Alan Lightman, a physicist at MIT and author of one of my favorite novels (Einstein’s Dreams), thinks that speculating about the multiverse theory is a sign that physics is stepping outside the boundaries of science and into the realm of faith:
The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles. One can add to the list of the fully explained: the hue of the sky, the orbits of planets, the angle of the wake of a boat moving through a lake, the six-sided patterns of snowflakes, the weight of a flying bustard, the temperature of boiling water, the size of raindrops, the circular shape of the sun. All these phenomena and many more, once thought to have been fixed at the beginning of time or to be the result of random events thereafter, have been explained as necessary consequences of the fundamental laws of nature—laws discovered by human beings.
This long and appealing trend may be coming to an end. Dramatic developments in cosmological findings and thought have led some of the world’s premier physicists to propose that our universe is only one of an enormous number of universes with wildly varying properties, and that some of the most basic features of our particular universe are indeed mere accidents—a random throw of the cosmic dice. In which case, there is no hope of ever explaining our universe’s features in terms of fundamental causes and principles.
It is perhaps impossible to say how far apart the different universes may be, or whether they exist simultaneously in time. Some may have stars and galaxies like ours. Some may not. Some may be finite in size. Some may be infinite. Physicists call the totality of universes the “multiverse.” Alan Guth, a pioneer in cosmological thought, says that “the multiple-universe idea severely limits our hopes to understand the world from fundamental principles.” And the philosophical ethos of science is torn from its roots.
December 21st, 2011 | 3:31 pm
Any scientific theory that introduces the concept of the multiverse just to explain away the alleged “fine tuning” of our universe will not stand, because it will not be a successful scientific theory. It is the job of theoretical physicists to attempt to give naturalistic explanations for the universe as we know it. Introducing the multiverse as a hypothesis or an interim theory is perfectly reasonable. But if it turns out the sole justification is to claim our universe is the way it is because it is one of an infinite number of universes, and at least one of them had to turn out like ours, it will be a failure, and scientists will reject it. So I don’t see a problem here.
Based on an infinitesimal knowledge of contemporary physics, my hunch is that the people who say string theory is “not even wrong” are probably going to be vindicated.
December 21st, 2011 | 3:54 pm
This is a very interesting article. Thank you for posting the link.
I do not understand (although I am sure Professor Lightman could explain) why the hypothesis that there exist very many randomly-generated universes should make us despair of finding an explanation for the so-called anthropic principle. In fact, it seems we have two perfectly good avenues of approach.
First, the multiverse may turn out to be like plain old thermodynamics. I am living in a room, the ensemble of the air molecules in which have some randomly-generated distribution of energies. But from a consideration of the distribution function, we can conclude that certain temperatures (mean kinetic energy) are extremely probable and others are almost impossible. May not the explanation of the anthropic principle be found if we consider the distribution of macroscopic quantities, which are random variables (functions of random quantities) among the various universes?
Secondly, in plain old quantum mechanics we have the problem that the energy of a bound particle is in an indeterminable (to us) state until we measure it. But measurement projects it into an eigenstate so that we must always measure an eigenvalue. May we not hope that the instantiation of each universe in the multiverse constitutes a “measurement” which turns up only certain possible values for, say, the fine-structure constant?
Could we look for some kind of analogue to Schroedinger’s equation, one the eigenvalues of which, perhaps the vastly most probable, is the actual value we measure for the fine structure constant?
December 21st, 2011 | 4:12 pm
OK, I just saw David’s comment and I think that is a misleading point in the article.
It is not likely that the multiverse hypothesis is introduced just to explain that some universe exists in which the fine tuning is the way we find it. That would not be physics and Lightman and Guth would not waste time with it.
There must be some theoretical hypothesis, a consequence of which is that multiple universes would arise. And if the hypothesis involves “random” quantities, the first question one should ask is “What does the hypothesis tell us about the possible distributions of the random quantities?” and the second should be “What functions of the random quantities can we define which would be expected to have small variances?”
December 21st, 2011 | 6:41 pm
From the article it seems that first the fine tuning was discovered, and scientists then went looking for ways to explain it that didn’t necessitate a creator. That is what I also understand from other sources, mainly Stephen Barr’s Modern Physics and Ancient Faith. But according to this article, once the multiverse theory was proposed and scientists looked at it, they found reasons to believe it was necessary. At least that is my interpretation as a layman.
