Is God in the Details? Article from Reason Magazine, July 1999

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Is God in the Details?
From cosmic coincidence to conservative cosmopolitics.

By Kenneth Silber

Victor J. Stenger has created new universes. Lots of them. In some, the stars shine for only a fraction of a second. In others, atoms are the size of tennis balls and a typical day lasts trillions of hours. Stenger achieves these wildly disparate results by altering a few of the underlying "constants" of nature--the mass of a proton, for example, or the strength of the electromagnetic force. He ends up with worlds that look radically different from our own.

Stenger is a theoretical physicist at the University of Hawaii and author of a book titled The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology. His "universes" are computer simulations, the output of a program that he wrote and has named--a bit provocatively--"Monkey God." Stenger does not plan out the universes that he creates; he has allowed particle masses and force strengths to vary randomly, many orders of magnitude different from the levels observed in nature. A lot of the resulting universes, says Stenger, "look pretty funny but still had long-lived stars."

The behavior of stars and atoms in imaginary universes might seem like a topic unlikely to interest anyone who is not a theoretical physicist. Yet Stenger's calculations pertain to an issue that was initially raised by physicists but has lately echoed far beyond the scientific community--even spilling onto the covers of popular magazines and into the world of politics. The issue is an apparent "fine-tuning" of the laws of physics, a set of circumstances without which humans would not exist. And Stenger, with his computer universes, is trying to inject a note of reality into a public discussion that has run far afield of the relevant science.

More...

[Fenris]

1. I must ask: what are your degrees in?

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2. Physics

BA, physics.

MS, physics.

ABD on dissertation for Ph.D.

[Fenris]

13. That's what I thought

;)

[CrownPrinceBandar]

3. Coolness...

I love reading about this kind of stuff. I'm particularly a sucker for those Discover magazines that run headlines like "What was there before our universe?" I read "Universe in a Nutshell" and half the material went right over my head, but I still enjoyed it (I still can't grasp the whole quantum uncertainty thing). My friends eyes glaze over when I start talking about singularities and such.

Too bad I don't have the math brain for theoretical physics, it woulda been my ideal career.

[Az]

4. Fine tuning is countered by multiplicity of universes

String theory and some others seem to suggest that there may be a multiplicity of universes each giving rise to their own series of multiverses. Thus with a near infinity of universes available the issue of intent becomes moot as there is no need for fine tuning.

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5. Hey Az... Two questions for you:

1) What is your avatar?

2) What is your (academic) background in?

[Az]

7. Background

The avatar is Monkey D. Luffy from an anime series called One Piece. His devotion to ideals is a bit of a focus for me.

My background is professionally computers. However my passions and studies have been in physics/cosmology, psychology, sociology, memetics, philosophy(focus on eastern philosophies), and religious history. Much of the my studies were prompted by years of debating religion.

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8. You sound like you know your stuff.

[Az]

9. I do not like to debate dishonestly

I feel if I cannot properly represent a case I should back down. I spent a couple of years as one of the SOPs (think mod) of the Dalnet #atheism debate channel. You either learn your stuff there or you get eaten alive.

My studies have mostly been a case of delving first into the nature of the universe and more recently focused on the nature of the mind. The trick of course is connecting these two fields together and discerning just how it is that star stuff can learn to recognise itself.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

10. If you can do that ("The trick...itself.") ...

then I guess almost anything is possible.

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11. So, from what you read of my conversation with my fundie friend

How do you feel i represented my side?

Do you have any good books to recommend?

[Az]

12. Depends on your goals

Debating religion can be a frustrating exorcise. Particularly because of the nature of the human mind itself. If your goal is to destroy their arguments for the benefit of those watching on you can specialize in logical assaults and science (think books like Elegant Universe, The God Part of the Mind, Climbing Mount Improbable etc).

But if you wish to change the position of another you really have to take a different tact. First off do not expect to change them in a single pass. Belief is not so easily unseated. You have to build up a level of trust within them both for you as a representitive of an alternate view and a means of viewing the world through different filters. Without this leverage no argument or refutation will take a belief away from a person. If they do not have trust in a line of reasoning it will not overpower their life long established beliefs.

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14. I'm not trying to unseat his faith

I'm trying to get him to understand several points:

1. The scientific method is completely distinct and different from religious faith, and that it doesn't take faith to accept the results of reproducible scientific research.

2. One does not need to (and probably should not) defend one's faith by trying to produce empirical evidence.

3. That atheism is a valid viewpoint, stemming from the rejection of insufficient evidence.

4. That insisting on a literal interpretation of the bible forces one into a position of necessarily being intellectually dishonest to try to maintain one's viewpoint (e.g. -- creationists attacking all science that runs against biblical claims, and going as far as clinging to long-discarded scientific theories, just because they fit the bible).

5. That an agnostic atheist's refusal to be swayed by nonsensical claims, illogical arguments, and junk science hardly makes the atheist closed-minded.

6. That approaching scientific research as an agnostic atheist frees one from prejudicial interpretations far more than if conducted by a gnostic theist with a mandate to prove a biblical claim.

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. Multiplicity vs. Design

“Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought.”
- Pogo

Multiple Universes or design - either way.

We may be like the lottery winner who looks at the overwhleming odds and concludes that their fortune must be God's will.