IS THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE EVIDENCE FOR A GOD?
By Neil Pearson
The anthropic principle is not one principle but a number of related principles. These principles are related by the assumption of the existence of biological systems. This can hardly be disputed as the empirical evidence of my own existence suggests. I will look at three stated principles and attempt to answer the above question of the existence of God on this basis. I will also attempt to ascertain the possibilities of the nature of god within the confines of the anthropic principle. To attempt to answer the above question I need to look at the science of the anthropic principle as it is a principle developed by physicists. I have written a brief summary of modern physics, for reference, shown in appendix 1.
The cosmologist Brandon Carter first used the term “anthropic principle” in 1974. He defined what has become to be known as the weak anthropic principle.
Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP). The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirement that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so. (Barrow, et al., 1986 p. 16)
This is a statement to say that the values of the physical constants are self-selected by the fact of our existence and would appear to be incontrovertible. That is to say the values of the physical constants are bound to have values that are consistent with what is necessary for our existence. The conclusion can be that the values of the physical and cosmological quantities are restricted by the requirement of existence of life on earth or any site of carbon based life. This is incontestable as my own carbon based existence is within a site where carbon based life exists. The WAP makes a number of assumptions for how things have become. The principle, for the sake of clarity can, I think, be broken down into four distinct statement or assumptions:
- Observed values of physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable.
(It is not clear to me what this means. I shall assume this to mean that the values of physical and cosmological quantities could have been different from what they are if the universe had developed differently). - Physical and cosmological quantities take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon based life can exist.
- Carbon based life can evolve.
- The universe must be old enough for carbon based life to exist.
For 1 , we do not know if physical quantities are equally probable or not. That is to say there is no empirical evidence to support this statement. We have only one example, the one we observe. There may be, as yet unknown, reasons for the observed values of the physical quantities. I can reasonably say that the first statement is unknown and possibly unknowable. All we can confidently say is we have a fifty percent level of confidence that values of physical quantities are equally probable because we have one set of result from one set of observations. This assumption is then rather speculative but somehow easy to believe as there is, as far as I can tell, no logical reason why the values of the physical constants should be as they are. According to the reasoning of Hume on the subject of induction, there is no logical reason why the constants of nature should continue as they are. If that is so then we may well expect the values of physical quantities to have been different at times in the past, but this doesn’t seem to be the case as astronomical observations appear to show things have not changed much if at all. The idea for the possible variability of values of physical quantities comes from a theory of physics known as spontaneous symmetry breaking . This theory, although underlying the standard model of particle physic, is, as far as I can see, not easily verifiable experimentally in itself without subjecting matter to immense energy levels which is as yet not possible. According to the big bang model of cosmology there is a time, early in the universe, before which astronomical observations cannot be made . It has been suggested that there may have been different values for some of the physical constants in the early universe . The physical constants seem to be fixed and there doesn’t seem to be a way of altering them at least in any stable configuration. They are thought to be fixed since very shortly after the big bang which scientists estimate happened about fourteen billion years ago. This stability suggests to me that the values of the physical constants could be fixed as they are for some, as yet unknown, good reason.
Statement 2 must be true for us humans, as carbon based life, to exist, and as we do exist the physical and cosmological quantities must be such to support our existence, so there is no problem with the accuracy of this statement. Statement 3 assumes the truth of evolution of carbon based life as witnessed only here on earth. There are no observed examples of life anywhere else in the universe but earth’s one example is enough to prove the premise. Darwin proposed a general mechanism for the evolution of species, that of natural selection and describes how living species on earth, or else where, can evolve from simple single cell bacteria to very complex multi-celled organisms by adaptation to environments. One such opposition theory to evolution by natural selection is intelligent design which purports to being a theory of science. This theory asserts that the development of new species from an ancestor are somehow engineered or designed by a god. This theory, whilst being possible true, has been rejected as being not a scientific theory by the scientific community and also by court judges in America (Wikipedia_5, n.d.). As far as the theory of evolution is concerned there is a significant amount of scientific theory and observation to suggest the accuracy of evolution by natural selection. One of the main opposition to natural selection is a lack of direct observational evidence of species evolution. This is a reasonable argument but the natural selection theory proposes species change over a long time period so direct evidence in real time is difficult. The theory of evolution seems to be very well established perhaps on a similar level of certainty as the idea that the earth orbits the sun. The concept of evolution is well established but the mechanism of by which biological evolution occurs may reasonable be questioned, e.g. natural selection, genetic mutation or supernatural intervention. A significant objection against the intelligent design concept or of any supernatural intervention in species evolution is Occam’s Razor argument; that the extra factor of the intervention of God is unnecessary. God’s supernatural intervention in evolution, or creation of species, is an extra factor that is unnecessary.