December 21st, 2011 | 7:32 pm
“Intelligent design, however, is an answer to fine-tuning that does not appeal to most scientists. The multiverse offers another explanation. If there are countless different universes with different properties—for example, some with nuclear forces much stronger than in our universe and some with nuclear forces much weaker—then some of those universes will allow the emergence of life and some will not. Some of those universes will be dead, lifeless hulks of matter and energy, and others will permit the emergence of cells, plants and animals, minds. …”
We have no scientific proof that this Universe naturally (mindlessly and accidentally) brought about the emergence of rational minds. Self-awareness and rationality cannot arise from mindless, lifeless matter and energy regardless of how they are configured. Yes, the physical brain occupies space and its electrochemical activities are in some mysterious way interfaced with the mind, but the immaterial mind and its thoughts are just that: immaterial. They are qualitatively different from the physical brain. They are not observable by science. We may correlate electrochemical activity in the brain to the viewing of a bright red apple, but there is no physical image of a bright red apple to be found in the brain. Yet one is being seen – and can continue to be seen in the mind’s eye even after one’s eyes are closed. How is that? Exactly where is the image that is seen in the mind? What is it made of?
How is an abstract concept, which has no material existence at all, seized upon by a strictly material mind? Quite obviously and demonstrably the mind is affected by immaterial abstract concepts. But how does a strictly material brain seize upon and become affected by that which has no material existence? It doesn’t. There is an immaterial, spiritual component to the mind. This is why the mind cannot arise from mindless, lifeless matter and energy alone regardless of how they are configured.
This is quite obvious to nearly everyone who has not been hopelessly indoctrinated by atheistic, materialistic science. It seems to many of the un-indoctrinated that none of the universes in the multiverse will be able to mindlessly and accidentally bring about minds from lifeless, mindless matter and energy simply because that is impossible. In fact, as Lightman points out, “we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.”
Hmmm … It seems that belief in multiverse theory is a faith-based, not a scientific belief. It appears to be no more than a belief promoted by faith-based atheism (it can’t be proven that God isn’t there – that belief must be taken on faith) in its desperate attempt to avoid the implications of the discoveries of modern science, which indicate that the best explanation for various realities, such as the fine tuning of the Universe and the astounding functional complexity of the nanotechnology of life, is a Mind. And, of course, that is the best explanation for the immaterial component of the mind.
December 21st, 2011 | 8:16 pm
Lightman’s article is a very good short description of the topic of the multiverse that Brian Greene addresses in his latest book, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. It is well written and anyone interested in this topic would be well served by reading it.
The suggestions that Felapton offers for evaluating the “distribution” of alternate universes carry, it seems to me, the assumption that these universes interact with each other the way that different regions of space interact thermodynamically. But the whole point of the concept of multiverses is that they are disjunct and have no causal relationship with each other. Not only the matter and energy in each one is unaffected by and does not affect any other universe, but also the very LAWS that govern matter and energy and space are randomly variable among them.
The irony that Lightman points out, that those who argue for the reality of the multiverse as an explanatory hypothesis are on the same evidentiary footing as those who argue for the existence of God as an explanatory hypothesis, is even more significant than he acknowledges. It ends up boiling down to a personal preference whether one makes the obvious deduction that something or someone caused the “living universe” to be as precisely defined and governed as it is, or an attempt to escape that obvious conclusion by postulating an infinite number of things that one can never directly observe and cannot verify by experiment. It is a pure choice of what “unseen thing” one wants to believe in. Rationality does not force one or the other choice. That logically requires those who favor the multiverse to acknowledge that there is just as much evidence held by those who prefer the idea that the highly unlikely living universe we live in was actively created to serve that purpose.
I think that there is even a tie-breaker that weighs in favor of those who argue for the existence of God. In the infinite number of universes within the multiverse, every conceivable kind of universe exists somewhere. Additionally, the mathematics of this kind of process requires that there are an infinite number of every possible variation of universe. That means that since there is one universe with anthropic conditions that favor life (ours), there are an inifinite number of “living universes”.
Among the conceivable universes is one where a vastly superior intelligence exists that predates mankind and may even predate the particular universe itself (see Lightman’s discussion of the theory of eternal inflation). There is no reason to rule out a priori that this superior intelligence cannot fulfill all of the human parameters to functionally describe God. And there is no reason to rule out the possibility that this vastly superior intelligent being exists within one of the infinite number of “living universes”.
