Bubba

Does anyone know of a good essay debating Hugh Ross on the fine tuning principle? In other words, Ross argues that the universe has too many finely tuned values to be self existant or self created.

Bubba

eh

Quite easily.

The statement the universe has too many finely tuned values to be self existant or self created is pure speculation. We are without an understanding of quantum gravity, and can't really say what, if anything, is actually fine tuned.

Even if most physical laws can be altered, inflationary cosmology offers an answer. The laws of physics would vary in different regions of the universe, and it would be likely that all possible worlds would exist somewhere. Since Ross already accepts the inflationary BBT, he accepts the mechanism that would allow such a universe to exist. Thus, his claim is nonsense.

luvluv

Don't quote me, but I don't think Ross does accept the inflationary scenario. I'll double check that. Are reffering to is the notion scientists promoted to explain the uniformity of the cosmic background radiation? That the universe expanded much faster than normal for some unknown reason and then slowed down just as inexplicably? If that is what you mean by inflationary, I'm pretty sure Ross does not accept that. (I'm no science wiz, though, so I could be wrong).

Beyond that, it seems like all your objections to Ross are philosophical rather than scientific. The inflationary hypothesis I described above (if that is what the inflationary hypothesis is, I get my terms confused) seems to me to be jury rigged. It is just a lean-to explanation propped up onto the fact that scientists have no naturalistic explanation of how the background radiation could possibly be so smooth and uniform. It's pretty extravagant to argue on those grounds that physical laws differ in other parts of our universe. That seems rather unscientific particularly since we don't even know for sure that they varied ONCE. That being the case, one could certainly make philosophical end-runs around Ross's conclusions but it is harder to do so scientifically.

I mean, you'd be pretty merciless to a theist who justified his beliefs by saying "Well maybe the physical laws of the universe differed 6000 years ago to make it LOOK like there were dinosaurs and pre-historic men". That's essentially what you are saying about the universe. Is it possible? Yes. Is it a convincing counter-argument? I'd say no.

Lee Smolin and Brian Greene are on record as saying that there are several anthropic coincidences that quantum gravity would not solve.

[ November 10, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

eh

I believe so, yes. In one of his books, he tried to pass off the bit in the bible that says God stretched out the heavens to be a reference to inflation. Of course he neglected to mention that a scalar feild, and not a deity, is said to be the cause for this inflation. It could have been someone else who wrote that, but I'm pretty sure it was Ross.

Of course they are philosophical. That's because all of his arguments are of the same nature - and unscientific. I just think his AP claims are unjustified, since there are more potential, viable naturalist explainations available.

While you may object to inflation theory, the BBT needs it to work. If you think it's ad hoc to use inflation to explain what happened, compare it to using magic as an explaination. The difference is, inflation is somewhat testible (and as I've said, has made some successful predictions) whereas the deity concept, is not.

That the laws of physics could be different in other parts of the universe, has nothing to do with the cosmic background radiation. It only has to do with the AP, so let's not get them confused.

I don't think that matters, since Ross's conclusions aren't based on science. Claiming a untestible deity to be responsible for the AP is hardly science. If you want to claim that multiverse speculation is unscientific, that's ok - but it seems absurd to claim that a deity IS.

Also keep in mind that if inflation is proven to be correct, then the multiverse at least has a mechanism to allow it. You're right if you think it's mere speculation at this point, but I don't see why a deity is a better explaination.

But you've missed a key point. We know of a mechanism that could allow for the laws of physics to be much different in other parts of the universe. Claiming that in an infinite universe, the laws of physics may differ, when inflation allows for that to happen, does not seem so bad. At the very least, it is no worse than claiming deities did it.


And neither have a full quantum theory of gravity. Yay.

luvluv

All right, well if what you are talking about involves scalar fields then I can confidently state that Ross does not believe in them. I remember in his book The Creator and the Cosmos he went into detail as to why he did not believe in the inflationary model.

I believe you are being a bit imprecise to describe inflation as a "mechanism". It would probably be more accurately explained as a hypothesis or a theory. It isn't a mechanism like natural selection or general relativity. The mechanism you are actually using is speculation: since you speculated that the laws of the universe changed for inflation, then it is okay to speculate that the laws of the universe can change. I think that would be a misuse of inflation theory to begin with but beyond that it would not at all amount to a mechanism. In fact, inflation itself is in need of a mechanism to explain how any power in the universe could speed up the expansion of the universe to such an unheard of degree and then slow it down. Far from being a mechanism, inflation is an explanation in serach of a mechanism.

Even if you were to say that a inflation was a mechanism, you could just as easily say on those grounds that the ressurection could be justified by the inflationary hypothesis. I mean, the second law of thermodynamics was likely to reverse itself SOMEWHERE at some point in time in the universe, so we shouldn't be suprised that it did so just with the constituent part of Jesus's body.

Other than the uniformity of the cosmic background radiation, why does the Big Bang need inflation to work?

What does inflation accurately predict, other than the uniformity of the cosmic background radiation?

eh

I can only guess. Could it be that it reduces God's act of creation to an absolute bare minimum?

Seriously, I could have sworn it was him who made a reference to God stretching the heavens. Does anything in particular come to mind, as to his reasons? And how does he go about explaining something like the flateness problem?

