The brute force of “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
Question 6A: Structured to allow biogenesis
(universe level)
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something that looks structured
to allow ‘life’ as we know it?
This is the question of ‘how or why’ the
shape / configuration of the natural order (universe level) is in such an almost
impossible alignment as to allow life to (potentially) emerge (as
well as even later conscious observers of the grandeur of the universe).
This is called by many the “fine tuning of
the universe” and the ‘anthropic principle’, although I disagree – along with
many others--with both those popular terms. ‘Fine tuning’ suggests an initial
state that requires adjustment – and we see no variance at all in the physical
constants of our universe to suggest such a thing. ‘Anthropic principle’ makes
this about human life, but the impact of all the basic constants / chemical
processes are basic to all life (not just ‘consciousness’ forms).
So,
“This point, while glaringly obvious, is
in direct contradiction with the principle of mediocrity and has become
known as the anthropic principle. The term is an unfortunate misnomer,
because anthropic derives from the same Greek root as man, and nobody is
suggesting that the principle has anything to do with humans per se (though
human beings are undeniably one example of life). The British astrophysicist
Brandon Carter, who first used the word in this context,3 once remarked that
had he known the trouble it would cause, he would have suggested something
else—the “biophilic” principle, perhaps. But we seem to be stuck with
“anthropic,” so I shall continue to use that term.”
[Davies, Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma:
Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (p. 131). Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
And
“Before continuing, there is a potential
confusion with the term fine-tuning that we should address. To a
physicist, ‘fine-tuning’ implies that there is a sensitivity of an outcome to
some input parameters or assumptions. Just like baking a cake, if an experiment
produces some spectacular result only for a particular, precise set-up, the
experiment is said to be fine-tuned with respect to the result.
‘Fine-tuning for life’ is a type of physics fine-tuning, where the outcome is
life.
“‘Fine-tuning’ is a metaphor, one that
brings to mind an old radio set with dials that must be delicately set in order
to listen to Norfolk Nights on Radio Norwich (Figure 2). This metaphor
unfortunately involves a guiding hand that sets the dials, giving the
impression that ‘fine-tuned’ means cleverly arranged or made for a purpose by a
fine-tuner. Whether such a fine-tuner of our Universe exists or not,
this is not the sense in which we use the term. ‘Fine-tuning’ is a technical
term borrowed from physics, and refers to the contrast between a wide range of
possibilities and a narrow range of a particular outcome or phenomenon. Similes
and metaphors are perfectly acceptable in science – space expands like an
inflating balloon, for example – as long as we remember what they represent.
“So there’s a difference between asking
‘is the Universe fine-tuned for life?’ in the physics sense, and ‘was the
Universe fine-tuned for life by a creator?’
[Lewis, Geraint F.; Barnes, Luke A.. A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned
Cosmos (pp. 3-4). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.]
One term that is often used to
describe this – as in Davies’ book – is
the Goldilocks factor, from the children’s story Goldilocks and the Three
Bears. In this story, the main character visits the home of a bear family, and
tries various of the objects in the house. They come in three ‘values’, with
one always too big/hot, and another too small/cold, and with one ‘just right’
for her. Davies often refers to the
‘porridge’ element in the story:
“First, she tasted the porridge from the
big pot that belonged to the Great Big Bear, but it was too hot for her so she
left it. Then, she tasted the porridge from the middle-sized pot that belonged
to the Middle-sized Bear, but it was a bit too cold for her, so she left that
one too. In the end, she tasted the porridge from the little pot that belonged
to the Little Wee Bear and it was just right for her, neither too cold nor
too hot. She liked it so much that she ate every bit.”
Hence, my use of the word ‘structured’
(although ‘architected’ might be more accurate, that term carries do much
nuance of ‘agent’ – which is not appropriate so far in the discussion
probably).
But so many of the quotes below used that
terminology, so—as Davies conceded—I will use them in that restricted sense.
And at this stage of the question, I am
only noting the structural elements that ALLOW life – without suggesting at
this stage that living cells (or genetic fragments thereof) were GENERATED.
Additionally, I will take note what is said about the environment
required to SUPPORT life (once it emerged) and life processes.
This ‘oddity’ only emerged as progress in
astrophysics and sub-atomic physics got to its current level of sophistication.
Both disciplines discovered – independently – some extreme oddities of the way
our universe is constituted.
What was observed was that the each of the
individual universal physical laws, basic chemical properties of certain
elements, and the distribution of matter/energy in the universe were one value
out of an almost infinite range of values, and that only the exact
combination of these unique values allowed the formation of the building
blocks needed for higher organizations of matter (e.g. carbon, oxygen)—including
life and conscious life.
The probability of these cosmic constants
occurring simultaneously – without any ‘natural selection’ type of mechanisms
being even available to operate on non-living, sub-atomic processes –
was so much out of the range of plausibility as to ‘force’ reluctant scientists
and atheist philosophers to admit that
the universe “looks like” it was ‘contrived’ (the astronomer Hoyle’s phrase) to
allow life and observers like us.
