Faith – Lesson 25

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Where were we last time? Just a quick reminder of what came before. I moved from the standard formulation of the physicotheological argument—that is, the formulation from the complexity of the world, or its suitability to us, or the argument from design, or from complexity, which is an argument that can be attacked by evolution and various other objections—to the argument from laws. The argument from laws basically says: even if you explain to me the formation of life, or even the world, by scientific means, the laws of science within which you explain those processes themselves require explanation. How did they come into being? How did such special laws come into being, laws that allow such rare processes to occur spontaneously, without the involvement of a guiding hand? That means that the guiding hand is really involved in formulating the laws, even if not in the unfolding of development within those laws. At the end of last time, we talked about the argument from what is called the anthropic principle and the multiverse, which are really two sides of the same coin. The claim—the anthropic principle in its original form—is basically what the author of Duties of the Heart writes in the Gate of Unity, and what other religious philosophers write as well, Christians, Jews, and so on: that our world is very well suited to life and to the survival of animals and human beings. We have exactly what we need: air, water, the sun, temperature, all those things—we have exactly what we need. And if you want to formulate that in more modern language, then it’s fine-tuning. In other words, there are very, very precise values of the constants in the laws of physics that make possible everything we know around us: chemistry, physics, biology, and so on. Really physics too. And that means that such a thing cannot arise by itself; there must have been some guiding hand that created these things. That is the anthropic principle—anthropos means human, like anthropology. In other words, the anthropic principle means that things are suited to human existence, so apparently there was a guiding hand that prepared them. And against this, the atheists raise what they call the atheist anthropic principle. The atheist anthropic principle is the principle that says that if the conditions prevailing here had not been suitable for human life, we would not be here to marvel at it. I gave the example of a firing squad of skilled shooters, all aiming and all missing from twenty meters away, and the condemned man remains alive. So he wonders: how can that be? And Hawking says—in Hawking’s book, that’s the example he uses—he says to him: if they had not missed, you wouldn’t be here to marvel at the fact that they missed. In other words, your survival here is the result of their missing. Now that in itself is of course nonsense, because the fact that you wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t missed doesn’t mean that the miss isn’t a statistically very rare event. What they mean to say—the more intelligent among the atheists—what they mean is that at the basis of the atheist anthropic principle lies the thesis of what I called the multiverse, the plurality of universes. And what that thesis basically says—let’s go back to the firing squad example—suppose this firing squad was Stalin’s firing squad. Stalin’s firing squads themselves were constantly carrying out executions. But if there’s one firing squad serving Stalin all the time, then it executes a million people. Now out of a million people, if there’s, say, a one-in-a-million chance that all ten shooters miss the man standing in front of them, then one out of a million times, the expected number of survivals is one in a million. So that means one person out of the million survives. And if that happens to be me, it doesn’t arouse any special amazement, because out of a million cases you’d expect one person to survive. Therefore the fact that I survived—if I hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be here to marvel at it; someone else would be here. Now that is already an argument. In other words, that argument is a good argument, because it basically removes the surprising aspect from the event. It isn’t surprising, because if there are many, many attempts, then it can happen. It can happen. And if we go back to the thing being illustrated—the firing squad is the parable—if we go back to the point, then in our world there is a very, very special system of laws. And suppose the chance that such a system of laws would arise is, I don’t know, ten to the minus one hundred—practically zero, let’s say, I’m just throwing out a number of course. Fine. Then there were ten to the hundred attempts, each time with a different system of laws, and all the other systems of laws, as I said earlier—that’s why this system is so special—because every other system of laws does not allow the formation of complex, sophisticated creatures with low entropy, and indeed they did not form. Only in our system did such complex creatures arise. So then we are not supposed to be surprised that this system is so complex, because one out of ten to the hundred systems really does come out complex. This is not… it’s a statistically expected phenomenon. There’s nothing special here. So we have to understand.

[Speaker B] Just a question, a small question. What about all inanimate matter? Say, a diamond also has low entropy, right? Complex things. How do you measure that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s obviously not in the same league as human beings. How? Not in the same league as human beings.

