So it could. So what? It might have had properties that didn’t support life. So it might. Then we wouldn’t be having this discussion over this rather astonishing medium. Do you think it was designed? I don’t. It evolved. I don’t see the point. We’re here, so it can support life. So? It can. Does that need an explanation? Besides, there may be other forms of life possible if the universe had been different, with different physical/chemical parameters. Or might might have been lifeless, and no one would be there to ask the question. So what?
But the argument is given away in this:
That’s why intelligent design is popular. It just so happens that we’re here by chance. So? We’re here. And the best explanation is not design. Actually, it almost never is. Look at your car. Is it designed? Well, yes, but it evolved too. The first designer of a car use the idea of buggy or a bicycle…, and so the evolution began. Why are cars more reliable now, so reliable car companies can’t sell them as fast as they need to in order to make money. This was not planned. It evolved.
Or, take your argument about multiple universes. Sure, if there were multiple universes, this one might have turned up by chance. But so it might anyway. You don’t have to have millions of universes to have contingency.
And, besides, we have a local ‘universe’, if you like, that just happened by chance. It would have been a bit different without the asteroid, and perhaps no beings with ‘intelligence’, the reflexive ability to be aware of being aware, would have evolved. We don’t know. We’re here, so they did. It might have been different. It still happened by chance. And these need no regress. We are designed without a designer. The universe, by analogy, might well be the same. It makes sense of us.
I don’t think the argument from design (the anthropic principle) can get going. We know that design can happen algoritmically. I don’t really see the issue. Not only are there supicious parts to the argument, but the first premise is simply wrong. So it can’t get liftoff.
Eric, there’s an update on the Times Higher piece that says the biopsy got delayed for about six months, and Reader is at least relieved about that.
Eric,
The design argument I articulated was not Paley’s watchmaker argument. Paley argued that to explain the existence of the watch, we have two options: chance or design. He rejects chance because it is so vastly improbable that something like a watch, whose functioning depends on all the parts fitting together just right, would be produced by mere chance. The Darwinian answer is that the “design” we see in the natural world is the product of selection acting over millions of years; we don’t need a designer, but nor do we need to suppose that complex organs emerged all at once (that is, it is not like one day fully formed eyes just popped into existence). I accept the Darwinian explanation of all of this. The design argument I discuss is the one that points to the laws of nature themselves, which do not evolve. To say the universe is evolving is potentially misleading. On the one hand, changes occur in the universe. But the laws whereby changes occur do not. The laws we have are compatible with the existence of life, but there are possible universes with different laws that are not so compatible. So we can reapply Paley’s argument to the laws: given that the probability of our laws are so low, it is incredulous that they are not the product of design. The argument is not demonstrative, of course. Maybe there is no explanation of why we have the laws we do, or maybe it was just a matter of “chance.” But again, consider the analogy with the million sided die. If one side is red and all the others are black, and if, on a single roll, the die comes up red, it would be reasonable for us to suspect that the die was somehow “loaded” in favor of red. The defender of the argument from design is simply applying this reasoning to the laws of nature themselves. My point in bringing up multiple universes was that, if there were a multitude of universes, then it would be less improbable that eventually a universe like ours would come into existence (just as we would expect the red side to come up at least once if we rolled the die, say, a million times). Lastly, like I said in the prior post, I am not convinced by the argument; I just want to make it clearer what the argument is.
But as Deutsch points out, that just leads to another even more incredible explanandum – a red die turning up on a trillion sided die. The ‘it’s so improbable that it must have been designed’ argument still just leads back to an even more improbable entity…so it seems odd not to stop sooner rather than later.
If the designer itself needed to be explained, then I agree that we would have a regress of designers and we would not have made any progress with the original explanandum. This is why the conclusion is that there is a designer that is necessary and is not the effect of anything else. The argument begins by accepting that the laws could have been different, points out that the sheer improbability of the laws coming about by chance suggests design, and thus concludes with a designer. In order for a designer to be the best explanation, the designer must not be the effect of anything else. Thus, the designer is not the effect of anything else. Now, one may revisit the premises and perhaps reject that the laws could have been different. Or perhaps one can admit that the laws could have been different and simply say that there is no explanation for why the laws are as they are. Regarding the first option, the only motivation for doing so appears to be that one does not like where the premises lead, which is completely ad hoc. Regarding the second, it appears to end explanation prematurely. At least if we posit a designer that is necessary and not the effect of anything else, we can understand why explanation stops with the designer.
“In order for a designer to be the best explanation, the designer must not be the effect of anything else. Thus, the designer is not the effect of anything else.”
Okay. Then in order for the laws of nature to be the best explanation, the laws of nature must not be the effect of anything else. Thus, the laws of nature are not the effect of anything else. Or to put it another way, there is no explanation for why the laws are as they are.