It was the ‘hard science’ folks (e.g.
physicists and cosmologists) that noted this oddness—before the
philosophers and theologians got involved. And this actually forced many to
rethink the implications of their work.
Before I give some examples, here is a
description of this principle from a couple of sources:
[Quantum Enigma -- Physics encounters
consciousness 2nd ed. // Rosenblum, Bruce // and Fred Kuttner. //
OxfordUP:2011. 262-264]
“After
the ridiculously short period of inflation, physics seems able to account
for what happened in some detail. By the time the universe was one second
old, quarks combined to form protons and neutrons. A few minutes later the
protons and neutrons came together to form the nuclei of the lightest atoms:
hydrogen, deuterium (heavy hydrogen, one proton and one neutron), helium, and a
bit of lithium. The relative abundance of hydrogen and helium in the oldest
stars and gas clouds agrees with what we would expect from this creation
process.
“But
during that split second before our "familiar" quarks and electrons
came into existence, the Big Bang had to be finely tuned to produce a
universe in which we could live. Quite
finely tuned! Theories vary. According to one, if the initial conditions of
the universe were chosen randomly, there would only be one chance in 10120 (that’s one with 120
zeros after it) that the universe would allow life. Cosmologist and
consciousness theorist Roger Penrose has it vastly more unlikely: The exponent
he suggests is 10123.
(It’s hard to comprehend the meaning of a number that big.) By any such
estimate, the chance that a livable universe like ours would be created is far less than
the chance of randomly picking a particular single atom out of all the atoms in
the universe. --- Can you
accept odds like that as a coincidence?”
Astrophysicist John Barrow has been working in the field for
decades, and recently wrote a summary article on the subject:
“When
we list the medley of conditions that must be satisfied in order that any type
of chemical life evolve in the universe, we find that a large number of finely balanced "coincidences" must
exist in order that the universe give rise to observers. If we were to
imagine a whole collection of hypothetical "other universes" in which
all the quantities that define the structure of our universe take on all
possible permutations of values, then we find that almost all of these other
possible universes we have create on paper are stillborn, unable to give rise
to that type of chemical complexity that we call "life."
[Barrow,
John D.. Life, the Universe, and the Anthropic Principle . The World & I
Online. Kindle Edition.]
Geraint F. Lewis, professor of astrophysics:
“The
message: messing with the make-up of the Universe can have a disastrous effect
on the emergence of complex life like you and me, and especially the
physical conditions that underlie life, such as useable energy and organic
chemistry. Our conclusion is that the fundamental properties of the Universe appear to be fine-tuned for life. We
need a cosmos that expands not too fast and not too slow, that forms structure,
with a mix of stable elements that can form stars, planets and cells, with the
right mix of forces for stars to burn for billions of years, with plenty of
carbon and oxygen, with a low-entropy past and free energy into the future,
with a life-supporting number of dimensions, and even with mathematically
elegant and discoverable laws. Such a cosmos is a rarity among our Universe’s
cousins and distant relatives. This should be quite startling! Sitting here on
the surface of this small rocky planet, with the Sun beaming down and rain
clouds on the horizon, or in the hustle and bustle of a busy street, or walking
through the silence of a snow-covered landscape, our existence seems so, well,
natural. However, we appear to be the result of a cosmic gamble that makes
winning EuroMillions look like a dead certainty – a rather unsettling thought!”
[Lewis,
Geraint F.; Barnes, Luke A.. A Fortunate
Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos (p. i).
Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
Paul Davies is a leading theoretical physicist
who has been researching this idea for decades. He describes the original
‘ferment’ in physics that was caused by the first publications:
“WHEN
I WAS A PHD STUDENT at University College London in the 1960s, my supervisor
handed me a curious technical paper to read “as a bit of light relief” from my
major project. The paper (which was never actually published in the form in
which I read it) was based on a lecture given in the United States by the young English cosmologist and theoretical
physicist Brandon Carter. The subject matter was both radical and unusual.
The normal work of a theoretical physicist is to investigate an unsolved
problem about a natural phenomenon by applying the laws of physics in the form
of mathematical equations and then trying to solve the equations to see how
well they describe the real thing. But Carter was addressing an entirely
different sort of problem, having to do with the forms of the laws themselves. He asked himself the following
question: “Suppose the laws had been a bit different from what they actually
are, in this or that respect—what would the consequences be?” Philosophers call
this type of investigation counterfactual analysis, and although fiction
writers have long been fond of the device (…), it was groundbreaking for a
scientist to consider.
