Ultimate Explanations of the Universe (23 page)
Read Ultimate Explanations of the Universe Online
Authors: Michael Heller
Tags: #Philosophy, #Epistemology, #Science, #Cosmology
God and Chance
In Christian theology random occurrence has never been set up in opposition to God. This finds its expression in the popular kind of devotion, for instance when someone thanks God for saving his life by making him held up in a traffic jam and miss boarding a plane which later crashed killing everyone on board. But isn’t such an attitude in conflict with the idea of a Divine Plan in the work of creation? Doesn’t the admission of genuine random occurrence kill the idea of planning in the bud?
Terms like “plan” and “purpose” obviously shift meaning when the element of time is absent. For God to plan is for the outcome to occur. There is no interval between decision and completion. Thus the character of the process which, from our perspective, separates initiation and accomplishment is of no relevance to whether or not a plan or purpose on the part of the Creator is involved.
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In the last sentence of this quotation McMullin means that from God’s point of view of planning a process it does not matter whether the process is deterministic or “interspersed” with random occurrences, since God does not deduce the final state from previous states but knows it “by inspection”. There is no expectation in His planning. What for us is an element of chance, brutally intervening in the course of events (as predicted by us), for God constitutes an element of the “composition of the world.”
Note that this understanding of the “Creation Plan” removes yet another objection frequently invoked against the theological opinion that God knows the future. It is often claimed that if God knows the outcome of my future actions, then that outcome has been determined before I accomplish it. Hence God’s foreknowledge cannot be reconciled with my free will. But if God knows events which from my point of view are in the future not on the grounds of deduction but by inspection, then I can be the free agent of an action which God has always seen from His extratemporal perspective.
It makes no difference, therefore, whether the appearance of
Homo sapiens
is the inevitable result of a steady process of complexification stretching over billions of years, or whether on the contrary it comes about through a series of coincidences that would have made it entirely unpredictable from the (causal) human standpoint. Either way, the outcome is of God’s making, and from the Biblical standpoint may appear as part of God’s plan.
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Thus Christian doctrine may be reconciled with a variety of interpretations of the origin of “novelties” like life or consciousness, but theology, in other words the rational interpretation of religious truths, is obliged to take into account the well-grounded results of science. And in this respect the verdict of science is clear enough: the universe in which we live is an evolutionary process, one of the strands of which leads from the primal plasma through the synthesis of the chemical elements, the emergence of the galaxies, stars and planets, to the inception of biological evolution and the flourishing of self-awareness. Any theological system which ignores that grand Cosmic Symphony condemns itself to marginalisation and chooses to follow a road leading to nowhere.
Ultimate Explanations of the Universe
, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-02103-9_21, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009
Michael Heller
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| Michael Heller Email: [email protected] |
Skeptic
there is an article by Robert Lawrence Kuhn entitled “Why This Universe? Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations.”1 Kuhn is patently excited by the prospects opened up by contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology. These prospects transcend the method employed in the empirical sciences in the narrow sense, well-nigh compelling the more inquisitive mind at least to ask questions. The anthropic principles have drawn attention to the exceptionality of our universe within the space of all the possibilities, and the idea of a multiverse has thrown the gate open to speculation. Kuhn decided to compile a “taxonomy” of all the explanations various authors have put forward for the amazing fact that the universe we live in is what it is and no other. As one reads Kuhn’s “catalogue of explanations,” which to a large extent overlaps with the explanations presented in the previous chapters of this book, one develops the impression that for Kuhn the question why the universe is what it is was a surrogate question. His real question comes at the beginning and end of his article.
L. Kuhn’S Catalogue Of Explanations
Skeptic
there is an article by Robert Lawrence Kuhn entitled “Why This Universe? Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations.”
