Faith and Science – Part VI
With God's help
On Complexity and the Anthropic Principle
The Objection Based on the Lack of a Definition of Complexity
The challenge from evolution is based on the claim that evolution provides us with a mechanism that creates complexity without the intervention of a guiding hand. Hence, entities or events that appear to us to be directed are not necessarily so. A snowflake appears complex, and yet it is formed without a guiding hand. The same is true of a baby, formed from sperm and egg without a guiding hand.
From this, some argue that there is no necessity at all to see intention in the formation of a complex thing. We assume that some object has a creator only when it bears within it the creator's 'signature' (perhaps this is the difference between the argument from design and the argument from complexity). I will bring here two examples pointing in two directions: a. the claim of Elia Leibowitz (in the third column), that the paintings in the Sistine Chapel are attributed to Michelangelo only because from our experience paintings are produced by painters, and not because of their complexity. Complexity as such does not require a creator. b. Another example mentioned in one of the talkbacks was a simple paper clip, regarding which we also assume that it has a creator, solely because we have experience that metal wires in such shapes are made by human beings. There is a familiar signature of the creator here, even without complexity.
Where Is the Mistake?
I see no room to dispute the assumption that a complex thing is not formed by chance, since it is based on probability. A complex thing is something rare and special, and therefore it is less likely to have come into being without a guiding hand (except for an entity that is its own cause, but we have already dealt with that in previous columns).
When we see a monkey jumping on a keyboard and producing a Shakespeare sonnet, which is plainly something special and rare, it is clear to us that this is not accidental. Not because we happen to know that sonnet, but because of the complexity. True, there is a tiny chance that it is accidental, but the comparison between these two alternatives tips the scales in favor of a guiding hand. This is the probabilistic principle of sufficient reason.
Even in the paper-clip example, if it involved a structure so simple that the chance of its forming spontaneously were very high (like an ordinary straight line of metal wire), then even the signature would not lead us to conclude that a human being made it. So here too we are dealing with a probabilistic comparison between two alternatives. The signature mechanism is not essentially different from the principle of sufficient reason.
So How Do I Define Complexity?
And what about the snowflake, or the baby? These are plainly complex entities, and yet they come into being on their own. My claim is that they do not really come into being on their own, but with the kindly assistance of the laws and forces of nature. Once again there is a confusion here between a question within the laws and a question outside the laws (see the previous column). From a scientific standpoint the mechanistic explanation is sufficient, and even if it is not, it should be further refined with scientific tools. But from a philosophical standpoint, when we see such an occurrence, it is clear that there is a guiding hand that created laws directing the process toward its unique end. And once again, the consideration is probabilistic, but outside the laws (how many systems of laws will lead from sperm and egg to a baby?).
So how do I define complexity? For me there is no difference between a snowflake, a paper clip, a baby, or the world as a whole. The definition is probabilistic. In more scientific language, I would say that complexity is measured in terms of entropy (= the greater the complexity, the lower the entropy). When we see a flowerpot falling from a rooftop and shattering, it seems perfectly obvious to us (though regrettable), but if we were to see someone throwing the collection of shards upward and a whole flowerpot emerging from them (or a Boeing airplane), we would assume that a guiding hand was at work. A whole flowerpot is a more ordered and special object (if you like: it contains more information) than a broken flowerpot, and therefore its entropy is lower. The probabilistic principle of sufficient reason says that the first event does not require explanation by means of laws (because the result has higher entropy), but the second certainly does. And even if an explanation by means of laws is found for it, we will still assume that there is a guiding hand behind those laws. We will immediately look for the magician who is deceiving us.
Thus, the questions about defining complexity arise from considering things within the laws. Within the laws there is a difference between an airplane (made by human beings, and unlikely to be produced on its own by a passing storm) and a snowflake, a monkey, or a baby (where known laws describe that formation). But outside the laws all of these are complex entities, because the definition of complexity is entirely objective and probabilistic. In terms of entropy, no one disputes that a living body contains enormous complexity.