Assumption 4 is based on a number of scientific assumptions associated with star and galaxy formation and a theory of carbon creation. Carbon is present in some abundance on the earth and we, as part of life on earth, are made of carbon molecules in combination with hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Life is built upon elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. These heavy elements are synthesized in the late stages of stellar evolution and are spread through the Universe by supernovae explosions. (Barrow, et al., 1986 p. 246)
There is therefore a significant length of time needed from the big bang to the beginnings of life on a planet like earth.
The strong anthropic principle (SAP) is a principle which partly states the obvious that we as life must have developed in a universe whose properties allows us to exist.
Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP). The Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history.(Barrow, et al., 1986 p. 21)
The weak anthropic principle is a statement based on the idea that observations made by astronomers are biased by a selection effect, that is our own existence. The SAP is more speculative and life in some manner is destined to come into being in a universe with the correct properties. Life in the SAP version does not need to be carbon based but is inevitable because it is built into the laws of the universe. The WAP is different from the SAP as formulated above in that the WAP includes, in its formulation, mechanisms such as evolution and the SAP does not. Without any mention of how it will be achieved the SAP determines that there will be life in the universe at some stage.
We have an idea that it is an exceptionally low probability that the universe is as it is and capable of sustaining life. The assumption for this is that values of physical quantities could have been different.
One of the most important results of twentieth-century physics has been the gradual realization that there exist invariant properties of the natural world and its elementary components which render the gross size and structure of virtually all its constituents quite inevitable. The size of the stars and planets, and even people, are neither random nor the result of any Darwinian selection process from a myriad of possibilities. … The intrinsic strengths of these controlling forces of Nature are determined by a mysterious collection of pure numbers we call the constants of Nature. (Barrow, et al., 1986 p. 5)
Calculations have been made to see what the result would be of changes to the constants of nature. Calculations have shown that very small variations of some of the constants result in a universe uninhabitable for our life.
The Standard Model of particle physics has about twenty undetermined parameters, while cosmology has about ten. All told, there are there are over thirty ‘knobs’. As I have cautioned already, not all the parameters are necessarily independent of the others, and not all require exceptional fine tuning for life to be possible. But several certainly do: some of the examples I have given demand ‘knob settings’ that must be fine tuned to an accuracy of less than 1 per cent to make a universe fit for life. (Davies, 2006 p. 166)
The standard model of particle physics is only a partial theory in that it does not include the gravity force. In the future a better theory that includes all of the forces may have a different number of parameters, preferably fewer.
There are about twenty such constants, and the fact that there are that many freely specifiable constants in what is supposed to be a fundamental theory is a tremendous embarrassment. Each one represents some basic fact of which we are ignorant: namely, the physical reason or mechanism responsible for setting the constant to its observed value. (Smolin, 2007 p. 13)
There are some outlandish figures quoted by some authors for the sensitivity of the values of some physical constants. Craig quotes Davies in a scholarly looking paper that “changes in either the gravity force or the electromagnetic force by only one part change in 1040 would have spelled disaster for stars like the sun” (Craig, 1990). If this were correct then it would indeed appear to be good evidence for the existence of God. The figure of 1040 is actually the ratio of the measured values of the electromagnetic force to that of the gravity force. Davies does not give a figure for the acceptable variability of this ration but quotes Carter to say it needs to be very close. If we combine all relevant physical constants, it is generally agrees that we get a big number as odds against the universe being the way it is and being able to support life. It is however quite difficult to know which and how many physical constants to use and so no number is universally agreed. Another problem is in determining the level of probability of each constant for variability from that value they actually are. We do not know how each physical constant may vary during spontaneous symmetry breaking. An assumption has to be made for a range of probabilities against value for each physical constant. The calculations made usually assume independence for each constant; that is, it is assumed that each constant can be changed independently of any other. A probability of a very small number is then produces as the multiplication of all of the individual probabilities. There is then a fairly speculative figure for the probability of our kind of life in the observable universe based on a number of assumptions. The accuracy of this figure is in question but there seems to be quite a small probability of the combination of relevant constants of nature having values that would support life.