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Kuhn is patently excited by the prospects opened up by contemporary theoretical physics and cosmology. These prospects transcend the method employed in the empirical sciences in the narrow sense, well-nigh compelling the more inquisitive mind at least to ask questions. The anthropic principles have drawn attention to the exceptionality of our universe within the space of all the possibilities, and the idea of a multiverse has thrown the gate open to speculation. Kuhn decided to compile a “taxonomy” of all the explanations various authors have put forward for the amazing fact that the universe we live in is what it is and no other. As one reads Kuhn’s “catalogue of explanations,” which to a large extent overlaps with the explanations presented in the previous chapters of this book, one develops the impression that for Kuhn the question why the universe is what it is was a surrogate question. His real question comes at the beginning and end of his article. In his introduction Kuhn admits that already when he was twelve he was suddenly struck by the question
why there was something in existence rather than nothing
. This admission is followed by an italicised paragraph which I shall quote
in extenso
:
Why not Nothing? What if everything had always been Nothing? Not just emptiness, not just blankness, and not just emptiness and blankness forever, but not even the existence of emptiness, not even the meaning of blankness, and no forever. Wouldn’t it have been easier, simpler, more logical, to have Nothing rather than something?
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This question haunted Kuhn. In his catalogue of explanations it is implied rather than expressly formulated. “Why is the universe what it is?” is only the inevitable sequel of “Why is it at all?” The question has accompanied us throughout this book, and now, at the end, we cannot but put it outright.
In the first part of this book we saw that cosmology, the contemporary science of the universe, cannot break free from asking ultimate questions. Admittedly, more insistent versions of such questions transcend the borders of the mathematical and experimental method employed in cosmology, but the representatives of this science often cross these boundaries themselves and indulge in speculation that is not so constrained by methodology. Nonetheless in all of these speculations there has to be a point of departure; you have to make some initial assumptions: maybe mathematics, the rules of deduction, the laws of nature, an infinite number of universes… If your initial assumption is NOTHING, then you stay with NOTHING forever. That is why I decided to write the third part to this book, on the concept of creation. It is a concept which attempts to face up to the question of “Why something rather than nothing?” Yes, it does go beyond the mathematical and experimental method, it cannot be any otherwise, but it has an established place in the history of European philosophy. So if I have devoted a large part of this book to an attempt to answer the question “Why something rather than nothing?” why am I returning to that question again in a separate chapter? Partly to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, but above all to take a look at the attempts to dodge the question.
Leibniz’S Question
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and he did so dryly and with no drama whatsoever. But apparently the contrast between the brevity of the question itself and the intensity of the sense – dramatic in itself – that this question carries fixed itself so firmly in the memories of the following generations of thinkers that afterwards they were never able to ask for the reason of the existence of anything at all other than in the way Leibniz had done. So let’s consult the original text. After rather briefly introducing the reader to the main ideas in his monadology, Leibniz states:
So far I have spoken only of
what goes on in the natural world;
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now I must move up to the metaphysical level, by making use of a great though not very widely used principle, which says that nothing
comes about without a sufficient reason
...
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Why is there something rather than nothing?
After all,
nothing
is simpler and easier than
something
.
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a sufficient reason that has no need of any further reason – a “Because” that doesn’t throw up a further “Why?” – and this must lie outside the series of contingent things, and must be found in a substance which is the cause of the entire series. It must be something that exists necessarily, carrying the reason for its existence within itself.
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Perhaps that is precisely the fate of that question: every unsatisfactory answer makes the question become more and more vexing.
The Domino Effect
There have been several attempts to “neutralise” Leibniz’s question. I shall present a few of them. Here is the first, frequently invoked in discussions.
We shall simply have to reconcile ourselves not so much to there being no answer to this question, as to there being no possibility of obtaining an answer to it. Expecting an answer to Leibniz’s question would mean calling for the deducing of something from non-existent premises. You can hardly hold it against the logician if he is incapable of doing that.
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Quite apart from the fact that all you can deduce from premises, i.e. a set of statements, is another statement (e.g. saying that something exists), but not the fact of the existence itself of something. However, if we gloss over this logical slip, the above attempt to neutralise Leibniz’s question is in fact its cogent, really dramatic reformulation. On the one hand we have nothing, zero existence (and no premises, either, to deduce anything from);
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while on the other hand there is the undeniable existence of something – the universe. We can’t hold it against the logicians that they cannot tackle this problem. Putting it somewhat metaphorically, the problem is the infinite distance separating NOTHING from SOMETHING. What Leibniz was asking was how to cross that distance.
