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John Leslie has somewhat to say about that metaphysical speculation (a multiverse is not at all anything we have observational evidence for, and on many multiverse models we never will, we are here dealing with philosophy in a lab coat, not science — raising the relevance of comparative difficulties analysis):
. . . the need for such explanations [[for fine-tuning] does not depend on any estimate of how many universes would be observer-permitting, out of the entire field of possible universes. Claiming that our universe is ‘fine tuned for observers’, we base our claim on how life’s evolution would apparently have been rendered utterly impossible by comparatively minor [[emphasis original] alterations in physical force strengths, elementary particle masses and so forth. There is no need for us to ask whether very great alterations in these affairs would have rendered it fully possible once more, let alone whether physical worlds conforming to very different laws could have been observer-permitting without being in any way fine tuned. Here it can be useful to think of a fly on a wall, surrounded by an empty region. A bullet hits the fly Two explanations suggest themselves. Perhaps many bullets are hitting the wall or perhaps a marksman fired the bullet. There is no need to ask whether distant areas of the wall, or other quite different walls, are covered with flies so that more or less any bullet striking there would have hit one. The important point is that the local area contains just the one fly.
[[Our Place in the Cosmos, 1998. The force of this point is deepened once we think about what has to be done to get a rifle into “tack-driving” condition. That is, a “tack-driving” rifle is a classic example of a finely tuned, complex system, i.e. we are back at the force of Collins’ point on a multiverse model needing a well adjusted Cosmos bakery. (Slide show, ppt. “Simple” summary, doc.)]
Leslie also adds a further point:
One striking thing about the fine tuning is that a force strength or a particle mass often appears to require accurate tuning for several reasons at once. Look at electromagnetism. Electromagnetism seems to require tuning for there to be any clear-cut distinction between matter and radiation; for stars to burn neither too fast nor too slowly for life’s requirements; for protons to be stable; for complex chemistry to be possible; for chemical changes not to be extremely sluggish; and for carbon synthesis inside stars (carbon being quite probably crucial to life). Universes all obeying the same fundamental laws could still differ in the strengths of their physical forces, as was explained earlier, and random variations in electromagnetism from universe to universe might then ensure that it took on any particular strength sooner or later. Yet how could they possibly account for the fact that the same one strength satisfied many potentially conflicting requirements, each of them a requirement for impressively accurate tuning? [Our Place in the Cosmos, 1998 (courtesy Wayback Machine) Emphases added.]
So, we are back to American engineer/materials scientist/polymer expert and pioneer design theorist — he is the B in the TBO of the ID foundational technical work, TMLO — Walter Bradley’s summary of design specs for a life facilitating cosmos:
- Order to provide the stable environment that is conducive to the development of life, but with just enough chaotic behavior to provide a driving force for change.
- Sufficient chemical stability and elemental diversity to build the complex molecules necessary for essential life functions: processing energy, storing information, and replicating. A universe of just hydrogen and helium will not “work.”
- Predictability in chemical reactions, allowing compounds to form from the various elements.
- A “universal connector,” an element that is essential for the molecules of life. It must have the chemical property that permits it to react readily with almost all other elements, forming bonds that are stable, but not too stable, so disassembly is also possible. Carbon is the only element in our periodic chart that satisfies this requirement.
- A “universal solvent” in which the chemistry of life can unfold. Since chemical reactions are too slow in the solid state, and complex life would not likely be sustained as a gas, there is a need for a liquid element or compound that readily dissolves both the reactants and the reaction products essential to living systems: namely, a liquid with the properties of water. [[Added note: Water requires both hydrogen and oxygen.]
- A stable source of energy to sustain living systems in which there must be photons from the sun with sufficient energy to drive organic, chemical reactions, but not so energetic as to destroy organic molecules (as in the case of highly energetic ultraviolet radiation). [[Emphases added.]
It is in this context that we run into the lists of dozens of fine-tuned parameters and circumstances that are evidently requisites for the sort of cosmos we inhabit (cf. here and here for a start as well as the video summary here), and also the increasingly frantic attempts to deflect the cumulative force of that evidence.
