While doing some very belated fall housekeeping just now, listening to the eminent philosopher, Daniel Came giving possible alternatives to The Big Bang in a "big bounce" speculation of an oscillating ensemble of universes (so as to avoid the type of absolute beginning of the universe such as the authors of Genesis intuited) and the refutation of arguments of design in this, our only known universe with multi-verse conjecture, something occurred to me that I've never heard anyone else bring up.
Multi-universe conjecture was invented on the premise that because our scheme of statistical probability - invented by us humans and obtaining whatever verification it has in this, our one, fine-tuned universe - means that any possible universe anyone comes up with and can make up equations for have an equal chance of happening or existing. But what if that basic premise of statistical probability is not, actually true when it comes to "other universes" which some of the most ardent proponents of posit are, in every way, different from our universe. It strikes me as quite possible that in the case of "universes" they just don't sort out in a way that is vulnerable to statistical analysis.
Why should that be true for every "possible universe" which ideologically interested cosmologists and mathematicians can posit has an equal chance to exist? Why couldn't it be as true that, in reality, in actual existence, ONLY the kind of universe which we are certain exits, is the only kind which can actually exist?
Our only possible frame of testing shows that the only kind of universe we can be certain exists is the one we inhabit, the one which seems very persuasively to be finely tuned and, therefore, indicative of the possibility of design.
We have no way of testing or frame of reference to say that any other kind of universe is possible, to claim that there is any reason to believe that any other kind of universe could exist or has any real probability of existing is unfounded.
We don't know that if there are 500,000,000,000,000,000 . . . other universes other than our own that there is any reason to expect anything except that every one of them will be "finely tuned" to make the possibility of intelligent life in them even an absolutely guaranteed aspect of the life of those universes.. If it's a certainty, as it seems to be in our universe, since we're here, is probability even relevant to it? I can't help it but the whole idea of there being more than one UNIverse jars me as a linguistic contradiction.
It could be that God abundantly creates such universes in order to create an infinite number of intelligent beings who are capable of doing as much and more than we can for reasons God chooses not to share with any of us.
Daniel Came and William Lane Craig, who Came was quite responsibly and quite politely refuting were engaged in an act of making logical arguments, not for the purpose of proof, I don't think anyone who has even a moderately sophisticated thought on the matter believes proof of any of this is possible, they are engaged in acts of PERSUASION. I think the arguments that Craig came up with requires less speculation and less invention of untestable things up to and including the ultimate in universe creation out of nothing (except equations) by very finite and limited minds. I have many disagreements with Craig on religion and politics, I do find his arguments were the more persuasive on the basis of intellectual plausibility.
Their arguments are the same being made by Genesis: not an "intuition" about the physical nature of the universe (as if such knowledge is somehow "true" and therefore superior to other kinds of knowledge), but an attempt to provide a meaningful narrative (which takes us to Ricouer, but I don't feel like going there in a comment).
ReplyDeleteGenesis, I would argue, didn't so much "intuit" the Big Bang (or a starting point to the universe) as establish a relationship between the God of Abraham and the cosmos (all that is, as the Greeks meant the word). It is the ultimate statement of God as Creator, complete with performative language ("Let there be light") and all creation arising from God's word (!; precisely where John's gospel makes the Hellenistic connection). Yeah, there's the second one, where God makes Adam out of mud and puts him in a Garden and steals a rib to make Eve, etc. I prefer the first one; because both of them are stories with purposes more profound and important than "how it happened."
As Sherlock Holmes famously argued, I may now the distance of the earth from the sun, but how does that affect my daily living? Science has its distinct value, but in matters of "truth" such as the age of the earth and its rocks, it really doesn't mean as much as the narrative about the relation of Creator to Creation and creature (us).