The author of the entry in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I have just quoted writes with what looks like a touch of irony that there is not much consolation in Hume’s observation that although we can’t explain the existence of all things, we can explain the existence of every thing separately. Imagine an infinite row of dominoes standing upright and then tumbling in an avalanche-like manner, each pushing down the domino behind it. We know what caused the fall of each domino, even though we don’t know what made the whole row start to tumble. Hume was being optimistic in trusting that we are able to explain the existence of each thing on its own. Science tries to explain “the existence of every thing,” certainly not “on its own” or “separately,” but in far-reaching association with other things. And alas, as we have seen in this book, it is still a long way off from the final success. But it has scored some remarkable successes “on the way.” Which makes Leibniz’s question even more dramatic: not only should we be asking why something exists, but also why that something is open to rational methods of examination. This is the source of Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason – only in a rational world can we ask for reasons, also for the reasons why anything at all exists.
The Existence Of The Universe And The Rules Of Language
One of the variations of the above objection invokes the “philosophical syntax of language.” Leibniz’s question is a combination of words which are meaningless. The syntactic error consists in the fact that the word “nothingness” does not refer to anything and we can neither ask a sensible question about “nothing,” nor can we say anything at all about nothingness. Also the question “Why does something exist?” carries a syntax error, since it assumes that there exists a “something else,” apart from “something,” which could explain that “something.”
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The dispute over the philosophical (or logical) syntax of language separates off analytical philosophers from practically all other trends in philosophy, and even within the analytical fold there is no unanimity on this issue. Hence resorting to the rules of logical syntax in order to neutralise Leibniz’s question has the character of an “intra-systemic” criterion; outside the system it is not regarded as legitimate. I am far from querying the achievements of analytical philosophy, in the field of the philosophy of language as well. But it is one thing to determine the principles of “philosophical grammar,” and quite another to apply them to specific cases.
Philosophical issues certainly have a “linguistic component,” and ignoring it is a serious fault on the part of many philosophers. Every philosopher should be analytical as regards this component. But then resolving philosophical problems, including the Great Philosophical Problems (and Leibniz’s question is one of them) solely by means of linguistic resources is a serious fault on the part of many (not all) analytical philosophers. Often such solutions consist in getting rid of the problem as meaningless. One may not assume a priori that everything that cannot be formulated in ordinary language, even as rigorously defined as the language of philosophy, is not a genuine problem. Try formulating an advanced mathematical structure, e.g. describe the structure of spinor space, in ordinary though rigorously defined language. It is self-evident that mathematics is the language that has been created specifically for the description of structures like spinor structure,
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though this in no way alters the fact that spinor structure is a good example to show the limitations of ordinary language.
It is good to bear in mind Quine’s warning. After a rather arduous analysis of certain ontological problems he wrote: “But we must not jump to the conclusion that what there is depends on words.”
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The Probability Of Nothing
Peter van Inwagen proposed a rather peculiar answer to the question why there exists anything at all.
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His reasoning is as follows. There may exist an infinite number of worlds full of diverse beings, but only one empty world. Therefore the probability of the empty world is zero, while the probability of a (non-empty) world full of beings is one.
This apparently simple reasoning is based on very strong and essentially arbitrary assumptions. First of all, that there may exist an infinite number of worlds (that they have at least a potential existence); secondly, that probability theory as we know it may be applied to them (in other words that probability theory is in a sense aprioristic with respect to these worlds); and thirdly, that they come into being on the principle of “greater probability.” The following question may be put with respect to this mental construct: “why does it exist, rather than nothing?”