[Speaker B] How do you measure entropy? What’s the…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I explained at the beginning of our discussion of this argument—really in this very argument—I explained the concept of entropy. The scientific measure for it, or the mathematical measure for it, is how many equivalent arrangements of the same type there are. In other words, suppose you take a chain of ten cells, and inside them you place, say, three balls. So you put one ball in cell number one, one ball in cell number four, and one ball in cell number nine, okay? There are basically six different arrangements like that, right? Because you can choose the first ball in cell number one, the second in four, the third in nine. You can choose the third in one, the second in four, and the first in nine, and so on. There are six such arrangements. But if the three balls are arranged in one cell, say cell number one, then there is only one possible arrangement for that macroscopic state. That means it is a more special state. Therefore a collection of gas molecules located in the corner of a

[Speaker B] box is a state

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] more special than when they are spread throughout the whole space of the box. Okay? Now, this can also be translated into more complex systems. That is of course a simplified example just to illustrate the principle. But there are entropy calculations—they measure this with entropy—there are entropy calculations that show that life is… something with crazy entropy. Crazy in how low it is, yes? In other words, very, very ordered. That means it is very unlikely that such a thing would happen on its own. Complexity of the sort of a diamond, however complex it may be, can be explained within the framework of the laws, within the laws, because every system of laws, as I said last time, will create complex products within it—just not very complex ones, or they won’t last very long. But if you apply this in a very large space, and things can happen in every place, then among other things complex things will happen too. So therefore this argument is one that obviously requires more quantification if one wants to do it properly, but of course I’m not doing that here.

[Speaker C] If I may make another comment? Yes. Regarding the comparison to a firing squad, if you bring evolution into the picture, then it’s not only that this person fits the world, he also adapted himself to the world. Whereas the one being shot at by a firing squad does nothing.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not…

