Letters to the Editor
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Templeton Award? No thanks.
The mission of the Templeton Prize is to choose verrrry selectively, out of all available science, that which best suits the worldview of Bobble-believin' Christ-yuns. Since Paul Davies has accepted this tainted (at best) lucre, tell me again why he has any credibility as a scientist, especially when it comes to larger explanations for What It All Means? Obviously for such as Davies, What It All Means is summed up nicely in the Apostles' Creed.
I'll find my explanations elsewhere, thank you, among those who do not come to the table with as many preconcieved notions based firmly in the mythology of Bronze-Age goatherds.
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Sure we are
Yes, without a doubt the universe and its highly specified physical laws were purposely designed to foster the emergence of life and eventually us. Just add water, shake vigorously, and wait 14 billion years (ignore the millions of species that come and go during the first billion years after the appearance of self-replicating macromolecules, they are just for practice).
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Physicists want to be famous, too
And the quest for fame instead of knowledge usually leads to circular, self justifying stuff like this.
This is about religion, and only about religion, but the religions involved are physics and mathematics. Wolfram has theorized that the universe is completely non-random, that anything can be predicted, including the stock market and raindrops hitting a parking lot. A lot of what he has published parallels what Davies says, the difference being that Wolfram actually offers proof - he has successfully predicted hundreds of complex and seemingly random events which occured in the past using his algorithms. Davies offers "the universe exists because the universe exists, and relying on outside factors is too inelegant to consider seriously". No reason is given for why outside factors are enathema, any more than Judeo-Christians give a reason why God created the universe. He thinks its sloppy, so its sloppy. Not an anthropic universe, but an anthropic theory. He attempts to offer an explanation of Wolfram that moves everything back to his baliwick - the predictions were successful because of Wolfram's observations -without ever mentioning Wolfram, which shows that there is a likely a large political/religious element here.
He says, at the same time, that cause and effect is a purely human construct which has no real bearing on physical reality, that cause and effect works both ways in time and is critical to the formation of the physical universe we live in, and that cause and effect are irrelevant when it comes to the actual formation of the universe. Talking out of 3 sides of his mouth - a neat trick sure to get him millions in federal grant money.
The least egregious logical blunder in this whole thing may be his assumption that all life must be carbon based. Again, completely anthropic and unscientific. We don't even know if all life in this universe is carbon based, let alone infinite alternate universes (universii?).
In this particular religious war, I have to side with the mathematicians. At least they offer proofs instead of justifications for speculative rants.
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Why not just deal with the inevitable result of infinity?
Infinite number of universes (or in this case the multiplex) doesn't make it "probable" that we will come into being, it makes it absolutely unavoidable.
An infinite number of possibilities ultimately means an infinite number of results, some of which must be us.
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Mother Goose, the physicist
How many miles is it to Babylon?--
Threescore miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?--
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light.
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As flies to wanton boys
Let's assume, for the argument, that the universe was designed.
If to anyone, any 'meaning' that emerges will surely accrue to the designers, who can take some pride in the (partial?) success of their project. The products of their efforts are just that: products.
Does a car, a house, a toilet, a surge of industrial effluent -- have 'meaning'?
Agricultural animals are designed, but I don't see why their lives, from their point of view, would be improved by this knowledge.
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@Tentakles Re: The Crucial Point
Tentakles really focuses on the core confusion at the heart of the argument Davies makes:
Unless I missed something, Davies' hypothesis only requires that the universal quantum state inevitably gives rise to observers. It doesn't automatically confer meaning or purpose. The need for those things seems to be a property of people like Paulson and Davies.
In facing up "to the fact that there may be fundamental limitations just from the way our brains have been put together," Davies should consider that one of those limitations might be the emotional need for meaning and purpose that colors our search.
This is really just the same old argument from design, repackaged for a new millenium: there is order in the universe, ergo meaning and purpose in our lives as a gift from God.
No. There is order in the universe because that's how a universe has to look in order for beings like ourselves to show up. (This is what the Anthropic Principle really means.) And we have to be pattern-seeking, meaning-making kinds of beings, because that's part of the evolutionary path that leads to consciousness.
We don't have to develop critical self-reflection to the point where we understand these things about ourselves. So we can continue fooling and confusing ourselves.
OTOH, if there really were a God, she would make us smart enough to see through all this at a glance. She would make us inherenty smarter than evolution alone would, and we wouldn't fall for Davies's mental sleight-of-hand trick.
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Science?
Wow.
"The laws of physics work forward in time and backward in time equally well."
Ah, no. No they don't. Some do: Newtonian equations, for example, and some parts of quantum. But, there is this thing known as "Entropy." It, and the other laws of thermodynamics make it pretty clear that even if the equations seem to work forwards and backwards in time, it turns out that the universe actually doesn't. To paraphrase Tom Stoppard, once you stir something together you can't stir it apart again.
Second, the weak anthropic principle is a nice tool, especially if you combine it with the multiverse priciple. It gives an idea of how the laws of physics developed in a way that makes sense based on local observations: If there is a large enough pool of random variations given long enough time, any arbitrary set can emerge (basically, evolution with the selective pressure in this case being life or not life, cause the not life universes don't get observed). This does not answer the question of how this particular set of traits actually arose, but neither does it discard this question. I can explain the emergence of multicellular life from single celled life by the blanket of eveolution/natural selection, but I can ALSO go back and propose an explanation for the individual steps along the path actually taken. The weak anthropic principle allows the same thing.
here, "...in the strong anthropic principle, the observers are in the central position. They are the ones dictating how the universe is put together. And that seems too much for people to swallow. It gives mind and consciousness a central place in the great scheme of things." No, sorry. Science does not reject this because its too much to swallow, but because it is not valid as a scientific theory. It is certanly as valid as any other philosophical or religious beleif--but the problem with it as far as "science" is concerned is that it is not a testable theory with predictive power, thus fails the citerion for science vs. philosohpy. Saying the universe is this way because I observed it to be this way is a circular argument.
All together, this idea seems to be based on a common misunderstanding of the uncertanty principle. To observe something, you must change it. Therefore you cannot know both the position and velicity of any object precisely. At its simplest level, it means for me to observe the position of a particle, I have to bounce some other particle off of it. These photons impart energy and change the vector velocity of the thing being observed. The uncertanty principle is not magic...things don't exist in countless states until I notice them, thus bending them to my will and making them something else. No matter how long I look at it, my mouse won't become a blintz, and the cat in the box isn't literally dead and alive. Invoking the uncertanty principle to attribute magic powers of creation to concious minds is the teensiest bit completely absurd.
And "Dude, what if the universe is like, a giant comupter! And we're like, all just progams?" Is this whole book best described as the "Theory of Colledge Undergraduates in the Dorm Lounge at 4AM?" Come on.