well the fine tuning of the laws and the
constants of physics and the initial
conditions that is the arrangement of
matter at the beginning of the universe
it's one of the most extraordinary
discoveries of the 20th century in
physics it started in the 1950s with a
man named Fred Hoyle a prominent British
astrophysicist now sir Fred Hoyle and
Hoyle discovered that the conditions
that were necessary to make it possible
for carbon to form in the universe were
incredibly improbable and there were
many conditions that had to combine to
make it possible for lighter elements in
particular beryllium and helium to
combine to make carbon it also was
apparent to Hoyle and many other
scientists that we need carbon because
carbon is a long is a molecule that
allows long-chain like molecules to form
and it's necessary for storing
information which is a critical
condition for life all life is
carbon-based people have speculated
about life being silicon-based or
something else but oil and other
physicists who knew the score knew that
that wasn't a serious proposal and so it
absolutely shocked oil when he
discovered how many different parameters
had to be just as they are in order for
carbon to form carbon forms in the
center of stars through a process known
as nuclear synthesis if the gravitation
inside stars is too weak then the
temperature of the star won't get hot
enough so that the beryllium and the
helium will combine to form carbon
beryllium and helium being lighter
elements if the gravitation is too
strong however the star will simply burn
up before those critical reactions can
take place and that was only one of a
whole suite of exquisitely finely tuned
conditions it had to be just right and
when they did the mathematics on this
when they just when they calculated how
finely tuned these parameters were they
were getting numbers that were 1 in 10 -
the big exponential numbers in each case
so it's a kind of a concept like in
engineering of tolerances things have to
be within very narrow bounds in order
for the four things to work so in order
to get a life friendly universe we're
kind of in what you might call a
Goldilocks zone where multiple
parameters now we know about three dozen
of these the expansion rate of the
universe the the strength of
gravitational attraction the ratio of
fundamental forces like the
electromagnetic force and the strong
nuclear force all of these have the
strength of these forces have to be just
right to allow for life to exist in the
building carbon having stable planets
and galaxies many many conditions of
life depend on these fine-tuning
parameters being just right and so you
can think of it as a Goldilocks universe
not too hot not too cold not the force
is not too strong not too weak speed of
light not too fast not too slow
expansion rate of the universe not too
rapid not too so it's things are just
right and this has caused many
physicists oil in particular to shift
their perspective on the big worldview
questions
oil was an atheist who resisted the
discovery of the Big Bang because he
thought it implied a creation event came
up with an alternative theory that was
later refuted called the steady-state
theory but then after the fine-tuning
realized that that there must be some
design behind the universe and he said a
common sense interpretation of the data
suggests that a super intellect is
monkeyed with physics and chemistry to
make life possible so that's what the
fine-tuning is about it's a powerful
evidence of design that's come out of
physics
the evidence of the exquisite
fine-tuning of the laws the constants
and the initial conditions of the
universe have suggested to many
physicists that the universe is a setup
job that it was finely tuned because
there was a fine tuner who chose the
parameters a popular alternative
explanation for the fine-tuning is the
idea of the multiverse the multiverse
acknowledges that the conditions
necessary to make life on this in this
universe are incredibly improbable but
it posits the existence of multiple
billions of other universes that would
in toto
make the conditions necessary for life
likely somewhere and then there's the
additional assertion that well we just
happen to be in that lucky universe and
so the multiverse tries to expand what
are sometimes called the probabilistic
resources if the if just one universe
isn't enough to render the incredible
fine-tuning probable well then let's
posit a whole bunch of others so that at
some point the the the conditions just
must have had to have arise now in order
to make that explanation work multiverse
advocates realize that there needs to be
some connection between these different
universes if all the other universes out
there have no connection to our universe
then whatever happens in those other
universes doesn't affect the
probabilities in our universe so in
order to portray these multiverses as
the kind of kind of outcome of a cosmic
lottery multiverse advocates have
realized they needed to posit some kind
of universe generating mechanism that
would in a way provide a common causal
connection between all of them all of
the universes is sprung from the same
mechanism and then we can think of our
universe is just one of many outcomes of
a kind of lottery now the and this is
where the problem comes in for the
multiverse because it turns out that
every mechanism that's been proposed
whether some whether it's something out
of
a cosmology called in inflationary
cosmology or a mechanism from string
what's called the string theoretic
landscape every mechanism that's been
proposed to explain where these new
universes come from has itself required
prior fine-tuning theoretically you just
don't get this great variety of other