Finally, we have no reason to rule out the possibility that OUR universe is precisely one that is both living AND is home to a vastly superior intelligent being that meets all the human parameters that describe God.
In other words, the hypothesis of the infinite number of universes in a multiverse creates an argument that God exists and that WE are in God’s universe. The multiverse does not provide an escape from the conclusion that God
exists, but to the contrary argues that “God” MUST exist somewhere, and may exist in OUR universe. An effort to escape God forces us to run right into him again!
December 21st, 2011 | 9:54 pm
This is not new; physics has been a faith-based cult since its beginning. The faith of physics is atomic materialism and Newton claimed that God revealed to him that he created a Newtonian nature! I have a campaign to stop teaching of the cult of Newton in the classroom, and if the editors would allow a link to my blog, here it is:
http://densytics.com/2011/12/18/the-cult-of-newton-in-the-classroom/
December 21st, 2011 | 10:19 pm
To correct a point in the article: If I understand string theory correctly (I am not a theorist) it does not predict a gigantic number of universes. It simply is not able to select among the possible models allowed in the string theory framework. Peter Woit’s blog could be a useful reference.
December 22nd, 2011 | 1:50 am
Hi Mr. Swenson,
You may disagree, but I think popularizations of theoretical physics are a waste of time. I have never encountered anybody who had really learned anything from reading them.
For a serious introduction, a good place to start seems to be Barton Zwiebach’s “First Course in String Theory”, but the material in A. Zee’s “Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell” looks prerequisite.
I’ve put both in my study queue, because I think it’s really important to know when physicists are really talking about something substantive and when they’re just opining, especially when their opinions/theories overlap with theological questions. Unfortunately, my queue is a priority queue and things that have the potential to lead to monetary income tend to keep things like this from coming to the top. If theoretical physics were as lucrative as web-based pornography portal development, this universe would be a much better place, IMHO.
December 22nd, 2011 | 9:48 am
The logic of counterfactual hypotheticals and “possible worlds” was much discussed by philosophers and theologians in the 17th century. This work, because it was mostly framed in a theological form (e.g. “Does God know what someone’s life would have been, had they not died in infancy?) has been largely neglected.
Very briefly, the Jesuits, who supported Molina’s theory of “scientia media” argued that God did possess such knowledge; the Dominicans denied it, arguing that if truth is the correspondence of the understanding and its object, as St Thomas says (veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus) such knowledge would have no object to be true or false about, for, by definition, the counterfactual has no existence for his knowledge to correspond to.
Of course the same logical and epistemological questions arise, whether we are talking about God’s knowledge or ours (God knows the actual future, of course, because it is a product of his own eternal will).
As an aside, if there are as many multiverses as there are possible values for a given variable, then there would have to be as many of them as there are real numbers between 0 and1, which is an infinite set (and larger than the set of the integers) – but the concrete infinite is not found in experience.
December 22nd, 2011 | 9:54 am
The philosopher of science Craig Callender on the multiverse (review of Sean Carroll’s book in “A Leap Too Far in this Multiverse Explanation of Time” in New Scientist, 20 Jan 2010);
“Carroll and other peddlers of multiverses make us an offer: we will explain the unexplained if you add vast unconfirmable matters of fact into your ontology. In this case that includes a host of disconnected baby universes, an eternal mother universe entirely unlike ours, and half a dozen unknown mechanisms to get all this working. Assuming this explains the low entropy past – and with so much unknown it is hard to be sure another conspiracy isn’t lurking within – is this a good deal?
In most cases I don’t think so. Why is Manchester United perennially a good soccer team? Surely most solutions of the laws of physics don’t have them winning so much. How unnatural (and unfair) those initial conditions are! Nonetheless, a frothy sea of baby universes tempts no one. We shrug and say, that’s just the way it is. Sometimes it is best not to scratch explanatory itches.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527441.800-a-leap-too-far-in-this-multiverse-explanation-of-time.html
December 22nd, 2011 | 10:21 am
Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but as I understand it there are two different “multiverses” discussed in physics. One is the Everett Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics in which the wave function collapses into every possible permutation, each one splitting off into discrete, causally independent universes. This, of course, is problematic because it’s 1) not testable and 2) other interpretations explain the data just as well, so why bother?