The
focus of Carter’s “what if” analysis was again unusual for a theoretical
physicist. It concerned the existence of life. Specifically, Carter’s
calculations suggested that if the laws had differed only slightly from what we
find them to be, then life would not have been possible and the universe would
have gone unobserved. In effect, said Carter, our existence hinges on a certain
amount of delicate “fine tuning” of the laws. Like Goldilocks’ porridge, the laws of physics seemed to Carter to be
“just right” for life. It looked like a fix—a big fix. Somewhat unwisely,
he named this fine-tuning “the anthropic principle,” giving the false
impression that it concerned humankind specifically (which was never his
intention).
Although
Carter’s paper was modest in scope and cautious in conclusion, it triggered
nothing less than a revolution in scientific thinking and sparked a furious
controversy that has rent the scientific community ever since. The study of
counterfactual analysis in physics and cosmology was taken up in the 1970s by
Martin Rees and Bernard Carr, resulting in a landmark review paper published in
1979. Inspired by this paper, I wrote a little book on the subject called The Accidental Universe, which was
published by Cambridge University Press in 1982. A few years later, a much more
systematic and thoroughgoing text appeared—The
Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by John Barrow and Frank Tipler. It has
formed the starting point for hundreds of papers over the years.
During
the early 1980s, the anthropic principle was slammed by many scientists as
quasi-religious mumbo jumbo.
In a scathing put-down in the New York
Review of Books in 1986, the mathematician and writer Martin Gardner
itemized the various proposed versions of the anthropic principle (AP): Weak
(WAP), Strong (SAP), Participatory (PAP), Final (FAP), and—his favored
version—the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP). And that was
pretty much the tone of the debate for a decade or so. But developments in high-energy particle physics and cosmology,
especially in the study of the hot big bang that gave birth to the universe,
slowly changed sentiment. The laws of physics, once regarded as cast in
tablets of stone, began to look less absolute. Evidence accumulated that some
of the laws at least were not true, fundamental laws, but “effective laws,” the
familiar form of which applies only at energies that are very low compared with
the fierce violence of the big bang. Significantly, theoretical analysis suggested
that some features of the laws might be accidental, reflecting the vagaries of
the manner in which our patch of the universe cooled from the big bang. The
implication was, of course, that the low-energy form of these laws could
have been different, and might even be different, in some other cosmic
region. What we had previously been calling “the universe” began to resemble a
variegated “multiverse”—“a crazy quilt of environments with different
properties and different laws of physics,” in the words of Leonard Susskind, a
theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Stanford University and a leading proponent
of the multiverse idea. It would of course be no surprise that we find
ourselves living in a region fit for life, for we obviously could not be living
in a place where life is impossible.
At
this stage, atheists began to take an interest. Unhappy that the fine-tuning of
the laws of physics smacked of some sort of divine design, they seized on the
multiverse theory as a neat explanation for the uncanny bio-friendliness of the
universe.
Davies,
Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? .
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Kindle Edition.
[Davies,
Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? .
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Kindle Edition.]
In
1983, he had written:
…
the numerical coincidences [necessary for an anthropic universe] could be regarded as evidence of design.
The delicate fine-tuning in the values of the constants, necessary so that the
various different branches of physics can dovetail so felicitously, might be
attributed to God. It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of
the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the
numbers, has
been rather carefully thought out. … Perhaps future developments in
science will lead to more direct evidence for other universes, but until then,
the seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has
assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence
for an element of cosmic design. [Paul Davies, theoretical physicist; God and
the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), page 189.]
More
recently (2008), he expanded this—using even a metaphor of ‘Great Designer’ for
the putative architect of the structure:
“Returning
to my Designer Machine metaphor, the collection of felicitous “coincidences” in
physics and cosmology implies that the Great Designer had better set the knobs
carefully, or the universe would be a very inhospitable place. How many knobs
are there? The Standard Model of particle physics has about twenty undetermined
parameters, while cosmology has about ten. All told, 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 percent to make a universe fit
for life. But even this sensitivity pales into insignificance compared with the
biggest fine-tuning riddle of all: dark energy. …
“Whatever
dark energy may be—and it may just be the “natural” energy of empty space—it is
dangerous. In fact, it could be the most dangerous stuff known to science.
… So our existence depends on the dark
energy’s not being too large. A factor of ten would suffice to preclude life:
if space contained ten times as much dark energy as it actually does, the
universe would fly apart too fast for galaxies to form. A factor of ten may seem like a wide margin, but one power of ten on a
scale of 120 is a pretty close call. The cliché that “life is balanced on a knife-edge” is a
staggering understatement in this case: no knife in the universe could have an
edge that fine. Logically, it is possible that the laws of physics
conspire to create an almost but not quite perfect cancellation. But then it
would be an extraordinary coincidence that that level of cancellation—119
powers of ten, after all—just happened by chance to be what is needed to bring
about a universe fit for life. How much chance can we buy in scientific
explanation? One measure of what is involved can be given in terms of coin
flipping: odds of 10120
to one is like getting heads no fewer than four hundred times in a row.