universes unless there's something
fine-tuning the mechanism so the upshot
of this is that the multiverse explains
the fine-tuning only by reference to
invoking prior unexplained fine-tuning
and so in the end you're left right
where you started you haven't really
explained the fine-tuning that makes
life possible in our universe or for
that matter anywhere else
one alternative explanation for the
fine-tuning of the laws and constants
and initial conditions of the universe
is the idea known as the weak anthropic
principle according to the weekend
tropic principle we shouldn't be
surprised to find that we live in a
universe that has conditions which are
conducive to our existence after all
we're here and since we shouldn't be
surprised by the discovery that we live
in a universe that has conditions that
are conducive to our existence there's
nothing to be explained no surprise no
need for an explanation now the problem
with this alternative explanation is
that it really fails to reckon with the
thing that really does surprise us and
which is really does need explanation
and that is the incredible improbability
of the conditions that are necessary for
our existence we shouldn't be surprised
to discover that there are conditions
that are conducive to our existence
because after all we're here but we can
be very surprised to discover that those
necessary conditions of our existence
are so incredibly improbable here's an
illustration that gets us across is from
the philosopher of science John Wesley
imagine you're standing before a firing
squad of trained and Nazi marksmen and
they've found that you're been caught in
a plot to kill Hitler or something
anyway the order comes ready aim fire
and suddenly there's a barrage of
bullets and you are behind your
blindfold but the noise stops and you
discover you're still alive and then you
turn around take the blindfold off and
there's a pattern of bullets that
circumscribes your body but none of them
hit you now he says of course says
Leslie you should what what should what
should you think in that case well of
course he says you you shouldn't be
surprised to find that you live in a
universe that's condition that that has
conditions that are consistent with your
existence but you should be surprised
that you're still alive because those
conditions are so improbable in relation
to what you know about the skill of the
marksman and how many of them they were
firing at you so the we can throw up a
principle doesn't really explain what
needs to be explained which is not just
conditions that are can
assistant with our existence it needs to
explain the improbable the improbability
of those conditions and that it fails to
do another problem with the weekend
tropic principle idea is that it
confuses a necessary condition with a
causal explanation in particular our
need for a causal explanation of the
incredibly finely tuned and improbable
conditions that are necessary for our
existence to illustrate imagine there's
a fire in your city and the insurance
company sends out an investigator to
find out what caused the fire to occur
the investigator goes out and he sees
well here's some matches there's some
old gas cans there's some little
sprinkles of extra gas on and a lot of
charred buildings but he doesn't really
take any note of that instead he comes
back and he files his report and he
tells the insurance company well I know
what caused the building to burn down
it was the oxygen in the atmosphere they
say what oxygen yes
oxygen he says is a necessary condition
of fire you can't have a fire without
oxygen well what's his mistake well he's
confused a necessary condition with a
cause or a sufficient condition or a set
of sufficient conditions and really the
cause was in this case arseny overlooked
all the clues well this is effectively
what the weakened tropic free principle
does it's it says well here's a nut we
are citing a necessary condition of our
existence all these fine tuning
parameters what more do we need to
explain why we're here well what we
really want to know is not just what the
conditions are we want to know and
whether they're necessary or no we want
to know what caused those conditions to
come into existence that would explain
jointly why life is present and that
that the weakened tropic principle
doesn't do what we need to know instead
is a causal explanation design provides
that explanation because it tells you
why the condition the conditions were
set and why they're so incredibly
improbable the weekend tropic principle
doesn't
one of the great discoveries of the 20th
century that has challenged materialism
as a philosophy at a fundamental level
is the discovery that the universe had a
definite beginning in fact the material
universe is now thought to have had a
definite beginning that if you go back
far enough in time the curvature of
space becomes infinitely tight
corresponding to zero spatial volume
that's a consequence of a theorem known
as the singularity theorem that Stephen
Hawking and Roger Penrose proved in 1968
it was a consequence of their solving
Einstein's gravitational field equations
his reflecting his theory of general
relativity so this is a mind-blowing
conclusion in modern cosmology there was
first the discovery that the universe is
expanding outward in every direction of
space because of the the redshifted
light coming from distant galaxies and
then can theoretical considerations from
general relativity also reinforce that
idea showing that the universe the
material universe itself had a definite
beginning even time and space began if
there's an infinitely tight curvature of
space that suggests that there's no
place to put any matter and so we have a