One problem with the formulation of the anthropic principle is the assumption of carbon based life. Life of earth is all carbon based DNA or RNA molecules which would suggest a common source from which we have evolved. It is perfectly conceivable that other types of molecules can support life on different planets, orbiting different stars. Silicon based molecules have been suggested. If we assume different universes where carbon may be rare or not exist then life of a different sort from ourselves may exist. Some computer modelling work done by Stenger (1999) shows many viable universes (universes with long life spans) can be achieved by randomly changing a number of physical constants. Stenger has produced a computer modelling program called “monkeygod” with variability of four physical constants. Although our universe looks to be fine tuned for our life, another universe with different laws of nature may be possible, and would look fine tuned for the life living in it.
A conclusion for fine tuning for values of physical quantities is that they did not randomly occur but were intentionally chosen by some intelligent being or god. In view of this perceived very low level of probability of our existence this would seem to be a reasonable conclusion. This reasoning can be thought of as analogous to the view of the existence of life on earth before discoveries of the solar system and the fact that the sun is one star among many. We can think of the universe as one among many other universes, all with a variety of properties, this is collectively known as a multiverse. Theoretically we can think of many universes created in the same way as our universe was created. It is not well understood but whatever caused our universe it would seem reasonable that it may not be a unique event. There is some scientific reasoning, or speculation, in the area of quantum mechanics to account for the creation of the universe and other possible universes. The scientific explanation is of a self caused quantum fluctuation which someday may be better understood and for now it is as reasonable to believe God as the creator of the universe. We have no direct evidence of other universes and this knowledge may not be possible to gain because other universes, if they exist, will have their own space and time and be inaccessible from here. Belief in a multiverse can have the same effect as belief in many stars in our universe that we may be rare but it is reasonable that we exist from natural causes and not from the intervention of a god. We do not know, and maybe, cannot know if there are other universes or how many. There would have to be a significant number for us to consider there is a reasonable chance of our existence from natural causes. If there are an infinite number of other universes then there will be a sub group of an infinite number of universes similar to our own that can support life. The multiverse idea challenges the argument of the existence of a God from the fine tuning argument but there remains the possibility of a God of the multiverse, or even a separate God for each universe.
For the cause of the universe there is an ancient argument known as the “cosmological argument”. The argument can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle and was developed by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century AD. A variation on the cosmological argument was also developed by Muslim philosophers in the middle ages. The argument is simply that if the universe is finite in time then there must have been a first cause. The assumption is that everything that exists must have a cause but there is nothing there to cause the universe at the beginning of time. There must somehow be an uncaused event and the argument goes that something eternal must have caused the universe to come into being; with the conclusion that this must be God who can be taken to be an eternal being. This fits in neatly to present day scientific models of the universe as having a beginning, such as the big bang model. Time and space does not exist before the beginning of the universe so that there can be no cause in the traditional Humian sense where there should to be a necessary connection in time and space. Hume’s idea of a necessary connection he argued cannot be rationally justified but it is quite difficult to accept any scientific understanding without it. So if we cannot have cause in time and space we may be able to use the word cause in logical space that there is a logical necessary connection between a cause and the effect of the creation of the universe. It is not necessary to have a cause for God if he is eternal. Before the universe there was no space or time so it is difficult to imagine how such a God would exist if not in spatial or temporal form and the words eternal and infinite, with their connections with space and time, do not pertain to such a realm. We have no concepts or language to understand a realm outside of, or before, the existence of space and time. It is not necessary that the universe was created as an uncaused event from nothingness; it may have been created from within a previous universe. This may have been an alien scientist, God, or a sporadic natural cause such as a self caused random quantum fluctuation. If we accept a definition of God as a conscious creator of the universe, an alien scientist would qualify as a god. If our universe was created within a prior existing universe and the properties of that previous universe were instrumental in the creation of our universe then we need to determine the cause of the previous universe. It could be argued that we can have an infinite regress here that time goes back forever and there is no original cause.
There are other possibilities which are counter to the fine tuning argument but for now I would like to look at two alternative hypotheses and try to make an assessment of the quality of their argument:
- The values of the physical properties responsible for the existence of human life are fine tuned and therefore a god or creator set the properties at some stage in the evolution of the universe.
- There are a great many universes and therefore we should not be surprised that we live on one of them that appear to be fine tuned for observers but is not.