The other “multiverse” notion has to do with Cosmic Inflation and involves an exponential expansion of space-time some time after the big bang, studded in at least one case (our own) with regions that contain matter, energy, etc. Inflation itself is testable and there is reasonable consensus among the scientific community that it played a major role in shaping the current state of our universe. The idea that there are other regions that could correspond to other universes is directly implied by the data that we can observe. Thus, while possibly wrong, the idea is not unscientific. The fact that it may (or may not, who knows?) solve an interesting philosophical problem (the fine-tuning question) is just a bonus. Two points. 1) I’m not physicist and I’m just repeating what I’ve read and 2) if the above sketch is right the term “multiverse” is a misnomer because it’s all the same universe with different regions of complexity separated by vast stretches of featureless space.
December 22nd, 2011 | 10:23 am
Harry –
Help me out. I’ve asked this question several times of those proposing an “immaterial, spiritual component to the mind”, and somehow I never get a straight answer.
Do you agree that such a ‘component’ should – at least, in principle – be detectable by science?
Consider – muscles don’t just contract at random. They do so because a nerve impulse coming from the brain or spine signaled them to contract. If we trace that signal backwards into the brain, we find that that nerve fired because other nerves or neurons caused it to fire. And in turn they fired because of other neurons, etc. This is all eminently causal – indeed, “mechanistic”.
Now, does the “immaterial, spiritual component to the mind” affect behavior? If so, it must somehow affect what nerves fire to what muscles and so forth. If we trace the causal chain of contraction to nerve to neuron to neuron, etc., backward we must get to a point where the math doesn’t add up.
Either a neuron fires that wouldn’t have fired absent interaction with the “immaterial, spiritual component to the mind”, or perhaps it doesn’t fire when it ‘should’.
We first realized the existence of the neutrino by seeing nuclear reactions where the math didn’t add up – conservation of energy and momentum was being violated, unless a particle of such-and-such energy was moving off in such-and-such a direction.
We keep getting better and better at imaging what’s going on in the brain. Do you expect that eventually we’ll see the material brain interfacing with a non-material ‘component’ by its effects on the material?
December 22nd, 2011 | 10:26 am
I ought to mention I don’t think Lightman presents the case for the “multiverse” in its best light. The very idea is an implication of a theory designed to explain other phenomena and not nearly as ad hoc as he makes it out to be.
December 22nd, 2011 | 10:28 am
As a physicist, I enjoyed Lightman’s article and think it was a great summary of the type of thought and philosophy underlying modern cosmology.
I am an experimentalist whose research is in optics and electromagnetism, so I’m no expert on cosmology. However, my background in physics and “water cooler” conversations with some theorist colleagues leads me to agree with Lightman. Specifically,
“That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.”
The anthropic principle is more of a philosophical belief than it is a theory. It is on the same level as an belief in an intelligent design scenario. Frankly, as a physicist and a theist, I think intelligent design is much more philosophically satisfying than the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle basically amounts to glorified question begging.
The multiverse theory is also more philosophical than physical. The ability to do experiments verifying or falsifying a multiverse theory is dubious at best. By definition, other universes are not observable.
It just goes to show that scientists are indeed human and their preconceived subjective beliefs are important to the course and development of science.
The book “Why Beliefs Matter: Reflections on the Nature of Science” by Brian Davies talks a bit about this. Those of you with an interest in philosophy of science, check it out.
December 22nd, 2011 | 11:12 am
Hi Ray,
I hope you don’t mind if I take a stab at this. But I have to warn you, I’m probably much more of an empiricist than Harry about these things.
I think the “immaterial, spiritual component of mind” is the algorithm evaluated by the pattern of synaptic connections that is assembled in the brain over the course of a lifetime. The brain, obviously, and synapses are physical, but the network instantiates an algorithm for processing the input from the sensory organs.
The algorithm, moreover, is probabilistic. If you give it the same input a quadrillion times, it will not necessarily evaluate the same response. One reason is that evaluation involves signals propagating simultaneously along different synaptic paths: the rates of propagation can differ according to the present state of the brain and also perhaps due to the environment.
I guess the idea I’m trying to convey is: the nervous system is physical, but the algorithm is not. Just as the code in a computer is stored on a physical medium, but the algorithm (say, Euclid’s algorithm for finding a GCF) is “spiritual.”
The “moral” part is that the brain “watches itself” evaluate sensory input and when it observes itself responding in an undesirable way to sensory input, it can modify itself to improve the response. But, of course, it can do the same to the part of itself which evaluates the predicate “undesirable” for this very process.