So, now the issue is on the table:
1: We live in an observed cosmos that credibly had a beginning some 13.7 BYA, or at least 10 – 20 BYA, on abundant astrophysical evidence.
2: That which begins, per logic of cause, is dependent on one or more necessary causal factors, without which its existence is impossible. That is, it is contingent.
(To give an idea of what is at stake here, strike a match, which shows how heat, fuel and oxidiser (plus a strongly exothermic oxidising chain reaction) are each necessary anjjointly are sufficient for a fire. Let it burn down half way. Then point the head of the match straight up. As the flame tries to burn already burned fuel, it will tend to go out. This shows how absence of a necessary causal factor blocks an effect.)
3: Even through a multiverse, that points to a necessary being, one that has no such contingent dependence, as the root of a cosmos such as ours. (In the heyday of the Steady State cosmology, or when an eternal material universe seemed credible, this necessary being was deemed to be the wider cosmos as a whole; we no longer have that luxury. Not even through a multiverse, which is already a foray into philosophy so that all reasonable alternatives should be invited to sit at the table of comparative difficulties analysis.)
4: Multiply this by the observed pattern of laws, parameters and circumstances that has led to a strong inference to a fine-tuned cosmos set up to facilitate life. Some interesting cases of that tuning can be seen from the following five parameters:
Parameter
|
Max. Deviation*
|
Estimated number of “required” bits
|
---|---|---|
Ratio of Electrons:Protons
|
1:1037
|
123
|
Ratio of Electromagnetic Force:Gravity
|
1:1040
|
133
|
Expansion Rate of Universe
|
1:1055
|
183
|
Mass of Universe1
|
1:1059
|
196
|
1:10120
|
399
|
|
*These numbers represent the maximum deviation from the accepted values, that would either prevent the universe from existing now, not having matter, or be unsuitable for any atom-based form of life.
|
TOTAL:
1,034
|
5: The cumulative evidence, in Sir Fred Hoyle’s words, points to how:
. . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.
6: This gives us a very interesting profile: a necessary being, with the intelligence, knowledge, skill and power to set up a cosmos that is well fitted to and contains C-chemistry cell based intelligent life.
7: Perhaps that is why American philosopher, theologian and Christian Apologist William Lane Craig argued in a peer-reviewed article in the Journal Astrophysics and Space Science 269-270 (1999): 723-740 , that:
We can summarize our argument as follows:
1. Whatever exists has a reason for its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external ground.
2. Whatever begins to exist is not necessary in its existence.
3. If the universe has an external ground of its existence, then there exists a Personal Creator of the universe, who, sans the universe, is timeless, spaceless, beginningless, changeless, necessary, uncaused, and enormously powerful.
4. The universe began to exist.
From (2) and (4) it follows that
5. Therefore, the universe is not necessary in its existence.
From (1) and (5) it follows further that
6. Therefore, the universe has an external ground of its existence.
From (3) and (6) it we can conclude that
7. Therefore, there exists a Personal Creator of the universe, who, sans the universe, is timeless, spaceless, beginningless, changeless, necessary, uncaused, and enormously powerful.
And this, as Thomas Aquinas laconically remarked,{67} is what everybody means by God.
8: Of course, at this point the discussion is a philosophical one.
9: That does not detract from the scientific nature of its key foundational points: the implications of an observed cosmos with a credible beginning at a finite distance in the past, and of a cosmos that is evidently fine tuned to facilitate C-chemistry cell based life.
10: These observations were obtained by making astronomical and astrophysical observations, not by parsing Genesis and debating literal or near literal interpretations thereof then using the results to delimit what may be inferred scientifically.
11: And, if such would be obviously a violation of scientific integrity, then so is the following summary of the thought of an Astrophysicist, Sagan, equally manifestly a violation of scientific integrity:
. . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident [[actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . ] that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [[i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . .
So, now, we need to think, very carefully on the cosmological evidence and where it points. What are your views, and why do you hold them? END