For these two hypotheses it is assumed the big bang theory is correct. The two hypotheses are mutually exclusive; if one is true then the other is not. They are also complete in one or the other must be true at least as far as there being a conscious creator is concerned. Hypothesis 1 contravenes both the logical fallacy of the “argument from ignorance” and also the “argument from personal incredulity”.
The argument from ignorance … is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false or is only false because it has not been proven true.
The two most common forms of the argument from ignorance, both fallacious, can be reduced to the following form:
Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven. (Wikipedia_6, n.d.)
The argument from personal incredulity refers to an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed not to be true, or alternatively that another preferred but unproven premise is true instead. (Wikipedia_6, n.d.)
The argument from ignorance fallacy in hypothesis 1 would be that the truth of 1 is assumed because of the absence of significantly empirical evidence about alternate way in which the universe exists. So the argument that says “because of lack of evidence to the contrary hypothesis 1 must be true” is therefore a fallacy. This is not fallacious if it is only making the claim that it is a possible hypothesis that God set the properties. This argument may be fallacious but it is not unreasonable to believe hypothesis 1 to be true on the basis of a perceived or estimated balance of probability or even on the basis of reasonable doubt. What we can not say is that hypothesis 1 must be true with any certainty. Between the two hypotheses there are groups of people who generally find one or the other true. For hypothesis 1 there are religious people and for hypothesis 2 there are scientists. It is possible to be religious and believe in hypothesis 2 or be a scientist and believe in hypothesis 1 but that is not, I think, the general rule. It is part of Christian religious belief that God is the creator of the world and hypothesis 1 supports this belief. The “argument from personal incredulity” applies to supporters of hypothesis 1 where a rejection of hypothesis 2 is made because of personal belief. There appears to be a significant desire from some religious groups to promote the fine tuning argument as a proof of the existence of God. This is not surprising as the idea of conversion has great significance to Christians. What can be said of hypothesis 1 can be said of hypothesis 2; it is invalidated by the argument of ignorance. Proponents of hypothesis 2 can be accused of rejecting hypothesis 1 on the grounds of the argument of incredulity. It is a working assumption of science to interpret any observations of nature as having a natural cause and disregard the idea of any miraculous events.
There is an ancient argument for the existence of god known as the teleological argument. This means that things are as they are due to a purpose or we are working towards a purpose. Purposeful design is known in nature; many animals design things such as termites build mounds and chimpanzees build nests to sleep at night. For the termites there is no consciousness, each termite does a little bit of work according to an instinct or internal pre-program and is oblivious to a sense of the whole construction. With the chimpanzee, he is fully aware of what he needs to do with the goal of a nest as final cause in mind. Teleology in man is very strong, any building or engineering project has a very well defined, and conscious, purpose. In relation to the anthropic principle, teleology can be considered the purpose of God. If we consider God to be the creator of the universe he could have just created the big bang, constructed the forces and constants of nature, as they are, to be consistent with carbon based life and let the universe expand and develop to see what happens. If God had a final purpose it is difficult to see how he could have known how things would develop. This is assuming that God is not omniscient and it does not follow from the anthropic principle, and associated fine tuning argument, that he is, or was. The anthropic argument supports the idea of God as a creator or the universe and possibly of having power to alter or manipulate the constants of nature. This suggests great power but not necessarily omniscience. The complexity of the development of the universe and of life on any planet is too great to predict except possibly by an omniscient God. It is not clear that the universe would be deterministic from an early time. To determine a final cause or purpose e.g. human life, God may have to have had to interact with the universe and modify things as it went along. As God would be the creator of the universe, he would not necessarily be an intrinsic part of it. Prior to the existence of the universe he would have to either inhabit another universe or be independent of space and time. It is difficult to imagine how a God creator of the universe would have great intelligence and power but have no physical form. Form may be necessary with spatial and time location; God would then, in order to create our universe, have to inhabit another universe that pre-dates ours. He would be likely to be a species of life that has evolved in another universe; there would then be likely to be lots of Gods. If we accept the one God who created our universe who can interact with us we need to try, assuming teleology, to answer what the reason is for his creation. It is possible to imagine that a God can travel through our universe at his will independent of space and time or just travel with the universe as it expands and moves with us in space and time. If a property of God is to exist everywhere at the same time (omnipresence) then God will be a property of the universe. This does not follow from the anthropic principle; all that we can say about God is that he may be a creator of the universe and may be able to control the values of the physical constants. A teleological objective could be just an experiment to see what happens, to see what evolves, when a universe is created with the properties capable of sustaining life. It would be shallow to think that the final purpose would specifically be human life but it would seem reasonable to think that intelligent life could reasonable be an objective. I think if we had the ability to create a universe (and this is not beyond my imagination) we would probably do so if it were safe. The kind of universe we would chose to create, I think, would be one in which carbon based life could evolve for the reason that we are just such life. Perhaps, if God’s objective is to produce carbon based life, it is because he himself is such a being.
