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Existence of God, Science and God

Does a Multiverse Explain the Fine Tuning of Our Universe? Part 2

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We continue with J. Warner Wallace’s analysis of multiverse theories in his new book God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe.

The second reason multiverse theories fail to explain the origin of fine tuning is that rather than explaining the origin of fine tuning, the multiverse theory requires fine tuning to first exist.

If there is a multiverse vacuum capable of such creative activity, it would be reasonable for us to ask how the physics of such an environment could be so fine-tuned to create a life-permitting universe. As Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne observed, any proposed multiverse mechanism “needs to have a certain form rather than innumerable possible other forms, and probably constants too that need fine-tuning in the narrow sense … if that diversity of universes is to result.” Eternal inflation, for example, requires a precise relationship between cosmological constants of gravity and the other forces of quantum physics. In other words, the vacuums proposed in multiverse models are equally fine-tuned.

Third, multiverse theories rely on speculative notions of time.

Theorists who propose a preexisting vacuum must account for the nature of time in this setting. All descriptions of this vacuum describe it as temporal (with bubble universes emerging or quantum events occurring over time). But the Standard Cosmological Model (as we described it in the prior chapter) indicates time, as we know it, began with our universe. Multiverse explanations must provide an account for the temporal nature of the vacuum lying at the core of their theory.

Fourth, multiverse theories result in absurdities.

Like string theory models, multiverse proposals result in a number of interesting (and disturbing) absurdities. If there are an infinite number of universes in the multiverse collection, and there exists a remote chance one of them could have a set of laws like ours (and a history similar to our own), we must accept (given the infinite size of the multiverse) an infinite number of universes resembling ours. In fact, if there’s a small chance any of these similar universes might have precisely the same history as our own (with someone exactly like you reading this book at this very moment), there are an infinite number of universes precisely the same as ours in every possible way.

The absurdity of this proposal has been noted by a number of physicists and philosophers. Multiverse models describe an ensemble of universes both identical and slightly different from our own. As Alan Guth admitted, “There is a universe where Elvis is still alive.” The incredulity of such a proposal seems a high price to pay to accommodate a theory yet unproven by the evidence. As Paul Davies said, “The very notion that there could be not just one, but an infinity of identical copies of you, leading identical lives (and infinitely many others leading similar but not identical lives) is deeply unsettling.”

Worse yet, if the multiverse model is true, we may not even be living in a “real” universe at all. If there is even a small chance our universe is simply a Matrix-like simulation (and this possibility certainly exists), the infinite number of universes assures there are also an infinite number of such “computer simulation” universes. While this probably seems absurd (and it ought to), it is the zany, inevitable consequence of multiverse theories.

While multiverse theories fail to explain fine tuning, one thing they concede is that the fine tuning in our universe must have been caused by something outside of our universe. There is nothing inside our universe that could have done the job, and this is a major concession. As Christian theists, we agree that something or Someone outside the universe is the cause of its fine tuning.

Existence of God, Science and God

Does a Multiverse Explain the Fine Tuning of Our Universe? Part 1

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J. Warner Wallace, in his new book God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe, investigates the causes of the fine tuning of our universe. One of the most popular explanations is that there exists multiple universes (the multiverse) and ours is just lucky enough to have the fine tuning that permits life.

Wallace presents the multiverse theory as an explanation for fine tuning as follows:

Multiverse explanations, however, point once again to an external causal agent: a mechanism capable of creating an incredibly large number of universes, each with its own set of physical laws. Most of these universes in the multiverse collection are incapable of permitting life. Our universe, however, through “a series of cosmic accidents,” just happens to support our existence.

Multiverse theories overcome the incredible odds against life (and explain the appearance of fine-tuning) by increasing the chances of such a life-permitting universe. Multiverse theorists have proposed the creation of multiverses through a number of mechanisms, most commonly by way of “eternal inflation,” or “quantum tunneling.” Some physicists suggest the existence of an eternal, primordial vacuum (as we discussed in the last chapter).

According to proponents of eternal inflation models, if an infinitely old vacuum has been experiencing inflation, and the tiny bubble universes we described have emerged, each bubble universe might have its own characteristics and physical laws. Other physicists (such as Alex Vilenkin) propose “quantum tunneling from nothing” to explain the existence of an ensemble of universes without eternal inflation. In these quantum tunneling models, diverse universes pop into existence, because in “quantum mechanics the behavior of physical objects is inherently unpredictable and some quantum processes have no cause at all.”