Does that sound convincing? Relevant? Coherent?
December 22nd, 2011 | 12:07 pm
Ray
Following a causal neural chain backwards to the brain and through various pathways does not preclude the immaterial aspects of the mind. Here is why;
The brain does indeed depend on the material parts (the neurons, synapses etc.,) but these material parts are organised in a specific manner. That is, there is a global distribution of causes that no single material part would be capable of producing on its own. The mind IS just the brain but it is the brain organised in a certain way. Of course we detect nothing but neurons because the neurons are a necessary condition of consciousness but they are not a sufficient condition. They are organised in particular patterns or clusters.
Think of a statue. Is there a part of a statue that is not marble? Of course not! Yet it is marble organised into a particular shape that is immaterial. A shape that no piece of marble could organise itself into.
This is called “contextual emergence” in other fields. See the work of Robert Bishop and Harrold Atmanspacher for this applied in chemistry;
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2934/
December 22nd, 2011 | 12:56 pm
I note this “faith” problem is not new in cosmology. After Lemaitre first proposed the Big Bang theory based on the then available data, an opposing theory became dominant, the Steady State, with the idea of doing away with the need for a beginning. One of the originators, Hoyle, of that second theory derisively called Lemaitre’s idea “big bang”. The name stuck. Steady State was the main theory well into the 1960s when the identification of what is believed to be the remnants of the Big Bang itself in the background radiation detectable in the sky.
Steady State having failed, an oscillating universe was proposed. Here the expansion slows, reverses, and eventually arrives at a Big Crunch followed by a new Big Bang. Again, the goal was to do away with a beginning. Unfortunately, studies showed insufficient matter distribution to allow the contraction and oscillating fell. If you’ve read the article, you know that the discovery that the expansion is accelerating hammered that stake home.
Question: Why do we need to assume there was no beginning?
The multiverse handles the same faith issue in a different way. What’s curious to me, is that none of Steady State, Oscillating, or Multiverse requires that there be no creator. They just exclude one from the explanation provided, as far as each goes.
It seems to me, that with the multiverse avoidance, for the first time, the limits of our observations are reached. The existence of other universes must be taken on faith. No further understanding can be reached about them, at least, not that can be experimentally produced.
December 22nd, 2011 | 1:54 pm
Hi, Ray, Felapton,
Science deduces the existence of some unobservable realities only by inference, like the existence of exoplanets that are detected through indirect methods rather than sensor imaging; similarly, gravity is an unobserved reality known only by its effects. While science will never directly “detect” the immaterial component of the mind it can deduce its existence from its effects.
An immaterial, rational soul/material brain interface must be there, since the mind can seize upon an be affected by abstract concepts that have no material existence, which could not take place in a strictly material mind any more than it could in a computer, enabling it to “understand” its input. “Meaning” is an immaterial reality that can have no more effect on the electrochemical activity of the physical brain than it does on the electron flow through a computer’s CPU – which is to say it has no effect on it at all. Yet “meaning” does affect the mind – it can only be doing so through its immaterial component.
We learned much about gravity without knowing exactly how it “connects” with matter. We knew it was a reality without ever directly observing it. We know that the unobserved, immaterial component of the mind is a reality by the mind’s ability to grasp and be affected by that which has no material existence, an ability that is beyond the reach of matter and energy alone. What is needed is for science to be as open to the reality of the immaterial component of the mind as it is to the reality of gravity.
December 22nd, 2011 | 3:06 pm
Harry, y’know, a simple “Yes” would be helpful. I wouldn’t mind a “Yes, and…” or even a “Yes, but…”; and while your answer came close (“An immaterial, rational soul/material brain interface must be there”), you never quite came out and said it should in principle be detectable by the effect it has on material things we can look at.
So, one more time, with feeling… :)
Should the “immaterial, rational soul/material brain interface” be in principle detectable by its effect on the material component of the system, i.e. the brain?
(Again, answers that begin with “Yes” or “No” would be the most helpful, but feel free to elaborate beyond that.)
December 23rd, 2011 | 10:29 am
Hi, Ray,
Just what is the “principle” under consideration here?
Thanks
December 23rd, 2011 | 2:12 pm
In physics, a thing is “material” only if it has mass, i.e., contributes to the energy-momentum tensor. So cosmologists often say that all matter was generated from radiation.