If the existence of life in the universe is completely independent of the big
fix mechanism—if it’s just a coincidence—then those are the odds against our
being here. That level of flukiness seems too much to swallow.” [Davies, Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe
Just Right for Life? (pp. 146, 149-150). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle
Edition.]
And
he refers to the change of perspective of Hoyle
in another place:
“The Universe Is Bio-Friendly. One of the most significant
facts—arguably the most significant fact—about the universe is that we are part
of it. …There is an indirect sense, however, in which the existence of life in the universe is an important cosmological fact.
For life to emerge, and then to evolve into conscious beings like ourselves, certain
conditions have to be satisfied. Among the many prerequisites for life—at
least, for life as we know it—is a good supply of the various chemical elements
needed to make biomass. Carbon is the key life-giving element, but oxygen,
hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus are crucial too. Liquid water is
another essential ingredient. Life also requires an energy source and a stable
environment, which in our case are provided by the sun.
“For
life to evolve past the level of simple microbes, this life-encouraging setting has to remain benign for a very long
time; it took billions of years for life on Earth to reach the point of
intelligence.
“On
a larger scale, the universe must be sufficiently old and cool to permit
complex chemistry. It has to be orderly enough to allow the untrammeled
formation of galaxies and stars. There have to be the right sorts of forces
acting between particles of matter to make stable atoms, complex molecules,
planets, and stars.
“If almost any of the basic features of the
universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of the galaxies, were different, life would very
probably be impossible.
“Now,
it happens that to meet these various requirements, certain stringent
conditions must be satisfied in the underlying laws of physics that regulate
the universe, so stringent in fact that a bio-friendly universe looks like a fix—or a
“put-up job,” to use the pithy description of the late British cosmologist Fred
Hoyle. It appeared to Hoyle as
if a superintellect had been “monkeying” with the
laws of physics.
“He
was right in his impression. On the face of it, the universe does look as if
it has been designed by an intelligent creator expressly for the purpose of
spawning sentient beings. Like the porridge in the tale of Goldilocks and the
three bears, the universe seems to be “just right” for life, in many intriguing
ways.
“No
scientific explanation for the universe can be deemed complete unless it
accounts for this appearance of judicious design.
“Until recently, “the Goldilocks
factor” was almost completely ignored by scientists. Now, that is changing
fast.”
And
one more from an academic…
“Prior
to Einstein’s publication of the General Theory of Relativity, one could
have thought that supernatural design was completely unnecessary because it was
believed (in accordance with Newton’s postulates) that the universe existed
for an infinite amount of time with an infinite amount of space and an infinite
amount of interacting content. Therefore, there would have been an infinite
number of “tries” to bring about virtually any degree of complexity.
“Standard Big Bang cosmology totally changed
these postulates, and reduced the
total number of “tries” in the observable universe to a very finite number;
that is: 13.7 billion years (age of the observable universe) × 365 days × 24
hours × 60 minutes × 60 seconds × 1043 (reduction to minimum units of
time—Planck time) × 1053 kg of visible mass in the observable universe × 108
(reduction to minimum units of mass). This is approximately equal to 10120 total possibilities for
interaction of mass energy expressed in minimum units of mass and time. This is
a large, but very finite number. When it is compared with the enormous odds
against a low-energy universe emerging from the big bang (1010 to
the 123rd power to one—the Penrose number), it is absolutely
minuscule. This comparatively small number of “total possible mass energy
interactions in the universe for all time” revealed the extreme improbability
of high degrees of complexity arising out of the universe by pure chance.
“This
produced a remarkable openness on the part of some physicists to the
prospect of supernatural design. Contemporary physicists such as Arno Penzias,
Roger Penrose, Owen Gingerich, John Polkinghorne, Fred Hoyle, and Paul Davies
have since adduced the plausibility of a
designing intelligence from the evidence of contemporary physics. [PH:NPEG,
48-49]
The
alternative explanations for this are speculative and beyond science, as
Davies points out:
“It
is now time to take a reality check. In our search for an explanation of cosmic
bio-friendliness we have encountered a
heady mix of speculation, ranging from the intriguing to the seriously
flaky. Some of the ideas have included fake
universes designed by fake gods, multiverses that feature absolutely everything
conceivable, and now superintelligent, godlike beings who evolve naturally but
then go on to create or manipulate entire universes for their own purposes. All
these fanciful theories provide excellent material for entertaining science
fiction, but the realm of professional science has been left far behind. If
it were not for the fact that the speculators include some scientists of great
distinction, the discussion could probably be dismissed without further ado.
The fact that some great minds have been driven to explore such wild ideas is testimony to the intractable nature of the
problems being confronted. Somehow we have to understand how life and
cosmology connect (unless we are to dismiss the link as illusory).” [Davies,
Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the
Universe Just Right for Life? (pp. 202-203). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Kindle Edition.]