[Speaker C] He just happened to end up in a good firing squad.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You are completely right, and in fact that’s exactly my next sentence. We have to understand that this objection, unlike all the previous objections I brought, attacks the argument from laws too. The previous objections, I said, attack the arguments from within the laws, but not the arguments from the laws themselves. But this objection attacks the argument from laws as well. Why? Because think about it: evolution, or abiogenesis if you like, all the scientific explanations basically tell me, look, true, this process is an improbable one, but there are billions of years during which attempts were made for this to happen in many, many places throughout our universe, so that space and time allow many, many attempts, and even complex creatures can emerge from many such attempts. And to that I said: נכון, but all those attempts… and that’s exactly why I moved from an argument from within the laws to an argument from the laws themselves. Now notice: this objection attacks the argument from laws, because it’s not talking about many places and times within our universe; it’s talking about many, many universes. Within—within what? I don’t know. Maybe one needs to posit some other abstract space within which all these universes exist, but never mind that for now. The claim is that the argument from laws also falls here. Because now I say: unlike different places and times in our universe, all of which are governed by the same system of laws, in the different universes of the multiverse, each universe may be governed by a different system of laws. And one of them is a special system of laws that allows life, or a few of them, it doesn’t matter. But only a few, okay? And then there’s nothing to be surprised about. That’s the force of this objection, and that’s why it’s stronger than all the previous objections, because it’s not an objection from science; it’s a philosophical objection. So it’s an objection that basically says that even the argument from laws does not hold water; it attacks the argument from laws as well. That’s why I got to it at the end. Now the claim I want to make here—really I want to make two or three claims. First claim: basically the point is this. If we had—if there really were many attempts, or as I said, the atheist anthropic argument basically assumes the existence of many prior attempts, or prior or parallel attempts, to produce other universes with different laws of physics and different laws of science—different laws of nature, excuse me—and so on. Now notice what we’ve gotten here. Think about Paley’s watch, okay? So I’m walking down the street and suddenly I see lying on the ground some very complex watch. So I’m amazed, and I say, wow, someone made this thing, it obviously didn’t make itself. Then along comes the defender of the anthropic argument and says: what are you talking about? There were simply lots of attempts to make watches, and one of them produced this complex watch. All the others indeed failed. In effect, this argument neutralizes the whole meaning of statistics. In other words, anything that is statistically improbable is not supposed to impress us, because apparently there were infinitely many other attempts that failed and this one succeeded. Okay? So in effect, we are not supposed to be impressed by statistics at all. Now in principle that is correct, at the level of principle. So why are we nevertheless statistically impressed? And I mentioned in other contexts all sorts of cases where I really am not statistically impressed. Because the question is whether there really were many. If I say ad hoc that there were many attempts, then of course I can explain away anything. But if I have no indication whatsoever that there really were many attempts, then that explains nothing. Suppose I now roll a die and I say: I got a thousand sixes in a row. A thousand in a row, okay? Now I say to myself—and the die is fair, I checked it, it is completely fair. That is, the chance of landing on each face is the same, one-sixth, and a thousand times in a row it came up six. Well, there has to be a guiding hand here. In other words, somehow someone is controlling the results of the die rolls. Then my atheist friend says to me: not at all, there were simply billions of rolls. In a series of billions and billions and billions of rolls, you’ll also find a series of a thousand consecutive sixes. In other words, it can happen; the only question is how many times the die was rolled. Now you can even calculate it—it’s six to the minus thousand, okay? Six to the minus—some huge number, never mind—but with six to the minus thousand rolling attempts, a thousand consecutive sixes could appear somewhere in that chain. So would we accept that excuse? I wouldn’t accept it. Why? Because I did not see those rolling attempts. But if I had seen someone actually rolling the die, and I only joined him for some thousand rolls in the middle, then you could still ask what the chances are that I happened to land on those thousand. But suppose many different people each landed on a different set of a thousand, and I landed on the thousand consecutive sixes while everyone else landed on other random sequences, okay? Then I understand. But as long as there aren’t many, many rolls here, and there aren’t many, many people examining thousands of rolls, then to say ad hoc that there were lots of rolls we didn’t see, and that this thousand that I observed is just some segment from a much, much, much longer chain—that is not an argument we would accept in any context. Because there is no indication that all those rolls really happened; I am inventing it, inventing it only in order to reconcile the result that here there were 1,000 die rolls. Now at this point Holmes’s line from The Sign of Four always comes up—I’m sure I mentioned this already—after you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is probably the truth. In other words, if you have two alternatives and one of them is impossible and the other is very, very improbable, then once you’ve eliminated the impossible, you’re left with the improbable. Or in other words, the atheist will say: true, but if we checked that the die is fair, I have no other explanation for how 1,000 consecutive sixes came out, so I assume that probably there were many, many, many rolls, and these 1,000 are just a random series from among them; somewhere, a series of 1,000 has to appear. I say: yes, but I do have another explanation. It is not true that you eliminated the impossible and this is the only thing left. There is another explanation that I think is the obvious one: someone is controlling the results of the roll and produced this result of 1,000 sixes. Why assume that there were many, many, many rolls before and after, and that I just happened to land on these 1,000, instead of assuming that there is someone who apparently has some ability to control the results of the roll? That seems more reasonable to me.

[Speaker D] But maybe there’s also another explanation that I just haven’t reached, haven’t thought of.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so let’s hear it. As long as I don’t know it, these are the explanations we have.

[Speaker D] On that basis you say there’s no choice—you say, if this is invalid, then only this option remains.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Almost every proof by elimination is like that. After I’ve ruled out all the other possibilities, I’m left with this possibility. Wait—maybe there’s a possibility you didn’t think of? Then you can never prove anything by elimination. I could say the same question about a direct proof. If someone proves something in geometry, say—not by elimination but directly—he shows you from the axioms that such-and-such a theorem follows, you can always ask him, wait, but maybe there’s a mistake in the proof? If you show me a mistake, we’ll talk. As long as you haven’t shown me a mistake, then maybe… A judge has only what his eyes can see. If I see that these are the existing possibilities, then as far as I’m concerned that is the argument. Of course it could always be that maybe I’m wrong, fine—but now the burden of proof is on you. You now have to show me that there’s another possibility I missed. Therefore as far as I’m concerned, I assume what I understand until someone shows me that I’m wrong. So basically the claim is that with regard to the world as well, to say that there is an infinite multiverse like this, infinitely many universes each with different laws of nature, without there being any indication whatsoever that other universes really exist—has anyone ever seen any other universe with different laws of nature, or had any indication of their existence? All the physicists who love to toy with these things sometimes even claim that we have indications of their existence. As far as I understand, there are no indications at all. It’s all fantasy games of physicists who basically become mathematicians. But there are no indications of such things, and therefore this claim that maybe there were many, many, many attempts and we happen to live in the successful attempt is a claim we would not accept in any other context. Any statistical wonder can always be explained away by saying there were many, many, many other attempts and this thing happened to come out. And that’s true, it could be—but I need some indication that there really were other attempts.