fundamental challenge to the
materialistic world view or the world
view of scientific materialism now
beginning in the 1980s late 80s Stephen
Hawking and other theoretical physicists
Hawking who was involved in the 1968
proof of the singularity theorem didn't
like that conclusion too much began to
think of some other alternative
explanations and Hawking came up with
something called quantum cosmology which
he popularized in a book called the
brief history of time which he published
in 1988 I was a PhD student at Cambridge
in at the time and actually was it
actually tended the series of lectures
that Hawking gave that became the little
book the brief history of time anyway
since the late 80s there's been this
idea that the laws of physics by
themselves can explain the origin of the
universe from literally nothing
and that therefore there's no need for
any kind of external agent or creator no
transcendent cause of any kind that the
laws of physics alone explain where the
universe came from so whereas in the
early 80s there were books coming out
like God and the astronomers by Robert
Jastrow and other major figures in
astronomy were saying hey look this Big
Bang Theory this singularity theorem
clearly has theistic implications it's
pointing to the need for a cause that
transcends matter space time and energy
who does that sound like by but after
the 1980s this quantum cosmology idea
has caught on and has seen to kind of
neutralize the implications of the Big
Bang at least with respect to being
affirmative of theistic belief in fact
many of the new atheists have have taken
up quantum cosmology is their go-to
explanation for how you get a universe
without God one of those being Lawrence
Krauss now I've gotten more into quantum
cosmology in the last couple of years
and it turns out there's there are a
couple reasons to doubt that this idea
of invoking the laws of physics the laws
of quantum physics can explain where the
universe came from in the first place
the first is that it missed that this
whole research program misunderstands
what laws do laws don't explain where
matter and energy come from laws
describe how matter and energy interact
once they exist they don't give you an
origins explanation they describe the
ongoing behavior of the entities within
the universe so that's a fundamental
philosophical problem secondly a lot of
physics is in is expressed
mathematically as an equation and those
equations exist in the minds of
mathematicians and physicists they don't
actually exist in nature our laws
describe the the behavior of material
entities and energy and so forth but
they don't they don't in any way cause
things to happen in the material world
so to say that the laws of quantum
mechanics cause the universe to come
into existence is it is a strange kind
of category error
it's like saying the
latitude and longitude lines on a map
are responsible for the rise of the
Himalayan mountains the map describes
what what where the mountain is but it
doesn't tell you how the mountain got
here now there's one final problem and
this is the one that I think is most
profound the quantum cosmological model
wants to describe our universe as a
reasonably probable outcome of something
called a quantum mechanical wave
function it's often represented with the
Greek letter sigh so sy is a function
that describes all the possible
gravitational fields that could be
instantiated or exemplified by our
universe gravity in Einstein's view is
curved space as a result of the
concentration of matter so this
Universal wave function describes all
the different configurations of matter
and all the different shapes of space
that the universe could have and it
wants to it becomes an origins
explanation when that wave function
includes our universe as one of the
reasonably probable outcomes of all
those possibilities but here's the
problem that I discovered in order to
get a quantum mechanical wave function
you have to solve a prior quantum
mechanical equation something that's
analogous to the Schrodinger equation in
ordinary quantum mechanics but the
physicists themselves tell us that you
can't solve that equation unless you
apply a number of what are called
boundary constraints which are
limitations on the mathematical degrees
of freedom expressed in that equation or
another way to put it is the the the the
the equation is insoluble without the
imposition of boundary constraints but
who imposes the boundary constraints who
restricts the degrees of mathematical
freedom that possibilities that could
exist well it's the theoretical
physicist now any time and this is basic
information theory any time we say one
we exclude one option and elect another
we're imparting a bit of information so
if there are an infinite number of
solutions to this prior
equation and that's what the physicists
tell us then you have to supply a huge
number of boundary constraints to make
this the equation soluble or and that
means you have to you have to supply a
huge amount of information and in the
mathematical modeling of the origin of
the universe who supplies that
information the theoretical physicists
the intelligent agent so even in
cosmology it now appears that there's an
information problem an information
problem that's only solved in our
modeling by an intelligent agent
choosing some boundary restrictions
boundary constraints and and limiting
the mathematical degrees of freedom in
various ways to generate a wave function
that includes our universe as a
reasonably probable outcome so you've
got multiple problems with this quantum
cosmology but the deepest one is that
it's actually modeling the need for
information to give you a finely tuned
universe