Criticism of the Argument from Planning
Hello Rabbi Avraham,
In one of the articles criticizing “God Plays Dice,” the following passage was cited:
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The following claim should be added to it (p. 158; emphasis mine):
Now, if we also take into account the fact that the accuracy of the values of the physical constants is a situation whose probability is clearly tiny ( after all, they could have any value ), we are in a much more serious problem. There could be laws of nature with completely different values of these constants (and perhaps even with other types of constants). What is the chance that the values of the constants will be created in such a way that they are precisely calibrated for the existence of life? Zero, of course.
Avraham points out a probabilistic problem. He seems to think that each of the constants of our natural laws can take on one of an infinite number of values. The chance that a constant will take on a particular value is 1 over infinity. This is really a zero chance (in practice, it is zero). Avraham is more explicit on the subject in another context (p. 161):
We haven’t yet asked how one can even calculate the chances of the spontaneous formation of a gravitational constant whose value allows life. How many possible values are there? Probably infinity. So how many attempts do you need to make to get a reasonable chance of a successful outcome? [I think Avraham got off-topic here and meant to ask “What is the chance of getting a successful outcome, one that will create life?”]. One divided by the number of possible values, i.e. 0. […] The same is true for the spontaneous formation of the other physical forces and their constants with a strength that enables chemistry, biology and life.
This argument is really popular. Many religious thinkers, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, use it all the time. Before I explain where it fails, I want to whet your appetite. Not just the appetite of secular readers, but also the appetite of religious readers. I want you to understand that if you accept with understanding the fallacy that Abraham makes, you will come to a conclusion you will not like. I proudly present to you the argument from a delicate design against the existence of God . Wait, what? Yes. Against the existence of God.
God could have decided to create one of an infinite number of universes whose physical constants are incompatible with the existence of life. Or he could have created one of an infinite number of other things. A heavenly golf course, an extension to his penthouse balcony in heaven, or a hookah that never runs out of tobacco. Just one of those infinite decisions is the decision to create a universe like ours, a universe whose laws are calibrated to allow the existence of life. Therefore, the probability that God would make this decision is actually 1 divided by infinity, the number of possible decisions of God. That is, 0. From this we are forced to conclude that the universe was created by an unplanned process, without God’s intervention. No more tefillin. Goodbye tzitzit. Bye kippah.
Or not. Every religious person I know will cry out that I have made some kind of mistake here. Indeed, this argument is utterly flawed. It doesn’t really work, because I’ve assumed that I have knowledge that I don’t. I don’t really know what the probability is that God will make a particular decision. In particular, I have no reason to think that the probability that he will make any decision is equal. In other words, I have no reason to reject the idea that some of God’s decisions are more likely than others. I certainly have no reason to reject the idea that the decision to create a universe capable of supporting life is the decision he is most likely to make. The problem is that I have no reason to accept that idea either. All possibilities are on the table, because I know nothing about God’s decision-making process. The argument from delicate design against the existence of God contains an unjustified assumption, and so it fails.
Michael Abraham also assumes that he has knowledge that he does not have. He assumes in a process without planning that any value of the constants of physics is equally likely. Thus, the probability that the value of the gravitational constant will be 0.6, 1.15, or 7 is equal to the probability that it was what it really is (about 6.67). That is, 1 divided by the number of possible values of the gravitational constant. In other words, zero.
The problem is that Abraham doesn’t really know that in a process without planning the probability of all these values is indeed equal. Contrary to his assumption, it is entirely possible that the opposite is true. That is, it is possible that precisely those constants that allow life are the most probable physical constants, and those that don’t – are not. Note here too, that I am not claiming that I know Abraham is wrong. I am not. I am claiming that in order for his argument to even get off the ground, he must justify his assumption. His assumption has no justification, and therefore his entire argument fails.
Those interested in an expanded and nuanced version of this argument are invited to read the excellent article by philosopher Neil Manson.
Manson, NA (2000). There Is No Adequate Definition of Fine-tuned for Life . Inquiry, 43(3), 341–351< /fn >
In conclusion, if we allow Abraham to make strange statistical assumptions without justification, I reserve the right to make such ones. We get a situation where there are two explanations in the Kantians. The probability that the physical constants were designed by God is zero because of the argument from subtle design against the existence of God. The probability that some undesigned process created them is also zero, because of Abraham’s argument. We have reached a deadlock again, and we will have to try to find another way to decide which assumption is correct. If we prohibit unjustified statistical assumptions, we have reached a deadlock again, and we will have to try to find another way to decide which assumption is correct. This is a real dilemma for religious people.