[Speaker C] I’m going back to the evolution example—there you do have an indication that there was a transition from simpler organisms to more complex organisms.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But all of that is from within the laws, so there I really don’t say this. I introduced that earlier and said it following your previous question. I said: the argument from evolution attacks the argument from within the laws. The argument from within the laws really doesn’t stand. Why? Because evolution says: look, true, the probability that a sophisticated protein chain would form is very small, but there were a huge number of attempts over a huge amount of time, in a huge number of places in the universe, and one of them succeeded. And therefore I accept it. So the claim is that if throughout the whole universe, of course, the same laws of nature prevail, and I know there is a large universe and that it has existed for 14 billion years and that the same laws of nature exist throughout the universe—I know all that. I’m not bringing that up as an ad hoc hypothesis in order to explain things away. Since that’s so, that really is a good refutation. And therefore I moved to the formulation from the laws. I said: yes, but who created the laws that prevail throughout the universe, which made it possible that in one place out of all places life would arise? And now comes the objection from the laws, the anthropic objection, yes, the anthropic principle, and attacks the argument from the laws. It says: there are many, many universes—not within our universe under this system of laws, but many universes with many systems of laws.

Now that, I have no idea whether it really exists. Unlike the universe being large and ancient—that I already know. But as for the existence of other universes, I have no idea. I don’t know. You’re inventing that now as an ad hoc hypothesis only so that you won’t have to account for how this special thing happened here. We don’t accept this in any other context, an argument of this type. It’s possible, but it’s an ad hoc argument. I’ll tell you more than that: Bertrand Russell, one of the prominent atheists, one of the leaders of twentieth-century atheism—what did he argue against the religious argument? He argued against the religious argument as follows: listen, if someone comes to me and says, around the planet Jupiter there is a small teapot orbiting. And then I ask him, but I don’t see that teapot. He says, of course not, because it’s small, impossible to see, and it’s transparent and whatever else you want, yes, and therefore it can’t be seen. So Bertrand Russell asks: what am I supposed to say about such a hypothesis? That it’s fifty-fifty? I can’t know—maybe yes, maybe no—fifty-fifty? He said: what nonsense. I don’t relate to it at all; I throw him down the stairs. Why? Not everything I haven’t seen has equal probabilistic weight to other possibilities. There are hypotheses that need some indication before I accept them. And ever since then there’s been this kind of terminology: arguments like these, where you just make things up, are called teapot arguments. In other words, you invent some teapot, explain to me why I can’t see it, and then you want me to say okay, so the probability that such a teapot exists is fifty percent—either it exists or it doesn’t.

Now notice that this is an argument atheists raise against believers. But in this objection, the atheists are partying with thousands of billions of teapots. They have basically invented universes—billions and billions and billions of universes that none of us has ever seen. And then ask them, wait a second, but we haven’t seen them—what indication is there that such universes exist? Well, you can’t see them because our light can’t reach there, yes, it doesn’t create electromagnetic interaction with light. So you can’t see it. You understand that this is really a teapot argument. In other words, atheists accuse creationists of teapot arguments, while their defense is not one teapot but billions upon billions of teapots—really Alice in Wonderland’s tea party with the Mad Hatter. I mean, it’s unbelievable. They invent billions and billions of universes with creatures and everything, and nobody has seen any of it. Why? To explain to me how it could be that such a special world was formed here just like that. Instead of saying okay, if it was formed, then apparently someone formed it. What sounds more plausible? To me, the second. I don’t know. It’s bizarre. In any other context, they themselves would hospitalize me in a ward for teapot hallucinations. But in fact they live inside a world completely full of these imaginary teapots, with no indication whatsoever that they really exist, that anyone ever saw them.