But
the data is so overwhelming that Davies
has to posit a super-intelligence, but he – having a problem with the
standard understanding of ‘God’—just pushes the problem further away by
assigning the design task to space aliens…or even somehow to the
universe itself (‘self-explaining”?).
“The
other main problem with intelligent design is that the identity of the designer
need bear no relation at all to the God of traditional monotheism. The
“designing agency” can be a committee of gods, for example. The designer can
also be a natural being or beings, such
as an evolved supermind or supercivilization existing
in a previous universe, or in another region of our universe, which made our
universe using supertechnology. The designer can
also be some sort of superdupercomputer simulating
this universe. So invoking a superintellect as the
levitating super-turtle is fraught with problems.”
“My
own inclinations, it will be clear, lie in the directions of E ‘”the life
principle”] and F [“the self-explaining universe”], although there are many
details to be worked out. I do take life, mind, and purpose seriously, and I concede that
the universe at least appears to be designed with a high level of ingenuity. I
cannot accept these features as a package of marvels that just happen to be,
that exist reasonlessly. It seems to me that there is a genuine
scheme of things—the universe is “about” something. But I am equally
uneasy about dumping the whole set of problems in the lap of an arbitrary god
or abandoning all further thought and declaring existence ultimately to be a
mystery.” [Davies, Paul. The Goldilocks
Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (pp. 267-268). Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. Kindle Edition.]
Finally,
Fred Hoyle – initially an atheist
cosmologist, but rethinking the ‘coincidences’:
“A
commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with
physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one
calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion
almost beyond question.” [Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present
Reflections,” Engineering and Science
(November 1981): 12.]
He
later—along the lines of Davies—postulated ‘aliens’ but from the future:
“It
is amusing to note, however, that Fred Hoyle has made a highly speculative
proposal that the Intelligence he believes brings about much of the order in
our world operates from the future by influencing the outcomes of
quantum events.” [F. Hoyle, The
Intelligent Universe (Michael Joseph, 1983), ch.
8, referenced in Faith, Science, and Understanding by John Polkinghorne,
2000.]
Now,
before we get into the details, let me caution the reader to not get distracted by the scientific
amazement here, but to remember
our main point: this OUTSIDE OTHER somehow ‘generated’ this SOMETHING. And we
have no idea how, why, or even how to FRAME questions about this. We can be
amazed at the structuring / fine-tuning, but even if we understand those
laws and constants, we still do not have even a conception of how this EXISTs
–instead of NOTHING.
Do not let the ‘comfort’ of the beauty anesthetize you to
the psychological pressure of our original, stark reality:
there has to
‘be’ an OUTSIDE OTHER (truly ‘other’) which is source of our SOMETHING—and
with which we may have to experience in the (possible) post-mortem situation.
Okay, here are some descriptions of
some of these factors:
ONE: Neutron Mass
“The mass of the neutron is very finely
tuned. If we adjust it just a little, we change the structure of matter so
much that chemistry is almost completely destroyed. Let’s see why.
“Neutrons are 0.14% heavier than
protons . Outside of the nucleus, they decay into protons, electrons and
antineutrinos... These “free” neutrons have an average life of about
15 min.
“But inside nuclei neutrons are
stabilized by nuclear forces. If the neutron’s mass were increased by 1%,
then neutrons would decay even inside nuclei, turning into protons. The
electric repulsion between the protons would then tear the nuclei apart,
so the only stable nucleus would be that of hydrogen, consisting of a single
proton.
“On the other hand, if the neutron’s
mass were decreased by 1%,
neutrons would become lighter than protons. This would mean that protons would
decay into neutrons , positrons and neutrinos.
“Consequently, atomic nuclei would lose
their charge and would consist only of neutrons. The unattached electrons would
fly away, so no atoms would exist.
Thus, by adjusting the mass of the neutron just a little, we either end up in a world that only contains one type of chemical
element—hydrogen —or a neutron world.”
[Perlov, Delia; Alex Vilenkin.
Cosmology for the Curious (p. 449). Springer International Publishing. Kindle
Edition.]
……..
TWO: The Example of Gravity.
“The force of gravity is determined by
Newton's law F = Gmlm2/r2.
Here G is what is known as
the gravitational constant, and is basically a number that determines the force
of gravity in any given circumstance. For instance, stance, the gravitational
attraction between the moon and the earth is given by first multiplying the
mass of the moon (ml)
times the mass of the earth (m2),
and then dividing by the distance between them squared (r2).
Finally, one multiplies this result by the number G
to obtain the total force. Clearly the force is directly proportional to G: for example, if G were to double, the
force between the moon and the earth would double.