A solution to the problem of low probability of the constants of nature being as they are can be found in the idea of evolution. The universe may have evolved by some mechanism analogous to natural selection in biology on earth. What is needed is creation of universes from old universes with small changes in properties from old to new. A propensity for survival is needed and to produce new universes as offspring with similar properties. Smolin (1999) proposes just such a mechanism; evolution of universes by the mechanism of black holes. This is quite a speculative idea and relies on a number of assumptions that may not be correct. In an effort to stay within the area of science he suggests his theory is verifiable and falsifiable. This theory requires that a black hole can create a new big bang, an expansion, a new universe on the other side of it. The new universe is the progeny of the black hole and similar to a living creature on earth creating offspring, the new universe will have similar characteristics as the parent, i.e. similar, but not the same values of natural constants. New universes containing many black holes will therefore be favoured over universes without black holes by this evolutionary process. Where this relates to the anthropic principle is that stars and black holes need similar conditions to survive and the conditions that allow stars allow carbon based life. There are two major problems with this theory, firstly it needs a theory, or reality, of quantum gravity so the black hole does not go into a singularity and instead creates a new universe with new energy and mass. Secondly it needs, to meet the requirements of evolution theory, the offspring universe to have similar, but not the same physical constants as the parent universe containing the black hole. Smolin’s theory, if correct, gives an explanation of why our universe is the way it is but we still have the problem of how the first viable universe started. It also does not exclude the possibility of many start-up universes that can have evolved progeny universes with similar properties to our own.
The third and final, anthropic principle that I shall look at is known as “the participatory anthropic principle” (PAP), first put forward by John A. Wheeler in 1983, and is derived from an interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The Participatory Anthropic Principle: Observers are necessary to bring the universe into being. (Barrow, p 22)
Some interpretations of quantum mechanics, including the “Copenhagen Interpretation” state the uncertainty of the outcome of a quantum event until measured. It is the act of measurement or observation that determines the position and momentum of a particle. According to quantum mechanics a particle can be described by a wavefunction. It is the collapse of the wavefunction by the act of measurement, or observation, which determines its position and momentum and, you could say, its outcome, actuality or reality. Position and momentum of a quantum event is probabilistic, some outcomes are more probable than others. This has consequences for the macro world or real world in which we live; one particle may be anywhere but the chances that most of the particles that I would expect to be in my body being somewhere else, by quantum probability, is infinitesimally low. The idea of the participatory anthropic principle is that since the beginning of time all particles in the universe have been in a superposed state of all possibilities. This is a kind of multiverse of many realities all existing at once in the same space but in different worlds. If the universe is considered finite then there will be a finite but exceptionally large number of different worlds, a finite number for each quantum event. This world, our world, will then be actualised by the first observer who will determine it to be the only universe. The Copenhagen interpretation states the necessary thing for actualisation of a particle is to be measured; this implies conscious observation. The participatory anthropic principle says that it is the act of observation that has determined how the universe is. It is by the first act of observation that the multiverse and all wavefunctions collapse to one reality, one world.
There are a number of questions to be answered by the participator anthropic principle; firstly what is it precisely that counts as a measurement or observation, secondly who, or what, caused this collapse and when, and thirdly what the mechanisms of change are for any variations of the values of the physical constants.