In fact once we have put this question we could consider our discussion with van Inwagen finished. However, I cannot refrain from referring the reader back to Chap. 20 Sect. 3, where I argued that we should not treat probability theory as an absolute and turn it into an ontology which governs everything, even the decisions made by God. Probability theory is simply a very good mathematical theory and the fact that it may be successfully applied to the world is truly astonishing. Should there be any readers with problems in accepting this statement, I encourage them to re-read Chap. 20 Sect. 3. Let’s consider the example of throwing a true die (see in Chap. 12 Sect. 3). In connection with van Inwagen’s argument, let’s ask what is the probability of throwing none of the numbers. The answer is self-evident: there is no such possibility at all. But why? Because we ourselves have defined the distribution function for the probabilities, on the grounds of many experiments, for the set of all possible outcomes of throwing the die. That function assigns the same probability, 1/6, to each of the possible outcomes, that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. On the grounds of the definition of the distribution function we have ruled out the occurrence of any other outcomes except for the above-mentioned ones. Of course we could have given a different definition of the probability function, but it would not be applicable to the throwing of a true die. For instance, it might apply to the throwing of a die with bevelled corners, in which case we would have the grounds for a definition of a probability function with a value assigned for the probability of not throwing any of the numbers.
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Rather that treat probability theory as an absolute, it might be worthwhile to stop and think for a moment how it actually works.
A Brute Fact
There is one further way out of the situation. To present it, I shall refer to Helena Eilstein, who in her recent book
Biblia w rku ateisty
(The Bible in the Hands of an Atheist) made her position plain.
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In her introduction she writes that she considers herself an atheist, not an agnostic, and gives an extensive explanation that there are many ways in which a given attitude may be rejected. She also explains in what sense she rejects the belief in the existence of God. It’s an interesting question, but not so relevant to our reflections right now. What is of interest to us is the manner in which someone who denies the existence of God tackles Leibniz’s question.
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There follows a cogent observation:
In fact, one of the characteristic features of contemporary science is that the limitation of the human cognitive powers is becoming more and more comprehensively apparent. Our observations cannot encompass the universe, irrespectively of whether it is constrained in terms of space-time or not. Our experiments cannot “directly” reach all the layers of physical existence, because, for instance, it is impossible for us physically to achieve the energy necessary for this. Moreover, sometimes it happens in science that asking for an explanation becomes warranted cognitively only once we have achieved the capacity to obtain an explanation.
We cannot rule out that some of the givens relied on by science are unexplainable for ontological reasons; they are “ontologically primary” and therefore do not call for an explanation, but merely for confirmation.
Note that the supposition that there are certain problems which science will never solve (and certain facts it will never explain) is quite natural, and many scientists and philosophers concur; but the claim that some of these problems relate to “ontologically primary givens” is a very strong ontological assertion.
In the scientific presentation of reality we should take into consideration the inevitability of having to acknowledge the conjecture that in certain of its most essential aspects the universe simply is what it is, and that we shall have to base our scientific explanations on this.
is that they take for granted that something exists and is what it is, and that this acknowledgement needs no further explanation, at least within the bounds of the given explanatory procedure.
Again a relevant observation, but it should be supplemented with the remark that science never withdraws from the possibility of explaining what has been accepted as “initially given” in the explanations obtained hitherto. In the opinion of many, even “the ultimate theory” will not bring an end to questions.
From the above it may be inferred that the question why something exists rather than nothing is illegitimate. The question is illegitimate since by the very nature of things there can be no answer to it. The fact that it exists is the ultimate, brute fact.
In the original Polish text Eilstein adds a footnote to explain that she had the English expression “brute fact” in mind, but could find no good Polish equivalent (she uses the phrase “naked fact”). Sympathising with her translation problems, I would recommend following the phonetics and writing
brutalny fakt
(“brutal fact”). Indeed, for anyone concurring with Helena Eilstein’s opinion, the existence of anything whatsoever is a brutal fact – brutal because it violates the principle which for me is the expression of rationality: that we should go on asking questions for as long as there is still something left to explain. And in philosophy it often happens that even if there is no answer to some questions, their examination may lead to progress.