Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Victor Stenger, the toughest-minded NT stone-cold sonofabitch this side of Californie, angrily rips apart the mystical anthropic principle and its allegedly theism-friendly consequences. Apart from that scary spectacle, there is an interesting note that “André Linde proposed that a background spacetime ‘foam’ empty of matter and radiation will experience local quantum fluctuations in curvature, forming many bubbles of false vacuum that individually inflate into mini-universes with random characteristics. In this view, our universe is one of those expanding bubbles, the product of a single monkey banging away at the keys of a single word processor.” (The Improbability of God, 145) Isn’t this an efficient way of creating our universe? All God would have had to do was prune the dead universes and wait until the one in which we live budded off. This is kind of divine artificial selection.

Then there is the theory of natural selection as collapsing black holes turn into random universes, such that “by chance some small fraction of universes will have parameters optimized for greater black hole production. These will quickly predominate…” (146) Of course, this differs from Darwinism in that the universes do not interact with one another, and unfit universes do not get eaten or starved by the fit ones. And this selects for black hole production efficiency not for intelligent life.

Finally, our author argues that natural laws emerged naturally. They evolved on their own, without divine intervention. The evolution of natural laws, in other words, was itself law-abiding. So, there is a meta-law governing the cosmic becoming. I don’t see how this helps Stenger. Where did these meta-laws come from?

Let’s consider the case of Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys who claim that “the more ‘finely-tuned’ the universe is, the more a supernatural origin of the universe is undermined.” (150) Here are their assumptions:

a) Our universe exists and contains life. L = “The universe exists and contains Life.”

b) Our universe is life-friendly. F = “The conditions in the universe are ‘life-Friendly’.”

c) Life cannot exist in a universe that is governed solely by naturalistic law unless that universe is “life-friendly.” N = “The universe is governed solely by Naturalistic law.”

Our authors say that

d) P(F | N & L) = 1.

This follows from (c) written as P(~L | ~F & N) = 1 or P(F or ~N | L) = 1. In other words, L → (F or ~N). It follows that (L & N) → ((F or ~N) & N) = (L & N) → (F & N). But (F & N) → F. Hence P(F | L & N) = 1. So, P(N | F & L) ≥ P(N | L). “The observation F cannot decrease the probability that N is true…, and may well increase it.” (155) The question is why this is so. Obviously, because if F, then there is no need for supernatural life support which is an option when only L is true. But the life support possibility is clearly unacceptable on numerous other grounds. So, this proves little.

They also charge theists with a contradiction. Both P(N | ~F & L) < P(N | L) and P(N | F & L) < P(N | L). What gives? Well, if ~F & L, then we would be having a direct experience of God keeping us alive supernaturally in a hostile universe, rather like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fire (Dan 3). But if F, then presumably, the anthropic argument kicks in.

They say that from P(F | N) << 1 it does not follow that P(N | F) << 1. Yes, it most certainly does! P(F | N) << 1 entails that N → ~F or that F → ~N which can be written as P(~N | F) ≈ 1 or as P(N | F) << 1.

I saved the best for last. Who would possibly deny that the universe is governed by natural law? Grace is not law; human law can be broken; the divine law applies to realms other than earth; so what are Ikeda and Jefferys talking about? They must be thinking of the law according to which universes spawn or are selected. But they fail to suggest the content of such a law, though they criticize, unjustly in my view, theists for ascribing intentions to God, such as to create a universe which can support human beings. If they don’t want to defer to theologians, they’d best come up with a scientific alternative. Otherwise, be quiet.