In both eternal inflation and quantum tunneling models, the universes (some older than others) emerging from the vacuum coexist within the larger multiverse. In each of these proposals (eternal inflation, quantum tunneling, and even string theory models), the existence of a vast array of universes makes one like ours an inevitability.

Given a vast array of universes, one of them was bound to support life, goes the argument. The different forms of the multiverse theory each attempt to describe the mechanism for the creation of all these universes, but the outcome is the same: a massive number of universes.

But do these multiverse theories truly explain the fine tuning of our universe? Wallace thinks not. First, he argues that the multiverse theory lacks evidential confirmation.

Like string theory or M-theory proposals, multiverse models lack observational or experimental evidence. Scientists can’t access other universes in the multiverse because they are separated within the vacuum by too great a distance (and according to these theories, this distance is growing).  As a result, many scientists, especially string theorists, are suspicious about the existence of a multiverse. Some call it a “fantasy”; others call it “intellectually bankrupt” or a “cheap way out.” Lacking evidential support, many physicists see the multiverse theory as deficient when compared to efforts to find unity within the laws of physics.

But eternal inflation models face an even greater barrier. Our expert witness Alexander Vilenkin has already testified (along with Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Audrey Mithani) against the possibility of an eternal, uncaused, expanding vacuum. According to these experts, if inflation (expansion) has been occurring in this vacuum, it must have had a beginning and therefore cannot be eternal.

In part 2, we will look at 3 more reasons multiverse theories fail to adequately explain the origins of fine tuning.

Existence of God

Does the Anthropic Principle Explain the Fine Tuning of the Universe?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most fascinating discoveries of modern science has been that the universe is finely tuned to support human life.  Philosopher of science John Lennox, in his book God’s Undertaker, notes that “this perception on the part of scientists, that the universe has to be very precisely structured in order to support life, has been called the anthropic principle.”

Christian theists argue that this fine tuning calls for an intelligent creator of the universe as an explanation.  How do non-theists respond to the fine tuning of the universe?

Lennox explains:

Some scientists and philosophers maintain that we ought not to be surprised at the order and fine-tuning we see in the universe around us, since if it did not exist then carbon-based life would be impossible, and we would not be there to observe the fine-tuning.  In other words they use the anthropic principle against the inference of design.  In fact, Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion tells us that the anthropic principle and God function as alternative explanations.

One response, then, to fine tuning, is to say that we should not be surprised at fine tuning because if there were no fine tuning to explain the origin of intelligent observers, then we would not be alive, as intelligent observers, to observe the fine tuning.  Does this really explain anything, though?  This explanation seems like a sleight of hand, or no explanation at all.  Lennox reveals why we feel this way:

All the anthropic principle does is to tell us that for life to exist, certain necessary conditions must be fulfilled.  But what it does not tell us is why those necessary conditions are fulfilled, nor how, granted they are fulfilled, life arose.  Dawkins is making the elementary mistake of thinking that necessary conditions are sufficient.  But they are not: in order to get a first class degree at Oxford it is necessary to get into the University; but, as many students know, it is certainly not sufficient.  The anthropic principle, far from giving an explanation for the origin of life, is an observation that gives rise to the need for such an explanation.

One of the easiest ways to see that the anthropic principle, by itself, is not a sufficient explanation, is by reviewing an illustration given by philosopher John Leslie.  He says that using the anthropic principle against the design hypothesis

sounds like arguing that if you faced a firing squad with fifty guns trained on you, you should not be surprised to find that you were alive after they had fired.  After all, that is the only outcome you could possibly have observed – if one bullet had hit you, you would be dead.  However, you might still feel that there is something which very much needs explanation; namely why did they all miss?  Was it by deliberate design?  For there is no inconsistency in not being surprised that you do not observe that you are dead, and being surprised to observe that you are still alive.

Rather than give an explanation of the fine tuning of the universe, the anthropic principle merely invites us to ask for a real explanation.  I think we would all like to know why all 50 people in the firing squad missed us.

Existence of God, Science and God

Is the Multiverse Hypothesis Scientific Or Not? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 of this series, we learned that there are two versions of the multiverse hypothesis, level 1 and level 2.  The level 1 multiverse is non-controversial as it is basically an extension of our current universe in space.  The level 2 multiverse, however, makes much grander claims and is fraught with problems.  We pick up with cosmologist George F. R. Ellis’s Scientific American article from August 2011.