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End of quote
The rest of the article is really quite ridiculous, either putting words in your mouth or not understanding what you’re saying, so I censored it.
On the surface, it sounds like a stupid argument to me (because there may not be coordination in the laws) – but on the other hand, it turns out that it is based on a philosopher greater than me, so I may just be making it easier on myself.
Do you have a good answer to this? – Especially to the “argument from delicate design against the existence of God” which is based on the same basic premises (although it is quite false).
thanks.
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He then writes a criticism that seems correct, and I would be happy for the rabbi to answer it:
“Now he knows that the same laws that created the laws of nature that prevail in our universe are actually created laws. What is the justification for this? There is none, really. These laws are nothing more than a description of how something behaves. In homage to Robin Williams, let's call this thing Flabber. Whatever Flabber is, our universe came from it. It is entirely possible that Flabber was never created. Again, that possibility is on the table. Why is it invalid in Abraham's eyes?
Well, one can guess in a scholarly way why Abraham thinks it is invalid from the following things he wrote (p. 162, footnote 107):
It would seem that it could also be argued against the laws of nature […] that they were never created but always existed. This is an interesting claim, and we will suffice by saying that this claim essentially says that the laws of nature replace the concept of God here, and therefore not much has changed compared to conventional theism (remember, we are not talking about a God who imposes religious obligations, but about God in the sense of philosophical theism). Finally, there is a primary cause here that is not subject to all our considerations.
In other words, if we say that Flaubert has always existed, Abraham will answer that we can call Flaubert God. Proverbs? Well, Flaubert is not a being with consciousness, will, and the ability to plan. He does things only in the same borrowed sense that inanimate objects do things. The idea that Flaubert is God is simply ridiculous. In religious terms that will connect with them, Abraham claims that Flaubert is God, when in reality Flaubert is nothing more. Abraham is playing with semantic word games here, nothing more. This is “philosophical sophistication” that he promises his readers?”.
Isn't this nonsense? Atheism in disguise? Like pantheism?
Everything was explained in the notebook and the book. I don't have the strength to endlessly engage in these stupid arguments that are repeated over and over again. I'm exhausted.
See also the parallel correspondence with Reuven: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A2%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%94%D7%98%D7%A2%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A7/#comment-4710
I'm sorry, but there's no answer to this question there. Here the rabbi defines the laws as God's and it seems nonsense, where is there an answer to this in the link? There you just claim that laws require an explanation, but here the argument is different. Maybe I missed it.
Maybe the Rabbi will do a specific article on the laws, what exactly they are / were they created or not, etc. etc. . Can God also have a need for sufficient taste, etc. Can he complete their taste, etc.
What does sufficient taste mean and what does it mean to be the cause of himself, etc.
Because in my opinion and from what I have seen, the Rabbi's words are very, very short in his notebooks on this. And his answers here on the site are even longer.
Therefore, there are many people here who do not understand the Rabbi's words on the matter.
Agree with Moshe's request, especially regarding the current unanswered question.
??
Can the Rabbi focus on where the answer to the statement that the laws are God?
R’ This is a misunderstanding of the argument, according to the cosmological view everything has a reason. Let's assume for a moment that we come to the conclusion that the first thing in the chain of causes is some law of physics (which has not yet been discovered, there is still no proof of any model that explains what caused the bang). A law is not a physical being, a law is a description of some being in the universe (the law of gravity, for example, describes the Earth). In this case, we will say that the thing that this first law describes is some ‘being’ and it will be called God. Apparently, this law probably did not describe any of the physical beings that we know today, since they themselves were created in the bang and therefore are not ancient. It can be called God because the aforementioned being is something different from all the physics that we know, that something is the cause of everything, and it itself has no other cause. This is what the cosmological view shows.
Beyond that, we don't need all of this because every law requires reason, etc. and someone would have been required to design them (and this is the physico-theological evidence).
All of this is actually detailed in the Rabbi's notebooks (which were written while recognizing the above criticism and dealing with it) and it seems to me that this is why the Rabbi is exhausted from writing it here over and over again.
