The Designer Universe, Uncanny Luck, and the Anthropic Principle
I have three comments on the last topic, which I here draw out.
The Designer Universe Argument.
I have heard my fellow Christians argue that since life could have arisen from and only from this universe with its unique combination of physical constants, ergo the universe must have been intelligently designed. If every other possible combination of physical constants is equally probably, so goes the argument, that the chance of this universe having this particular set of constants is one in zillion. Ergo is must have been designed.
My fellow theists in this make a weak argument: it is, in fact, an argument from ignorance. We have no warrant for the assumption that other possible configurations of physical constants are possible at all, much less that they are all equally possible. I agree that rolling a zillion-sided die and getting the exact number and the only number needed to produce life in the universe is an astonishing coincidence, perhaps too astonishing to be called coincidence. But I see no warrant for the assumption that "other universes" (a phrase that has no meaning) each have an equal claim to some other number. If the "die" is only a cube, our changes are one in six. If the "die" is a coin, our chances are one in two. If the universe is what it is and cannot possibly be anything other than what it is, then there is no die at all, no other cases to consider, and hence no calculation probability where we count the possible outcomes and compare them to desired results.
So, you can imagine a universe where the speed of light is equal to 2C rather than 1C? I can imagine a universe where Ozma of Oz defeated the Nome King by tricking him into drinking from the Well of Oblivion. What warrant can you give me to show that the 2C universe is one of the universes actually possible to have had been created at the Big Bang, but the Oz universe is not?
When I say "actually possible" I mean that there was a point in the past — let us call it one trillionth of a picosecond after the Big Bang, when the speed of light might have been defined with another value. When I say "actually possible" I do not mean that you can string together words that have no referent to the outside world, in order to describe an imaginary thing. An imaginary thing, like the Land of Oz, might be "logically possible" (in that it is not self-contradictory, which means, logically not possible)– but an imaginary thing like the 2C universe is not actually possible unless it actually could have happened.
I flip a coin: it is actually possible it might land on heads. After it lands tails, I live in the it-landed-on-tails-timeline. I can talk sense about what might have happened if it had landed heads. For example, my team could have gotten the ball first. It is actually possible.
I flip a coin: it is logically possible, that is, not a contradiction in terms, the coin might be snatched out of midair by a crow, who will then fly to New York, drop it into a the coin slot of a vending machine, and then the vending machine, unexpectedly, with change shape into a fighting robot and wrestle with the Statue of Liberty. I could imagine such a thing and write it in a story, and the words I use will not contradict the other words I use. But that is not actually a possible outcome of tossing a coin.
The whole "this is a designer universe" argument rests on a confusion between what is actually possible and what is logically possible. It is logically possible, in that I can imagine it and make up a story, that the universe might have been different with different fundamental physical constants. Whether such a thing is actually possible is a matter of fact not yet in evidence.
Uncanny Luck
I note that atheists sometimes fall for this argument, and answer back that we are merely lucky. They agree with the unsupported assumption that merely because an alternate possible universe can be imagined, ergo it is equally likely with reality. The agree with the ridiculous notion of the zillion-sided die. But then they merely say we are lucky enough to have won that die roll this time around: one chance in a zillion, we just by blind coincidence happened to make it. Why they buy a zany idea like the one-in-a-zillion universe, but balk at the obvious idea that such luck is too unlikely to be coincidence, that I cannot tell you.
The Anthropic Principle
Some atheists make the even stupider argument that, merely the fact that we are here now to talk about it, somehow proves that it was not so unlikely that we might have been. This is called the anthropic principle, and it is another example of why physicists should stick to physics and not embarrass themselves by making statements about metaphysics or philosophy, where they have neither training, nor common sense.
The anthropic principle can seen for what it is when applied to another situation.
Lois Lane is tied to the railroad tracks. The expression train rushes down toward her: overcome with fear, she faints. Superman swoops down from the sky, bends steel with his bare hands to break her from the tracks, snaps the ropes like thread, and punches the locomotive–which he is more powerful than. He picked her gently up and leaps to the Daily Planet building in a single bound. Lois wakes up in Perry Whites office. "Amazing, Lois! You were saved by Superman!"
Let us say Lois Lane in this hypothetical was raised by Stephen Hawkings and Ronald Dawkins, so she does not believe in Superman. "Nonsense! There is no such thing as Superman!"
"But– you were tied to the railroad tracks! Here is the snapped ropes. Look out the window. There are the twisted rails. The locomotive still have his knuckle-prints in the cow catcher."
"It could have been caused by some natural effect, like a miniature volcano, or a sudden flux, for no reason, of the laws of gravity, time and space. The miniature volcano happened to snap the ropes without burning me, struck the train with a fist-shaped rock, and a vent of gas propelled me gentle through the air into my office, were I awoke naturally."
"But the odds against that are a zillion to one!" shouts Perry, mashing on his cigar.
Lois smiles a smug and superior smile that she learned from Dawkins. "True! But no matter how unlikely, the event could not have been accomplished by a deliberate action of a superhuman being, because they must have happened by blind chance."
"What?!!"
"Obviously the universe is so constructed that, no matter how unlikely it might be that I be here to observe the universe, events must have arranged themselves blindly to permit me to be here and observe the universe. I am still here and still alive, right? Of course right."
"But we all saw him."
She shakes her head. "You are either liars, or you are crazy. Besides, Superman imprisoned Galileo and is the enemy of science."
If the "anthropic principle" has any meaning at all, it is merely the obvious observation that anyone participating in this discussion is or once was alive. That is a raw fact, from which we can make no deductions about the probabilities or inevitability of our coming to be alive before we were alive. However, it is not used in argument this way.
The anthropic principle used in argument as mere sophistry, for it says it cannot be deliberate that this universe is made for us, since it must be random chance: and if you answer that it cannot be random chance because it is too farfetched, the sophist answers that the fact that we are here now proves that the universe must be subject to an as yet undiscovered law of nature which forces the universe to forgo all possibilities other than the ones which allow us to be here.
It is absurd sophistry, because it argues from effect to cause. Because we exist in a universe where human life is possible, therefore some principle must be in operation to negate all other possible universes and give rise to this one: and this principle is not the decision of a creator, but the action of a blind law of nature that is somehow aware, before our race was born, that we needed to be born. The fact that our race came into existence retroactively alters the fundamental physical laws of the universe so as to allow the universe, for no reason and without a purpose, to give rise to us.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