“In the previous section, we reported
that some calculations indicate that the force of gravity must be fine-tuned
to one part in 1040
in order for life to occur. What does such fine-tuning mean? To
understand it, imagine a radio dial, going from 0 to 2G0,
where G0
represents the current value of the gravitational constant. Moreover, imagine
the dial being broken up into 1040
- that is, ten thousand, billion, billion, billion, billion - evenly spaced
tick marks. To claim that the strength of gravity must be fine-tuned to one
part in 1040
is simply to claim that, in order for life to exist, the constant of gravity cannot
vary by even one tick mark along the dial from its current value of G0.
[Reason for the Hope Within ,page
67]
……..
THREE: Strength of
Big Bang.
“If
the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as one part in 10**60, the
universe would have either quickly collapsed lapsed back on itself, or expanded
too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. (As
John Jefferson Davis points out, an accuracy of one part in 10**60 can be
compared to firing a bullet at a
one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting
the target.)
[Reason for the Hope Within, Kindle]
……..
FOUR: The Cosmological Constant Problem.
“We now come to the most striking
fine-tuning of all. The observed accelerated expansion of the universe is
caused by a vacuum energy (mass) density, or cosmological constant,
which is about twice the average density of matter today.
“Let us now see what would happen if
the value of the cosmological constant were
very different from what it actually is. Suppose first that (it) is positive
and is 1000 times greater than (it is now) . It would still be 117 orders of
magnitude below its theoretically expected value.
“The vacuum energy would then start
dominating the universe at (t~ 0.5 Byr). At that
time, galaxy formation was just beginning and only very small galaxies had
enough time to form. But once the vacuum energy dominates, galaxy formation
comes to a halt. The problem with miniature galaxies is that their gravity
is too weak to keep heavy elements expelled in supernova explosions from flying
away into outer space. Thus the galaxies would be left without the elements
necessary for the formation of planets and for the evolution of life . If
we further increase (it) by another
factor of 100, then it would come to dominate well before the epoch of galaxy
formation, and the universe would be left with no galaxies at all.
“Suppose now that (it) is negative
and has magnitude 1000 times greater than (it is now). Then the gravity of the
vacuum would be attractive and would cause the universe to contract and collapse to a big crunch at (t~ 0.5 Byr) . This is hardly enough time for the evolution of
intelligent life (which took about 10 times longer here on Earth ). A further
increase in the magnitude of (it) would
make the lifetime of the universe even shorter and the evolution of life and
intelligence even less likely.
[Cosmology for the Curious (pp.
452-453)]
……..
FIVE: The Strong Nuclear Force.
“Our
Universe has the rather remarkable ability to make both carbon and oxygen.
Typically, stars in our Universe produce two oxygen atoms for each carbon atom.
… The rate of production of carbon and oxygen is quite sensitive to the strong
nuclear force. If we nudge the strength of the strong force upwards by just
0.4 per cent, stars produce a wealth of carbon, but the route to oxygen is cut
off. While we have the central element to support carbon-based life, the
result is a universe in which there will be very little water. Decreasing
the strength of the strong force by a similar 0.4 per cent has the opposite
effect: all carbon is rapidly transformed into oxygen, providing the
universe with plenty of water, but leaving it devoid of carbon.
[Lewis, Geraint F.; Barnes, Luke A.. A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned
Cosmos (pp. 118-119). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.]
SIX: Timing of Universe Expansion/Scale and Carbon+
“Let us take a simple but striking
example. The universe is at least fifteen billion light-years across. It
contains at least one hundred billion galaxies, each of which contains about
one hundred billion stars. Many of these stars could be surrounded by habitable
planets. Why is the universe so big?
“Living
systems on Earth are based on the subtle chemical properties of carbon and its
relationships with hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus.
Other elements play important roles, but these five are the leading actors in
the game of life. Where do they come from? These biological elements do not
emerge as fossils from the inferno of the Big Bang. They are the dust of
the stars. When the average star comes to the end of its fuel reserves
of hydrogen and helium, new nuclear reactions begin to produce biological
elements like carbon before the star finally explodes in a dramatic
conflagration, or supernova, which serves to disperse the elements into
space; eventually they become incorporated into grains, lumps, rocks, planets,
and people. All the carbon atoms in our bodies have been through a supernova
explosion at one time or another. We are indeed stardust.
“The process whereby nature produces
the building blocks of life from the inert gases of the Big Bang is long and
slow by terrestrial standards. It takes more than ten billion years. So,
we can see why we had to find the universe so big. More than ten billion
years of stellar alchemy are necessary to create the basic building blocks of
life. Since the universe is expanding during this huge period of time, it
must have expanded to at least ten billion light-years in extent. We just couldn't
be around in a universe that was significantly smaller.
“There is a niche in the history
of the universe when life could and did arise. That niche is bounded on one
side by the requirement that the Big
Bang cool off sufficiently to allow stars, atoms, and biochemistry to exist,
and on the other by the fact that all
the stars will have burned out and died after a hundred billion years.