The evidence from design does not claim that every law requires explanation, but only a special law.
But what is the connection between an intelligent being (God) and a law devoid of intelligence and personality?
M I don't think I understood what the Rabbi said. It seems I didn't either, but I understood that you didn't understand.
I would be happy if the Rabbi would confirm your words whether this is his intention. Because if so, it should be added to the notebook. Because it is much more understandable.
**M I don't think you understood what I said, Rabbi.
(I guess I didn't either.)
But from the little I did understand, I understand that you didn't understand
If this is indeed his intention, I would be happy for the Rabbi to confirm whether this is his intention. Because if so, it should be added to the notebook. Because it is much more understandable.
** There were critical spelling errors in the above message.
R’ – If the laws were not special, they would not allow life to be created. See all the notebooks, only a negligible minority of them would allow this.
All that the cosmological evidence shows is that there is something ‘different’ that is the cause of everything and the cause of itself. It does not enter into the question of what the essence of that being is.
The physico-theological evidence shows that in addition to the cause of the universe, there is something that serves as its intelligent engineer. Each piece of evidence shows something different. This is also written in the notebooks…. On the one hand, I feel uncomfortable telling you “If you are too lazy to read, you will manage on your own” and on the other hand, the things are written and it does suck to write the same paragraphs over and over again.
What to do if you don't understand what I'm saying.
I didn't write an argument against the physico-theological view, in my opinion it is strong.
But to claim that the laws are “God” is nonsense.
The physico-theological argument is the subject of discussion here, and it certainly claims to establish that the first being is intelligent, and law, as we know, is not intelligent.
You keep running away to the cosmological, and that's not the argument.
I understand. So let me tell you, cosmology does not show this. No one has claimed otherwise. It only shows that there is something that is the cause of everything and its own cause. And again, a law only describes an object. No one claims that the law is God. This something is apparently different from all the physical objects we know (after all, they were created in the bang) and that is why it is interesting. Oh and nothing more. No intelligence and no birds. This is what is written here on the site several times explicitly.
Regarding the second evidence, I mentioned it for 2 reasons:
1. Because a few messages above you also wrote about it (indeed, after I mentioned it in my words).
2. Because this evidence is the one that completes the point of intelligence that you asked about.
Tell me, are you serious? Do you even read what I write?
I'm only talking about the physical-theological view, forget the cosmological one.
Calling laws "God" does not mean that you have proven his existence. This view claims to prove that there is intelligence, and laws are not intelligence.
There is no such thing as laws, there are only those behind them.
And according to him it would be right to call him God.
You bring an argument that attacks the cosmological view (and only that) and write a sentence like “I did not write an argument against the physico-theological view, in my opinion it is strong” and you are surprised that I interpret your words this way?
If this is the issue, then where did you see anyone write that a law is God? The physico-theological view does not show that the first being is a law of physics, it shows that laws prevail in the world and every law requires a designer and therefore requires an intelligent engineer even if it is ancient (a reason for the law). The above failed argument of ethology does not attack this argument at all, but rather the point I tried to explain earlier (that its failed interpretation of it means that the rabbi claimed that God is a law of physics).
In any case, I do not see any argument here that I have not touched on or written on the site. I withdraw.
M Why are you going to retire until someone finally writes at some length??
Max’ Repeat yourself two or three times until the public understands.
See note 107 in ”God Plays Dice”.
R’ –
Well, I was wondering last night whether to answer or not. Even though I really did answer and explained everything explicitly, I will try one last time, if you understand – great, if not – too bad. Please read my words patiently even if they seem unrelated to you. I understand very well what you are asking. And I think you have a misunderstanding here.
First of all, I must say that it is not clear to me whether your goal (behind the scenes) is to understand whether the philosophical arguments for the existence of God hold water in the bottom line (the important question), or to understand whether or not there is a specific error in the book (which if true, then what does it matter whether they were wrong or not at a specific point in the book???). In any case – in my opinion there is no error in the book on this point either. By the way, I myself was the one asking from above, and I understood from the beginning that the problem of ethology in this case is a lack of understanding of the argument.
I will explain – In our discussion there are 2 pieces of evidence for the existence of God, the cosmological (wait) and the physico-theological. The first shows that there is a different first entity and the cause of everything (only!) and the second that it is intelligent.