Consciousness causes collapse is the speculative theory that observation by a conscious observer is responsible for the wavefunction collapse. It is an attempt to solve the Wigner’s friend paradox by simply stating that collapse occurs at the first “conscious” observer. (Wikipedia_3, n.d p. 6)
Consciousness Causes Collapse (CCC), for example, speculates that the waveform collapses when it interacts with consciousness. Arguably that contradicts standard Quantum Mechanics (e.g. Schrodinger’s Cat - CCC so the cat causes waveform collapse; the system is not in a superimposed state of half alive and half dead). It would therefore be reasonable to claim CCC is not an interpretation and is pure speculation. (Bowman, 2005)
The first question is partially answered by two articles that dismiss the idea that consciousness causes collapse as speculative. The principle is a kind of inverse teleological with a final goal of sentience as cause, putting the whole universe in a final state. It is almost reverse causality or at least the past determined in a sense by the present. The first sentient being in the universe would have caused the wavefunction collapse. It would have been a race with winner takes all and it appears to be, if the WAP and SAP are correct, won by carbon based life forms, possible ourselves. To reduce the probability difficulties of the fine tuning argument the many simultaneous worlds would have to have different values of physical properties. I don’t know how this would happen; a low energy quantum event does not change the constants of nature to my knowledge. This may well be my ignorance. The PAP is mostly dependent on an interpretation, or speculation, of quantum mechanics which many scientists think may not be correct. The question of what constitutes a quantum measurement is something that may be answered by experimentation. In any case conscious awareness may not be something that is necessary for wavefunction collapse. This interpretation of quantum mechanics and the PAP is similar to Berkley’s idea that a mind is necessary for the actualisation of physical objects. Berkeley’s philosophy is empirical with what can be perceived by the mind through the senses as reality. Berkeley extended the idea of reality in terms of what can be perceived by the human mind to the mind of God for actualisation of objects when unperceived by people (this requires, or assumes God to be an omniscient being).
To me it is evident for the reasons you allow of, that sensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I conclude, not that they have no real existence, but that, seeing they depend not on my thought, and have all existence distinct from being perceived by me, there must be some other Mind wherein they exist. As sure, therefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure is there an infinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it. (Berkeley, 1713 p. 34)
Applying this argument to the PAP then the mind of God would cause all quantum states to actualise and all wave functions to collapse as time went along. What we would have then is the traditional one universe with one history in time and space and no past quantum uncertainty. The omniscient presence and mind of God should then be part of any quantum system and should show up in any experiment as a property of the system. Assuming the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics God’s presence should show up in the measurement of a quantum experiment but it does not. This would seem to show that there is no omniscient or omnipresent God. If I can take omniscience as meaning all knowing for all locations and at all times then I would say the idea stands. If God is present at any and all quantum events (i.e. omnipresence) then his presence will determine a wavefunction collapse. If God is omniscient then he will know all events for all time from the start of the universe to the end. An argument that is given to allow “free will” is that omniscience means all knowledge of everything that has happened to date. This does not work either, because God would still be conscious of all things in the present, and his presence would determine any quantum state.
It is a surprise that the constants of nature need to be within such a narrow range of values. The surprise is not that the constants have their particular values but that they are perceived to need to be within a very narrow range. This surprise may just be a perception phenomenon; looking back from a sequence of events can easily demonstrate a low probability of occurrence. Nick Bostrom puts forward a proposal for how we should deal with observation selection effects which he calls the “self-sampling assumption”.
(SSA) One should reason as if one were a random sample from the set of all observers in one’s reference class. (Bostrom, 2002 p. 57)
Together with Bayes theorem, the SSA is an attempt to get a more accurate and consistent determination for the probability of certain types of events. This still requires the input of assumptions into the method. A question that needs to be asked is how appropriate is the application of probability to the question of the universe and the values of the physical constants. If the creation of the universe is considered a unique event then, according to some, probability should not be used when determining its properties.
I
f the universe is such a single case, it follows from frequentism that it is meaningless to talk about the probability of the universe’s existence and having the features it has. (Namonson, n.d.)
There are specifically two questions of probability associated with the WAP and the SAP; the probability of the values of the physical constants and the probability of there being more than one universe. These seem unanswerable and indeterminate on grounds of probability as the observational evidence for both is a single example.
…since probability statements refer to relative frequencies of occurrences of characteristics in classes of elements (or refer to types of inference, i.e. classes of leading principles), the probability of a unique characteristic or single event (or single inference) can have no practical meaning. Long-favoured theological arguments, such as Bishop Butler’s, based upon the “probability” of a designer or creator of the universe (or the improbability of this world not having a cause) have no merit by this interpretation of probability. Peirce remarks that “the relative probability of this or that arrangement of Nature is something we should have a right to talk about if universes were as plentiful as blackberries. (Thayer, 1981 p. 112)
On grounds that the assumptions of probability are subjective, any values given are suspect.