This kind of sounds like they think photons are God. But clearly, when we say God created the Universe ex nihilo, we mean He made the photons too.
The same confusion arises all the way “down,” with cosmologists saying, “Aha! The Universe was generated from X!” and theologians saying “But who created the X? X is part of the Universe too!” It’s sometimes tempting to dismiss the whole argument as vacuous.
Similarly, when physicists say something is a “cause,” they mean a necessary and sufficient precondition, i.e., one which precedes the effect in time. But theologians do not require that causes precede their effects in time (Teleological causes do not.) nor that they be necessary. (God freely chose to create the Universe.)
So, again, the arguments tend to go in circles. The physicist says, “This phenomenon has no identifiable cause!” and the theologian says, “The cause must be teleological! Now we know teleological causes exist!” Again, it is sometimes hard to take this kind of debate seriously.
December 23rd, 2011 | 6:11 pm
Hi, Felapton,
There was either once nothing natural at all and then there was, or that which we consider “natural” always was.
Naturally, phenomena do not arise from nothingness. If it seems that some phenomena arise out of nothingness that must only be the appearance of the matter, not the reality – at least that is the case if we are only allowing for natural rather than supernatural causes. If natural phenomena pop into existence out of sheer nothingness for no natural reason at all then the project of science is doomed to fail miserably – if science does nothing else at all it should at least explain to us how natural phenomena come about. Declaring that some phenomena pop into existence out of sheer nothingness for no natural reason at all is not science – it is what theologians have been saying all along: God created the Universe out of nothingness.
Science informs us of the natural explanations for natural phenomena. Natural phenomena have natural explanations whether or not science ever comes to an understanding of them. So what is the natural explanation for the eternal existence of the natural, if indeed what we consider to be “natural” always was? If that is the case then, again, science is doomed to fail miserably. If the scientific project ends with announcing that everything can be traced back to some “stuff” that just always was then that is the ultimate lame answer. One can’t ask how that “stuff” came to be: It didn’t – it always was. One can never know why it is there. There is no “why” – it just always was. Accepting that goes against everything science has taught us about there being natural explanations for natural phenomena. If the glorious quest of atheistic, materialistic science ends in it explaining to us that it was wrong about assuming there are natural explanations (whether it discovers them or not) for all that is natural, then that is indeed a very lame, miserable failure.
It is much more logical – and intellectually satisfying – to assume that there was once nothing natural at all and then there was, and ever since then what is natural has been behaving as science expects even if science doesn’t yet understand how it all works.
The Universe having a beginning and that that beginning is rooted in the supernatural makes much more sense. We can ask how that “stuff” came to be and get an answer. We can ask why it came to be and get an answer. What is natural always has a natural explanation that way – except for its supernatural origin (and, of course, the supernatural interventions Christians and other theists believe have taken place since then ;o). This makes much more sense than the Universe having always been there in some form or another without any possible natural explanation of “how” or “why” that “stuff” was always there. It is hard to take that notion seriously. It isn’t a such painful violation of one’s common sense as that to assume the natural had a supernatural origin since there was nothing natural around to launch it before it began.
If the natural Universe wasn’t always there then it had to have had a supernatural origin. If it was always there then the scientific project is doomed to end in failure.
December 23rd, 2011 | 6:47 pm
Yes the soul should be detectable in the same way the form of a statue is detectable through its material medium.
December 23rd, 2011 | 11:30 pm
Harry –
That a purely material analysis of the brain could point out the “immaterial, spiritual component to the mind” by its effect on the material. We would see neurons fire that “shouldn’t” even after we’ve accounted for all the material causes, or neurons that don’t fire even when every material cause says they “should”.
December 26th, 2011 | 7:06 am
Hi Harry and all,
Aren’t we now in as much danger of confusing ourselves by imprecise use of the word “natural” as we were earlier with “material?” Although I myself hate it when philosophical discussions devolve into nit-picking quibbles about definitions, I think it is problematic to use “supernatural” to mean “all that science can not investigate” without seriously considering the possibility that that could be the empty set.
For one thing, I think in the scientific sense, particles appear out of and disappear into “nothingness” all the time, when matter and anti-matter collide. We can insist that the existence of God is proved by the fact that things come being from nothingness. But this is an awfully tiny God; the cosmologists will certainly respond, “Aha, but things come into existence out of quantum fluctuations. Therefore this thing you call God is no more than a quantum fluctuation. Why would anybody pray to a quantum fluctuation?”