So what is wrong with the level 2 multiverse hypothesis? Ellis explains:

What is new is the assertion that the multiverse is a scientific theory, with all that implies about being mathematically rigorous and experimentally testable. I am skeptical about this claim. I do not believe the existence of those other universes has been proved—or ever could be. Proponents of the multiverse, as well as greatly enlarging our conception of physical reality, are implicitly redefining what is meant by “science.”

Why is the level 2 multiverse not scientific?

The key step in justifying a multiverse is extrapolation from the known to the unknown, from the testable to the untestable. You get different answers depending on what you choose to extrapolate.  Because theories involving a multiverse can explain almost anything whatsoever, any observation can be accommodated by some multiverse variant. The various “proofs,” in effect, propose that we should accept a theoretical explanation instead of insisting on observational testing. But such testing has, up until now, been the central requirement of the scientific endeavor, and we abandon it at our peril. If we weaken the requirement of solid data, we weaken the core reason for the success of science over the past centuries.

Ellis sympathizes with those scientists who posit the level 2 multiverse as a “way of resolving deep issues about the nature of existence,” but he argues they are misguided. 

All the same issues that arise in relation to the universe arise again in relation to the multiverse.  If the multiverse exists, did it come into existence through necessity, chance or purpose?  That is a metaphysical question that no physical theory can answer for either the universe or the multiverse.

The level 2 multiverse, then, is not a scientific explanation, but is philosophical speculation.  It is an alternative metaphysical idea that is simply meant to replace the metaphysical idea of a supernatural Designer.  Those skeptics who constantly chastise Christians for doing metaphysics, and who then turn around and posit the level 2 multiverse as the cause of the fine tuning of the universe, find themselves also doing metaphysics. 

It seems that skeptics come to a fork in the road here.  Either admit that metaphysics is unavoidable and climb onboard with theists, or stop offering the multiverse as an explanation to anything.  What skeptics may not do is claim that they are only offering scientific explanations while at the same time arguing for the multiverse.  That door is closed.

Existence of God, Science and God

Is the Multiverse Hypothesis Scientific Or Not? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most powerful arguments for God’s existence is the fine tuning argument.  Rather than rehearse it here, please read Wintery Knight’s presentation of the argument.  Many atheist scholars acknowledge the persuasiveness of this argument (e.g., philosopher Peter Millican did as much in his recent debate with William Lane Craig), although not granting its conclusion.

The most common escape hatch that atheists scurry through when confronted with this argument is to offer the multiverse hypothesis.  This hypothesis, some of them argue, is much more plausible than the God hypothesis because it is a scientific explanation for the fine tuning of the universe for life.  What is this hypothesis and is it scientific?

In the August 2011 issue of Scientific American the world-renowned cosmologist George F. R. Ellis weighs in to explain exactly what the multiverse is.  First, Ellis clarifies what cosmologists mean by the term “multiverse.”

The word “multiverse” has different meanings. Astronomers are able to see out to a distance of about 42 billion light-years, our cosmic visual horizon. We have no reason to suspect the universe stops there. Beyond it could be many—even infinitely many—domains much like the one we see. Each has a different initial distribution of matter, but the same laws of physics operate in all. Nearly all cosmologists today (including me) accept this type of multiverse, which Max Tegmark calls “level 1.”

The level 1 multiverse refers to what lies outside our visual horizon.  This “multiverse” contains the same laws of physics as the universe we can observe, and it is really just an extension of our universe.  I find the term “multiverse” to be misleading in this case, but I don’t get to choose the names for scientific theories.  As Ellis says, the level 1 multiverse is not controversial.  But this is not the notion of the multiverse that atheists invoke to avoid the conclusion of the fine tuning argument. 

Ellis continues:

Yet some go further. They suggest completely different kinds of universes, with different physics, different histories, maybe different numbers of spatial dimensions. Most will be sterile, although some will be teeming with life.  A chief proponent of this “level 2” multiverse is Alexander Vilenkin, who paints a dramatic picture of an infinite set of universes with an infinite number of galaxies, an infinite number of planets and an infinite number of people with your name who are reading this article.

If there truly are an infinite set of universes, argue some atheists, then it seems that at least one would have the life-permitting fine tuning of our universe.  Therefore, there is no need to posit a Designer of our universe at all.  The level 2 multiverse virtually guarantees that our universe would exist, as it guarantees that every other kind of conceivable universe exists.

In part 2 of this series, we will look at what is wrong with the level 2 multiverse hypothesis.