In other words surely both end explanation, whether prematurely or not is…apparently dependent on whether one insists on stopping with an agent or not.
I don’t think anyone is insisting on an agent, and, contrary to what Deutsch says, the issue is not that of explaining fine tuning as such, but how a fine-tuned universe was created. As I said before, both sides seem to agree that the laws of nature came into existence, and the issue concerns what it is reasonable to believe with respect to this coming into existence. The defender of the design argument says that the hypothesis that the laws are the result of design is more likely than the hypothesis that the laws arose by chance. This follows from the assumption that (1) the probability that the laws are such as to permit life is greater if there is a designer than if the laws of nature are the result of chance, and (2) the law of likelihood.
Just wanted to add the missing piece to your final point:
So, the laws of nature are such as to permit life. You ask us to compare:
1. The probability that this occurred by chance.
2. The probability that a designer would set them up like this *multiplied by the probability of a fully-formed designer occurring by chance*.
Human beings are notoriously bad at intuiting probability calculations.
Oops, *you* don’t ask us, your hypothetical “defender of the design argument” asks us. My apologies.
First, the conclusion is NOT that the designer hypothesis is more probable than chance; the conclusion is that it is more LIKELY (likelihood and probability are not the same). Second, to say that chance is more probable than a designer simply assumes that whether the universe is a result of a designer or the result of chance is itself the result of chance, but there is no reason to assume this. Neither the designer nor chance is GIVEN. What is given as evidence is that we live in a universe with laws that permit life. The issue is whether this evidence makes one hypothesis more likely than another. Finally, I really don’t accept the design argument. Really. I am simply trying to give the opposition a hearing.
I promise I’ll stop posting after this time, but on re-reading your comment I suspect you *were* using mathematical likelihood.
If that’s the case, is this argument along the lines of the “sleeping beauty problem”? Because then I finally see your point. It still doesn’t work (because the sleeping beauty problem is bollocks – the probability is always half) but I see your point.
I’ve tried to make this point before, but it keeps getting lost. I’ll try one more time. The argument is not circular, for the explanadum is not fine-tuning itself, but why laws that are fine-tuned came into existence. It is about created fine-tuning, and to explain created fine-tuning by appeal to non-created fine-tuning (God-as-designer) is not circular. Now, if you posit that the laws of nature did not come about/were not created, then they did not come about by design or chance. But most parties to the dispute accept that the laws came into existence. The argument says that, given that the laws came about/had a beginning, the designer hypothesis is more likely than chance. You cannot simply retort that the designer would need explaining, too, for that would assume that the designer came into existence. But why assume that? And as for the probability of the existence of a designing God, I am not even sure how one would go about assigning such a probability. But the argument does not rest on such an assignment (yes, I was using likelihood in the technical sense; I should have been clearer about that).
Now, there are problems with the likelihood argument. For example, Elliot Sober has claimed that we need to include the fact that humans exist and observe the fine-tuning when we assess the relative likelihoods, and when we do that, the argument does not favor design. Perhaps he is right; my point is that the design argument is not the obvious non-starter that Deutsch claims it is.
I’m going to have to give up this debate, because I must just be stupid or something. I simply don’t get how one could arbitrarily assert that the designer isn’t subject to the very flaws it was intended to explain, without that being a transparent cop-out. If we had actually encountered the designer, and this really was one of its characteristics, then fair enough. But until then, its characteristics have to be asserted, and its lack of a need for a designer could just as easily be used *against* the design argument.
I just don’t see how you could get around the “who designed the designer” problem by simply declaring that it doesn’t apply. Once that declaration is made, it also removes the need for a designer in the first place. And I don’t think the more sophisticated versions of the argument are anything other than elaborate verbal disguises for this central flaw.
“You cannot simply retort that the designer would need explaining, too, for that would assume that the designer came into existence. But why assume that?”
But if why assume that, then why not why assume the ‘laws’ came into existence? And the laws aren’t actual laws, anyway, they’re regularities.
I’m like Si; I just don’t see it; perhaps my fault.
Marty,
If intelligence is required to explain intelligent beings, then (obviously) intelligence remains unexplained.
You say “The argument is not circular, for the explanadum is not fine-tuning itself, but why laws that are fine-tuned came into existence.”
Do you mean that fine-tuning would be less mysterious if the laws had existed forever? Nonsense.
You keep claiming that:
“contrary to what Deutsch says, the issue is not that of explaining fine tuning as such, but how a fine-tuned universe was created.”
However, every physicist I’ve read claims that what needs explaining (if at all) is fine tuning, not “the creation of fine-tuning”. In fact, this is the first time I see the anthropic principle stated as you do. It smells of the typical apologetic contortion.
You also say that both sides seem to agree that “the laws of nature came into existence”
We don’t have a clear understanding of what a “law” is, never mind the “creation” of them.