We may characterize subjectivity (also known as personalism and subjective Bayesianism) with the slogan: ‘Probability is degree of belief’. We identify probabilities with degrees of confidence, or credences, or “partial” beliefs of suitable agents. … Various studies by psychologists … show that people commonly violate the usual probabilistic calculus in spectacular ways. We clearly do not have here an admissible interpretation (with respect to any probability calculus, since there is no limit to what people may assign. Unconstrained subjectivism is not a serious proposal. (Stanford Encyclopedia of, n.d. pp. 23-24)
The above quotations would seem to show serious objections to assigning probabilities to the variability of the values of the physical constants. I’m still left with the feeling that small changes to some of the constants would result in disaster for life. The significance of what “small” means can only be quantified however by statistical observational data and you need a distribution of values to determine significance. We have only a single data point. The credibility of the perceived smallness or sensitivity of variation of the physical constants comes from scientific theory, I think, in the idea of the random nature of the theory of symmetry breaking when the values of the physical constants were determined in the early stages of the big bang.
The above quotations on probability would seem to significantly weaken the fine tuning argument for the existence of God which is based on probability. However even if the probability is not very good, predicting events, even on poor evidence, is something we do in the normal course of our lives and forms part of our belief system. The anthropic theories of the WAP and the SAP and the associated fine tuning argument for the values of the constants of nature, if we accept the associated probability, provides the best evidence I know for the existence of God. It is an easy conclusion to make and it is one made from historical and social habit. God’s behaviour has traditionally been given as a reason for anything that happens and especially in more recent times for things that are not well understood. It is the job of science and of scientists to try to determine how the world is without the intervention of supernatural occurrences. If they, in the course of this, uncover an interpretation of nature which points towards the existence of a God, then that is well and good. It is then the job of science to progress their observations and analysis to clarify the situation. The PAP is speculative and it is doubtful if it is correct. If it is correct, then I think I have proven God cannot be either omniscient or omnipresent. There are a number of arguments against the conclusion of God from the WAP and SAP anthropic principles given above; all are speculative to some extent and for some it may not be possible to verify or falsify them. My personal belief is suspended on the issue, and I would expect some future scientific work to more clearly determine what is most likely to be the truth and may, or may not, include God.
Appendix 1 A Brief Summary of Modern Physics
Energy is a property of matter and can be defined to be the potential to do work. Energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be converted from one form to another. Conservation of energy has been a basic principle of science since the early 19th century. In the early 20th century Einstein showed mathematically that energy and mass were different forms of the same thing and they can be converted into one another and are related by his famous equation e=mc2 . This shows a massive amount of energy in ordinary material and is demonstrated in the enormously destructive release of energy you get from an atomic weapon. One of the main ideas of physics is the idea of a force. Force is that which causes a mass to accelerate. We all know what force is from experience if someone pushes us. Classical physics identifies four distinct forces: the strong atomic force; the weak atomic force; the electromagnetic force; and gravitational force. Recently a fifth force has been identified from the observation that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating; this fifth force is the force associated with what is known as dark energy.
The idea of atomism can be traced back to Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus in the fifth century BC. Atomism is at the heart of modern main stream physics, and is the idea that any complex body can be described in terms of combinations of simpler bodies and that ultimately there are fundamental bodies (atoms) which cannot be subdivided. The most well developed theory of matter to date is known as “the standard model of physics” which describes atoms or particles as combinations of sub-atomic particles known as quarks or leptons.
There are two great well developed and tested theories, developed in the 20th century, to describe the world. These are relativity and quantum physics. General relativity is a theory of gravity and describes space, time, motion and gravity. Up until Einstein’s relativity theory space and time were taken to be fixed. In general theory of relativity, space and time no longer provided a fixed, absolute background and has three dimensions of space intrinsically linked with time to create a four dimensional space-time. Space is as dynamic as matter; it moves and changes. As a result, the whole universe can expand or shrink, and time can even begin and end. When we say that space can expand this means in the literal sense, not just that bodies can move away from each other as a result of their relative velocities, but are moving away from each other because space itself is expanding.
Quantum mechanics is a theory of physics that describes what happens with matter on the atomic, or subatomic, scale. It is involved in the description of all the classical four forces except gravity. Quantum mechanics is based on the discovery that particles such as electrons have discrete energy packets and therefore do not behave the same as bodies in classical mechanics.