“The simple lesson is that the largescale
structure of the universe is inextricably and unexpectedly bound up with the
existence of living observes within it.
[Barrow, John D.. Life, the Universe,
and the Anthropic Principle . The World & I Online. Kindle Edition.]
……………..
“Humans are the result of billions of
years of evolution, built out of a myriad of complex molecules and structures. This
process requires an environment rich in chemicals, and dense enough for
efficient chemical reactions. Humans should not be surprised to find
themselves in such an environment, even if it is rare.
“We can take this argument further.
When Carter says location, he means
not just in space but also in time. We expect life to be more
likely to arise not just in certain places but also at certain times.
“The early Universe consisted of mostly
hydrogen and helium, with virtually none of the elements for creating planets,
trees and people. The Universe needs to
create several generations of stars to produce large quantities of carbon,
oxygen and other elements. As an intelligent being, you should not be
surprised to find yourself in a Universe that is almost 14 billion years old,
that has had sufficient time to create the material needed to create you. You
exist at a privileged time.
[Lewis, Geraint F.; Barnes, Luke A..
A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos (pp. 18-19).
Cambridge University Press.]
……………..
“Only the very lightest nuclei were
created in the Big Bang. The heavier elements, carbon, oxygen, iron, and all
the rest, were created inside stars, which formed much later. These
elements beyond hydrogen and helium are released into space when a massive
star, exhausting its nuclear fuel, violently collapses, and then explodes as
a supernova. Later-generation stars and their planets, including our
solar system, gather up this debris. We are the remnants of exploded stars.
[Rosenblum, Bruce; Kuttner, Fred. Quantum
Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness (pp. 265-266). Oxford University
Press. Kindle Edition.]
……………..
“When a massive star runs out of
nuclear fuel at the center, the central core collapses, reaching enormous
densities and temperatures T ~ 1010 K. Elements heavier than iron are
forged during core collapse and the gigantic supernova explosion which
immediately follows. These heavy elements are expelled into the interstellar
medium where they serve as raw material for new stars and planets . Planets
form as a natural by-product of star formation. Thus in a very real sense,
we are recycled star dust—the carbon in our cells, the iron in our blood and
the calcium in our bones were all made in the centers of stars, and then
recycled into the universe
[Perlov, Delia; Alex Vilenkin. Cosmology for the Curious (p. 298).
Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.]
……………..
“Carter wasn’t the first physicist to
recognize anthropic coincidences in cosmology, but he was the first to codify
these coincidences into a scientific framework. For example, in 1953, Fred
Hoyle discovered that the resonances for the nuclear energy levels of helium,
beryllium, carbon, and oxygen must adopt precise values for life to be possible. In 1961, Robert Dicke recognized the same
thing about the universe as Carter—
namely biological constraints dictate the time in the universe’s history when
life is possible. Life couldn’t
have existed earlier because the necessary chemical elements did not occur at
high enough levels for life to be possible. Moreover, the early universe’s
metallicity was too low for rocky planets to form. On the other hand, if life
attempted to appear in a window of time too late in the universe’s history,
then main sequence stars wouldn’t exist, making it impossible for stable
planetary systems to form. And without stable planetary systems, life-support
planets wouldn’t exist.”
[Rana, Fazale. Fit for a Purpose: Does the Anthropic Principle
Include Biochemistry? (pp. 34-35). RTB Press. Kindle Edition.]
And this issue was noted by leading
atheists:
“After some modifications to their
equipment, the nuclear physicists were able to announce that, indeed, Hoyle’s
guess hit the mark. There is a resonance in carbon, and at just the right
energy for stars to manufacture abundant quantities of this element by the
triple-helium process. The experiments confirm that the resonance will prolong
the lifetime of the unstable beryllium nucleus to something approaching a
hundred billion-billionths of a second—long enough for the triple-helium
reaction to proceed. And once the carbon is made, the rest is smooth sailing.
There are no more bottlenecks. Oxygen forms next, then neon, then magnesium,
and so on up the periodic table of elements as far as iron. That pretty much
covers all the stuff life needs to get going. Elements heavier than iron are
also produced by stars, but only during explosive outbursts, when more energy
is available. The carbon story left a deep impression on Hoyle. He realized that if it weren’t for the
coincidence that a nuclear resonance exists at just the right energy, there
would be next to no carbon in the universe, and probably no life.
[Davies, Paul. The Goldilocks Enigma:
Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (pp. 137-138). Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2008. Kindle Edition.]
………
“What does all this have to do with the
existence of God? In the last several years, scientists have made a discovery
so shocking that it played a prominent role in leading to atheist thinker Antony
Flew’s conversion to belief in God. In fact, in
light of the discovery, Flew began to ask, Did
the universe know we were coming? He was compelled by the evidence to
answer in the affirmative. Of course, the universe is dead matter and, thus,
cannot know anything, so Flew actually affirms that it had to be God who knew
we were coming.