It is important to understand that I am not dealing here at all with the creationist objection to evolution based on the second law of thermodynamics (that is, how an unguided process can decrease entropy). That is a scientific question, and its answer should be sought with scientific tools (for example, that in an open system entropy can accumulate elsewhere). Here I am asking a question outside the laws, one that belongs to philosophy, and therefore there is no point invoking here the issue of open systems, equilibrium, and the like.
SETI
I once heard an interesting analogy that clarifies how futile this objection is. At the University of California, Berkeley, there is a project whose goal is to detect intelligent life(!) beyond our planet (it is called SETI). They use radio detectors to collect radio signals at a certain frequency, analyze them, and thus determine whether there are intelligent beings behind them. Clearly, they have some criteria by which they decide whether a given signal is special enough that it is justified to infer an intelligent agent behind it, or not.
Our sophisticated critic ought to reject this project out of hand, and explain to the 'fools' who run it that they believe in an imaginary friend. After all, their complex radio signal is just like a snowflake formed in a blind process. On his view, there is no way to infer from unique findings that an intelligent agent stands behind them, because in any essential sense there is no definition of complexity and uniqueness. Even a complex message can be produced accidentally and blindly (like the frequencies of a pulsar and the like).
The message we receive from our world is also a kind of SETI project, and the signals received here are many times more complex than anything they dream of discovering in that project. In our case the project fails constantly, because we explain those complexities by evolutionary explanations. Not that these are incorrect, but they are explanations within the laws, which are unrelated to the question whether there is someone who created the laws that brought about those complexities. The signals that will be discovered (if at all) in the ordinary SETI project are likewise produced by some technical means (there is some sort of transmitter/signal generator there). That does not prevent the people running the project from inferring an 'imaginary friend' who created that transmitter and stands behind the messages it broadcasts.
The Number of Attempts
We must now clarify an additional point. If the definition of complexity is probabilistic, then the conclusion that the object was not formed by chance depends on an additional assumption: that the number of attempts to create that object was sufficiently low. If the monkeys jump on the keyboard for 200,000 years, then even without a guiding hand they may still produce "tobeornottobe" (see the previous column). Thus, in order to make a probabilistic sufficient-reason argument, one must make sure both that we are dealing with a very special object and that the number of relevant attempts was low relative to its uniqueness (entropy). This is the question addressed by the anthropic principle.
The Anthropic Principle
This term is used in two opposite senses. Creationists use it to argue that the world's fit to human needs indicates a guiding hand. Atheists use the very same name for the objection to the creationist argument. They claim that if there were no such fit, we simply would not be here. Our ability to marvel at this 'miracle' is based on its having occurred.
If we return to the physico-theological argument outside the laws, it is based on the existence of a system of four fundamental physical laws with precise and coordinated values of the physical constants (such that a slight deviation in the value of any one of them would have prevented the existence of chemistry and biology, and hence also life and evolution; this is what is called fine-tuning). This is the creationist formulation of the anthropic principle. The atheist objection argues that that is precisely the point: the fact that we are here is possible only because this 'marvelous' accident occurred.
Although quite a few writers present the atheist anthropic principle in this formulation, it clearly does not hold water. Hawking describes a man standing before a firing squad of expert marksmen, all of whom miss his head and leave him alive. He claims that the survivor should not be astonished by this, for had they not missed, he simply would not be here. According to this amusing principle, any strange thing by virtue of which we were saved is not supposed to surprise us at all, because without it we would not be here. By contrast, a surprising event that happens to someone else really does arouse wonder, since we would have existed even without it.
This is, of course, nonsense. What the more intelligent objectors mean to say is that there were very many attempts at the formation of a world with different systems of laws, and one of them is our world. We, of course, exist in this particular world because only it is suited to the existence of human beings. Alternatively, there were many executions in which that firing squad did not miss, and the number of attempts is on the order of magnitude of the reciprocal of the probability that all of them would miss. In that case, someone who survived really ought not be surprised by it.