In the formalism of quantum mechanics, the state of a system as a given time is described by a complex wave function … This abstract mathematical object allows for the calculation of probabilities of outcomes of concrete experiments. … Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle quantifies the inability to precisely locate a particle. (Wikipedia_1, n.d p. 2)
The uncertainty principle states that both the position and momentum of a particle cannot simultaneously be known. If the position of a particle is known then it is said to be in an eigenstate of position and its momentum will be unknown. If the particle is in an eigenstate of momentum then its position will be unknown. A system will be in an eigenstate of that observed. This is known as wavefunction collapse.
The time evolution of wave functions is deterministic in the sense that, given a wavefunction at an initial time, it makes a definite prediction of what the wavefunction will be at any time later. During a measurement, the change of the wavefunction into another one is not deterministic, but rather unpredictable, i.e., random.
The probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics thus stems from the act of measurement. (Wikipedia_1, n.d p. 5)
There are many interpretations of quantum mechanics, some, like the Copenhagen interpretation, which is the most widely accepted amongst physicists, say that results are probabilistic because the universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic. A many-worlds interpretation holds that all the possibilities described by quantum mechanics simultaneously occur and produce independent parallel universes. This is due to the interpretation that the wave function does not collapse.
The Standard Model of physics is a combination of two theories of particle physics into a single framework. The two components of the standard model are electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics and are both gauge field theories.
…model of electroweak theory, which describes interactions via the electromagnetic and weak forces, and quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong nuclear force. Both these theories are gauge theories, which describe the interactions between particles… (Britania Encyclopedia, n.d.)
The standard model is very much an atomic theory with the word particle or sub-atomic particle used instead of the word atom which is now used as a noun with a specific definition as a stable configuration of particular particles. The standard model accounts for all known particles; that is, all of the particles that have been observed in experiments are accounted for in the standard model. The standard model can be divides into three parts; particles of matter, force mediating particles, and the Higgs boson. The standard model recognises twelve types of matter particles made up of six each of quarks and leptons. The model also includes three of the four forces as force particles but does not include gravity. Most matter is made from a combination of two quarks, called the up and down quarks and a lepton called the electron. The standard model falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental reactions partly because of a lack of the inclusion of gravity, but also because of the “eighteen numerical parameters (such as masses and coupling constants) that have to be put “by hand” into the theory from experimental evidence (rather than being derived from first principles).” (Wikipedia_7, n.d.).
The anthropic principle comes from the branch of physics known as cosmology. There is a standard model of cosmology based on four observations:
Expansion of the Universe
Origin of the cosmic background radiation
Nucleosynthesis of the light elements
Formation of galaxies and large-scale structure
(Cambridge_Cosmology)
The observed expansion of the universe can be can be traced back to an origin “the big bang” in which the whole universe was contained in a very small space. Expansion from this origin gives us the universe we see today about fourteen billion years later. The universe is taken, for the purpose of the theory, to be homogeneous and isotropic on the larger scale, and observations have approximately shown this to be correct. This means the universe will look about the same from wherever you look. At about 100,000 years from the start of the big bang radiation was able to escape to form what is now called the cosmic background radiation. There is little variation in temperature of this radiation, now at about 3°K, with position across the sky. The little variation there is in this radiation can tell cosmologists something about the development of the universe. Calculations about the nucleosynthesis of the light elements show this took place from 300 seconds to 35 minutes after the big bang and the universe was left with about 80% hydrogen and 20% helium and their abundances are fairly close to what is found today (Science_and_Reason). Heavier elements were created later in the interior of stars and have been spread widely from supernova explosions. The universe made massive particles from 10,000 years old and gravitational forces took affect which caused small perturbations in density. This lead to the galaxies we see today.
A theory beyond the standard model of physics is needed which includes the gravity force. We have a name for this; it is “quantum gravity”. A number of approaches have been made to include gravity in a theory of all of the known forces and particles including “loop quantum gravity” and “string theory”. String theory has been worked on, by many theoretical physicists, for more than twenty years and some progress has been made, but a final theory remains elusive. A problem with string theory is that it is difficult to verify with experimental or observational evidence. The strings which the theory refers to are exceptionally small, of the order of the Plank length (1.6 x 10-35 m). The theory has ten or eleven spatial dimensions as well as time and one of the problems is how to account for the extra dimensions. This is usually done by curling up the extra dimensions to a very small size. As there are many ways to curl up the extra dimensions then there are many possible theories. Smolin (2007, p.158) estimates there are 10500 string theories that will give a positive cosmological constant and each represent a different string theory. Each theory could represent a different universe each with different properties.
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