Uhh, natural selection and GR are theories about mechanisms. The same goes for inflation, even if it does not have the supporting evidence that GR does.

I think you're misunderstanding the idea completely. Chatoic or eternal inflation, the concept I've been refering to, is not a theory of the beginning of the universe. Nor does it replace the big bang theory. Inflation happens after the universe already exists, and could be something that happens often. It is a possibility that the laws of physics could differ in regions of space where inflation has occured. That's all there is to it.

Err, where in the world did you get your information on the subject? Inflation is a theory on exactly how that can happen.

What on earth inspired you to write that? What does a region of spacetime heating up have to do with a living human coming back to life?


This page should about cover it.
<a href="http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm" target="_blank">http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm</a>

Now I'm sure Ross would claim that the big bang problems can be be solved with magic. This sounds like a case of wanting to have his cake, and eat it to. That is to say, he accepts the theories that fit with his beliefs, and rejects those that do not, regardless of the evidence. Seeing how he deals with evolution, this is probably the situation here.

But I have no problem with someone claiming God created the universe. It's when they claim things like the AP demand a God - when other, viable non theistic explainations exist, I tend to think they are being dishonest. Ross is a perfect example.

luvluv

eh:

I was wrong and you are right. I went back over Creator and the Cosmos and he does believe in scalar fields. Brain malfunction on my part. Sorry. He went through the type 1a supernovae and all that stuff, so he does believe it. Maybe I had him confused with someone else.

If I understand it correctly, it is the theory that the big bang sped up initially and then slowed down, correct? Didn't inflation occur in all of space? I mean, wasn't the inflation of the entire cosmos at one point speeding up and then slowing down? So do scientists believe this can happen in one region of the universe and not others?

That's kind of my point. What does a region of spacetime heating up have to do with most of the anthropic coincidences? It's a pretty broad brush stroke to say that because the laws of the universe were altered at one time that all anthropic coincidences can be explained away by saying "Oh the laws might have been different when that was came to be". Is that what you are saying?

Okay, but I don't think "the laws of the universe might have been different" is a viable non-theistic explanation. You could explain away any anomalous calculations that don't fit your hypothesis by simply saying "the laws of the universe might have been different". Assuming that is what you are saying.

eh

Well, you just have to keep in mind that inflation isn't a theory about the big bang. The universe should be expanding whether or not inflation occurs, and the theory really only deals with what happens after.

So picture an expanding, empty universe. This kind of universe is a vaccum, but has energy at every point in space. Now imagine a small region of this space starts to inflate into a fireball in a mere fraction of a second. This region expands at a rate much faster than anything we've seen anywhere else, but as soon as the inflation ends, the expansion slows down to a normal speed. While this region is expanding (and will perhaps accelerate faster over time, due to the vaccum energy) we cannot know what is going on in the rest of the universe.

Sorry, I should have been less vauge. Inflation theory is a child of the grand unified theories of the 1980's. These GUT's dealt with particle physics. The idea is, since virtually all particles were created from the inflation epoch, and there could be an infinite number of particle configurations, then it follows that the laws of physics might be different in each inflating region of the universe.

Without a TOE, we can't really know how many possible configurations there really are.

If inflation theory is on the right path, then the multiverse concept gains a lot of credibility. But even if it is wrong, how does the concept of a non physical deity deserve any more respect? Ross claims not only that the deity concept is more viable, but also the only realistic option.

Is it more of an assumption to say, that in an infinite universe, the laws of physics are exactly the same, everywhere?

luvluv

How would inflation help the multiverse concept?

It seems to me, eh, that at best you can say that the two possibiities are basically equally tenable. I don't think you can call one or the other ridiculous. Your original statement implied that Ross's views were absurd, now you seem to be saying they are premature. I could almost agree with that, except that the multiverse theory can never be proven, so I'm not sure what difference it would make when Hugh Ross made his claim. He can't wait around for the multiverse theory to be proven. They seem to be in the same epistemelogical boat. (In fact, Ross even argues that there is an element of fine tuning in the scalar field and attempts to use that to bolster his argument).

eh

I thought I just explained that in my previous post. If all physical laws are created from an inflation epoch, and there are an infinite amount of possible physics, then it makes sense that different inflated areas of the universe will look very different. Have you heard of the self reproducing universe? Some further reading would be able to explain it better than I can.

I think there is some confusion here. I don't find the idea that God created the universe to be absurd. However, I do find the claim that a deity is the only possible explaination, to be absurd and dishonest. That would be like me arguing the multiverse MUST be true because of the anthropic issues, when there are many other possible alternatives.

This is where I disagree. One is at least a scientific theory, which makes important predictions. While much of it is speculation at this point, it at least has the potential to be falsified. The other idea, is a religious viewpoint that could never be proven false. You can call it a matter of philosophy, but I hope you can understand why I would favor one over the other.


I'm not surprised.

Perhaps one day, quamtum gravity research will find that our universe could only have evolved this way. With gravity being the way it is, perhaps this is the only possible world. In that case, Ross and friends will of course be arguing that the gravitational feild itself is fine tuned. Of course, Ross will exempt his God from this line of reasoning.