On the other hand, in asserting this proof, we already concede too much to naturalism. It is important to remember what science is really saying when it asserts that subatomic particles exist.
(We should, obviously, avoid fatuous nonsense about what “the meaning of ‘is’ is.” But disputing the nature of existence and pre-existence and self-existence and whether self-existent existence is pre-existently self-existent and all that is a grand old Catholic tradition, after all.)
When science says that a particle “exists” it often means that we have written down a differential equation and that a real solution to the equation exists. Then we look at the difference between solutions and expect (according to the postulates of quantum mechanics) to find radiation emitted at the frequency corresponding to the difference in solutions. And when we detect the radiation in a physical detector, we use a sort of short-hand and say that “a particle exists.” (This is how we find bound-state particles; the method of finding free particles is similar but takes a little more math.)
This is almost miraculously convincing: that solving an equation tells us what frequency of radiation to expect in our physical metal-and-glass photo-electric tube is very impressive. But it doesn’t tell us much about the source of the radiation.
Aristotle says a thing’s nature is known by what it does; if all we know about a thing is what frequency of radiation it will make in our detector, it’s a bit of a swindle to pretend we know “what it is.” Calling it an “X-particle” is really just using an abbreviation for “the entity which makes it possible to predict the frequency of the emitted radiation from this equation.”
December 26th, 2011 | 3:50 pm
Hi, Felapton,
I am not sure what “anti-matter” is, but I assume it is a natural phenomenon of some kind. If matter and anti-matter colliding makes “particles out of and disappear into ‘nothingness’”, then that is not the same as natural phenomena appearing out of complete nothingness and returning to it. Those particles are a natural phenomenon with a natural cause, even if we don’t yet understand how and why they have the appearance of coming into being out of nothing and then disappearing back into it.
If particles really spring forth from genuine nothingness, and there really is no natural explanation for their appearance, then their cause can only be beyond nature, or supernatural.
Hi, Ray,
Maybe. Maybe not. How does gravity affect matter without our being able to observe anything except that it does?
December 27th, 2011 | 10:29 pm
We see the matter accelerating without any thrust being applied. The matter does something it wouldn’t do absent gravity.
The material brain affect the action of the body. If the immaterial causally affects the actions of the body (e.g., what someone says), it must do so by affecting the material brain. The brain must therefore operate in ways that purely material causes can’t account for.
And if something is affecting the brain such that it does something materially different… we should be able to detect it. Heck, even measure it, to a degree.
December 28th, 2011 | 9:34 am
Hi, Ray,
Yes. If an idea causes us to take some action then the immaterial has affected the material. Yet an immaterial idea has no more of an effect on the physical, electrochemical activity of the brain than it does on the electron flow through a computer’s CPU. There must be an interface of some sort allowing the integration of the rational soul, which can be affected by an idea, with the material brain, which cannot.
Our seeing that the immaterial — an idea — ultimately does have an effect on matter — the material brain and the body it directs — allows us to deduce the reality of the rational soul, just as the effects of gravity on the material allow us to deduce its reality.
“Understanding,” which is immaterial, can only take place in the rational, immaterial soul. The material brain can’t be the seat of that understanding because it is just that: material. This is why computers don’t really think and understand and why there is no such thing as “artificial intelligence.” The illusion of it can be created but it remains just an illusion. The computer or android still possesses no more intelligence than a box of rocks.
Even if a hologram created the illusion of an intelligent person being present perfectly, the reality would still be that there was “nobody home.” The hologram wouldn’t really be “thinking” any more than does a computer, an android or a box of rocks.
The difference between anything science creates that mimics – even perfectly mimics – an intelligent human being and a genuine human being is a rational soul, which science will never learn how to create. No matter what science creates it will always be just that: a “what” not a “who.” Only God can create a “who.” Thomas Merton pointed out that “God is pure who.” “Who-ness” is immaterial and can only come from another immaterial “who.”
January 3rd, 2012 | 10:49 am
Harry –
I think you need to very carefully define ‘affect’ here. For example, do the Fibonacci numbers ‘affect’ the broccoli-cauliflower? (http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hosted-sites/R.Knott/Fibonacci/romanesque.jpg or http://www.world-mysteries.com/illusions/BrocolliCauliflower.jpg)
What’s an algorithm?
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