“One of my faculty colleagues, David
Horner, took his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. One day while
he was walking past a lecture hall, he heard one of the world’s leading
atheists (I won’t mention his name) speaking about this discovery. Horner heard
him frankly admit that it provides significant evidence for God’s existence and
he really didn’t know how to respond to this new evidence as an atheist.
“So, what is the discovery? It is that the
universe is precisely fine-tuned so that life could appear. More than a
hundred independent, hard facts about the universe have been discovered in
the form of basic constants of nature or arbitrary physical magnitudes which
are, scientifically speaking, brute facts and for which there is no further
scientific explanation (e.g., the force of gravity in the universe, the
charge of an electron, the rest mass of a proton, the rate of expansion
resulting from the Big Bang). What blows the minds of so many is that, if any
single one of these—much less all one hundred!—had been slightly larger or
smaller on the order of a billionth of a percentage point or more, then no life
could have appeared in the universe. The universe is a razor’s edge of
precisely balanced life-permitting conditions.
[PH:SAS, 145-146]
Note
though, three things here:
One: That although these
physicists/cosmologists speak confidently about ‘intelligent design’ (actually
using the phrase), they also confidently assert that it has nothing to do
with ‘intelligent design’ in BIOLOGY. [Davies: “Intelligent Design in Biology Is Magic, Not Science”; Goldilocks, (p. 195)]. Of course, they
are not molecular biologists, geneticists, or organic chemists.
Two: The intelligence behind this
‘fine-tuning’ is often assumed to be aliens from outer space, or even our
future selves reaching backward through time to create the universe (which, of
course, solves nothing [but note the quotes from Einstein and others in the
earlier Excursus, using the G-word] –
we are back to how did THEY get here too…and how did our future selves get
there…). [All the current work being done in origin-of-life and origin-of-mind
studies about ‘self-organizing’ and ‘emerging complexity’ have no relevance or
application here.]
There is no suggestion by these scientists
that this universe (a subset of SOMETHING, remember) is an ‘accident’ or
‘self-creating’(lol).
Three: Attempts to avoid the STRONG
intuition that the appearance of such ‘design’ requires the existence of an
OUTSIDE / SUPERIOR ‘designer’ generally make an argument for that it is simply a
SELECTION EFFECT, operating within the context of a multiverse (either many
‘parallel’ universes, or non-uniform ‘pockets’ within OUR universe). As noted
earlier, cosmologists know that this does NOT solve the ‘existence’ problem.
All such other ‘universes’ are all part of SOMETHING—all creating the same
psychological pressures (perhaps even greater) of there being an OUTSIDE OTHER
that we might have to deal with at some point.
[Anthony Flew has a humorous comment on
the failure of the multiverse scenario to solve the puzzle:
“As I have already mentioned, I did not
find the multiverse alternative very helpful. The postulation of multiple
universes, I maintained, is a truly desperate alternative. If the existence of
one universe requires an explanation, multiple universes require a much bigger
explanation: the problem is increased by the factor of whatever the total
number of universes is. It seems a little like the case of a schoolboy whose
teacher doesn’t believe his dog ate his homework, so he replaces the first
version with the story that a pack of dogs—too many to count—ate his
homework. [Flew, Antony; Varghese, Roy Abraham. There Is a God: How the
World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (p. 137). HarperCollins.
Kindle Edition.]
There is
essentially no reason for the SOMETHING to be structured this way—the
universe could have just been big, intelligible, all hydrogen and helium, and
eventually collapsed…
And
although I am avoiding connecting our OUTSIDE OTHER with historical deities,
this data of ‘structured to allow life’, looks awfully suspicious--that
the OUTSIDE OTHER ‘knows’ what life IS, and produced a SOMETHING with
that as a DELIBERATE possibility.
At this
point, all we have is a something that MIGHT COULD SUPPORT the appearance of living
things, should they ever “show up”.
We cannot
confidently assume anything about the OUTSIDE-“ARTIST’s” perspective on life
forms (e.g. approval , disapproval—if it even has some kind of capacity for
such).
Again, do
not let the ‘comfort’ of the beauty anesthetize you to the psychological
pressure of our original, stark reality: there has to ‘be’ an OUTSIDE OTHER
(truly ‘other’) which is source of our SOMETHING—and with which we may have to
experience in the (possible) post-mortem situation.
We are
‘trapped’ in this SOMETHING that looks increasingly like it is ‘contrived’.
What might this bizarre structuring
of our law-like universe (of staggering size, scale, energy, complexity) imply
about the ‘source / originator’ of our SOMETHING? [And how might it affect our
expectation of being confronted by such an OTHER, in some possible port-mortem
situation?]
Would this suggest that the OUTSIDE
OTHER had full awareness and (even) intention about possible life forms – even
like us?