When the rabbi wrote the *book* his formulation of the physico-theological evidence was “a complex thing **that was created** requires an engineer”. In the book he raises the question “What would happen if we claimed that the laws always existed?” That is, they were not created, this seemingly defeats the physico-theological argument in his formulation *in the book*. In order to deal with this difficulty in the book, the rabbi returned to the argument that is actually in the realm of the *cosmological* evidence (at least in the notebooks) – A law itself is not a cause of anything, a law only describes something, and even if we discover that the law is ancient then the something different that the first law describes is God (because again, we are not talking about an entity from those we know today). I explained this at length above.
1. If you think that the Rabbi did not mean this at all and I am inserting words according to him, then I disagree with you. The quote in Ethology is *partial*, if you read the original text, you see that the Rabbi is talking there about perceiving the laws as ”being”, since a law actually does nothing. Ethology understands that the Rabbi means that the law itself is God. But it is clear from that that the Rabbi is claiming:
– If the law that created the world is truly “something” and not just a description, and if so, then it is God (as a primary cause)
– And if not – then what it describes is God.
Therefore, if you read the *full* paragraph, the detail of this claim *in the notebook* on the cosmological view, and the *book* he explicitly refers to in the paragraph (!!!!), you understand that the problem of ethology is incorrect and is just putting words in the rabbi's mouth. He did not understand what he was claiming at all. Indeed, this type of solution really does not prove a personal being, but only a different initial cause (which is why it is interesting), as I have explained over and over again. This is why I went for the cosmological view. Whether you understand or not, this is a question about the rabbi's cosmological argument.
2. Let's assume that this is what the rabbi meant and he was wrong and only later did he include the evidence in order to make it stronger. So what?
Later, after the publication of the book, the rabbi published for the first time another *other* argument that proves the existence of God even if we assume that the laws are truly ancient, an argument that is more in the realm of the physico-theological evidence (not that it matters anything) – The principle of sufficient reason (originates from Taylor's book. I don't remember it being explicitly written in God Playing Dice). Even the very *primordial* needs a reason why it is this way and not another. The law could be one of an infinite number of types of laws, why is it precisely the law that creates life? (And only a few will be like that) and therefore the law requires a reason –
an intelligent engineer who is the reason for the laws. In other words, this argument not only shows the first cause but also the reason. (Under the assumption that he is the reason, it is reasonable to assume that the laws are not primitive and that he is also their creator and so on)
Therefore, these are essentially 2 approaches to the argument of the primal law:
– The approach that appeared *in the book* is attacked by ethology and is in the context of the *cosmological* view – a law only describes something, and the ”law” that created the world describes God. Here it is not possible to know whether it is personal or not. It is only the first reason (and I wrote this in every message I have ever sent (!!)). Oh and nothing more. If it seems like nonsense to you – too bad. It is not to me. You have the right to think so, there is no point in discussing it further.
– The other approach, which did not require the previous one, and is written in the notebook – The Principle of Sufficient Reason – Every law requires reason even if it is an antecedent. If it is not clear to you why this is a correct principle, read the notebook (!!).
The combination of these 2 single reasons brings us to a rational first reason.
Therefore, the criticism of ethology is an incorrect reading of the argument. I myself, understood in advance what you are asking and answered it over and over and over again. I hope you agree, if you do not agree – too bad.
All the best and good luck.
Z –
Excuse me, I'll write you something a little harsh –
I think that a phrase like “Finally someone answers in detail” is a bit rude (even if I assume that's not what you meant).
1. I really, really think that no one here owes anyone anything. I think it's clear to you how many hours the rabbi and the editor invest in this site.
2. I think the rabbi is frustrated that he writes material and people don't understand it, usually it's just because they don't have the strength to read or delve deeper.
3. I understand how one can get exhausted from discussing the same thing over and over again.
4. This is a stupid discussion to begin with, let's assume for a moment that this point of ethology was correct – So what? As long as the argument holds water for other reasons, it's simply not interesting. Why bother with it over and over again? Especially since the things are written in notebooks so that with a little effort you can find an answer to them.
5. It seems to me that the rabbi wants to teach people to think for themselves.
6. It seems to me that not everyone has time to write scrolls for everyone.
The reasons I write in detail are:
1. I am still young so I am still energetic, and in discussions that I understand the rabbi is tired of, I try to answer.
2. I don't know how to write in short. It's a bug with me.
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