But if this is the full formulation of the atheist anthropic principle, then in fact it is a rather insignificant claim. To solve the problem of probabilistic sufficient reason, the second assumption alone would have been enough for us—namely, the claim that there were many previous attempts that failed, and therefore it is no wonder that one of them succeeded. What does the statement add that, had the success not occurred, we would not be here? Apparently it explains why we are located precisely on the successful attempt. But that is self-evident, and that is not what the dispute is about.
The Atheist Tea Party
The assumption that there were countless prior attempts of universes with other laws of physics is a very problematic assumption. According to this proposal, there are supposed to exist countless universes different from ours (for the number of possible systems of laws is infinite), in each of which different laws of physics prevail. None of us has seen them, and apparently none of us will be able to see them either. If so, this is truly Russell's celestial teapot (see the fourth column), except that this time it is orbiting the atheist's planet.
Someone who saw the shards of the flowerpot reassemble themselves into a whole flowerpot, or the miraculous rescue of the condemned man, would also say that apparently there were countless attempts that failed (although we know of no such attempt), and we are watching the one that succeeded.
The atheist manufactures countless universes (or situations), strange and bizarre, in each of which different laws of physics prevail, and in them there presumably arise strange and bizarre creatures (demons and fairies, or perhaps gods), who are the (evolutionary?) products of those laws of nature. What they all have in common is that no one has seen them, but for an obvious reason: they cannot be observed (they are transparent). The teapots placed on the atheist table make it possible to hold Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter tea party. This is the 'rational' and 'economical' alternative to belief in God.
What Is Special About Our World?
The next objection in the series is the claim that there is nothing special about our system of physical laws. They admittedly generate chemistry and make biology possible, but any system of laws will generate some things. The claim is that within every system of laws, some kinds of beings will come into existence—perhaps very different from us, but there is nothing special about us. Naturally, to us this seems familiar and special. To support this claim, there are even various computer simulations showing that many systems of laws give rise to strange and varied complex beings.
But this is nonsense. The overwhelming majority of systems of laws will produce nothing at all. They will simply lie dormant without any real development. These computer simulations are similar to the experiment I described regarding "tobeornottobe". All of them are based on very special systems of laws (ones that allow combinations and development). But these are only a tiny fraction of all possible systems of laws.
To illustrate this practically (after all, we like facts, not speculations), let us do a simple experiment. Let us look within our own universe, in which laws of physics friendly to the emergence of life prevail (chemistry and biology): on how many of the known planets (and there are already quite a few of them) have we found that beings of any kind you like, at a level of complexity similar to biological life, have developed (and I am not even speaking of consciousness, thought, will, and the like)? As far as I know, the answer is: exactly 1. Here, then, we have a non-exhaustive statistic, but one that is close at hand, pointing to the probability of the spontaneous emergence of any beings whatsoever under random environmental conditions.
Summary
Unfortunately I did not manage to address randomness and quantum theory, and certainly not the transition from the philosophical God to the religious God. But due to editorial considerations, this will be the last column in this series. I will therefore briefly summarize what we have succeeded in establishing.
From the title of the series you can understand that my aim was not to show that there is a God, but that belief in God follows from the principles of rational thought (Ockham's razor, scientific method and findings, causality, and sufficient reason). The reader is invited to examine whether this has been achieved. This can be examined on two levels: a. whether the basis for my conclusions is indeed rational (even if not necessary, and even if it can be debated), or whether there is mysticism here? b. whether this basis is a necessary derivative of rational thought (in which case rational atheism would also be impossible). By way of background, I will recall that I showed that atheistic conceptions require one to abandon the principle of causality/sufficient reason, or to invent unobservable universes and beings, or to view the laws of nature as their own cause (that is, as belonging to logic rather than physics), and the like.
Beyond the fact that belief in God follows from the principles of rational thought, it can be shown that it also constitutes a condition for rational thought (without it there is no justification for rationality itself). Likewise, it can be shown that it constitutes a necessary condition for consistent ethics (this does not mean that the atheist is not moral, but that his ethics are not consistent). Perhaps later I will write about these topics as well (you have been warned!).
And to conclude, I truly enjoyed the journey, and I thank everyone who followed and commented.