Yes, I mentioned last time the SETI project in Berkeley, yes, where they look for transmission signals from the universe. And if they find something with a structure that is not random, then they will assume there was some entity or some society that transmitted it to us. And again I say, okay, if they find that, then assume there were many other transmissions that had no structure and this one did have structure. What’s the problem? The anthropic principle exists there too. None of us accepts things like that. You need some indication that there are many other universes, and then of course you can say that okay, this universe is special, but one out of billions upon billions of universes has to be special. Or you need some indication that there were many, many executions and only one out of a million failed, so as not to be impressed that one failed. But if you don’t know that there were executions, then to invent millions of executions just to say that here it’s not surprising that it failed—that has no basis. Instead, one probably ought to say that they failed for some intentional reason. That sounds like a much more sensible conclusion.

This objection basically assumes the existence of many, infinitely many universes—universes, notice—not planets, not stars, but universes, our entire universe as a whole, each one with its own laws of nature. Something completely insane, a crazy diversity. Okay? Now within each such universe, the same atheist will surely explain to us that every legal system produces creatures, even complex and sophisticated ones, right? That was one of the objections I dealt with in previous sessions. That means that in those universes, all kinds of strange creatures actually exist. For example, in one world there will be demons, in the second world there will be angels, in the third world maybe there will even be gods, right? After all, every world has some legal system, crazy laws of nature, and maybe without laws of nature, I don’t know, all kinds of worlds, everything. Let your imagination run wild; the gates of imagination have not been locked. Whatever you imagine is basically there, because there were infinite attempts. So each one created something else and they all exist somewhere, existed, still exist in parallel.

So now I ask: then what’s the problem with believing there is God? You already believe there are demons, angels, chickens, I don’t know what, chickens with gills, whatever you want, it doesn’t matter—every creature you can think of, it all exists. The atheist is basically assuming the existence of all kinds of creatures on earth without our having seen them, of course, and for what? So that I won’t assume there is God. Now tell me which theory is more economical. Or more plausible. Less invented, less teapot-ish. It’s absurd.

[Speaker B] They don’t believe this; they only bring it up as mockery.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not as mockery. What do you mean, as mockery? If you want to sneer, you can sneer on your own.

[Speaker B] But what is spaghetti? What is the spaghetti monster? It’s just a joke—they don’t really think that’s what it is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The spaghetti monster is not an objection. The spaghetti monster is an expression of an objection. But you need—you can sneer, do whatever you want—but if you’re making arguments, you have to raise an argument. What exactly is wrong with my argument? And the multiverse argument is the argument that underlies the mockery. Now I don’t see what’s preferable to invent: a collection of millions and millions of universes, a tea party of mad hatters with mad teapots of every possible type and kind, none of which anybody has seen, in every shade and every mysticism—everything exists, everything exists, every single thing in some other universe. Okay. All in order to remain a materialist and not believe in that mystical thing called God. Because that’s very illogical, very unintuitive, very made up—this baseless invention that there is God. So what exactly are you proposing as an alternative that is more logical or economical, with fewer inventions? This whole insane tea party that I described earlier, inside of which there are gods too, of course—everything can be inside it because every—do you understand how ridiculous this is? This objection is simply ridiculous.

And all of that without any indication that any of it really exists. Maybe it does exist; I don’t know. But to claim that it exists when you have no indication whatsoever—that, you know, everywhere else we apply Occam’s razor. The most economical theory, the theory that requires the fewest inventions of all kinds of entities that nobody has seen. Sometimes we do this in order to explain phenomena—we invent entities, as all science does, every scientific theory does that. But we build an economical theory. We don’t build an insane theory just in order to deny the existence of one object by producing infinitely many other objects no less insane than it. So what have you gained? Why is this argument better than the alternative you’re arguing against?

Now this is the third claim. In short, the first claim is that basically you are inventing infinite universes, and in that way you neutralize any amazement at the statistics. If you have no indication of the existence of those universes, then it won’t be acceptable as an alternative explanation. My second claim against the anthropic objection—and these are all my claims against the anthropic objection—my second claim is that within the framework of the universes you invented, there also exist all sorts of beings no less bizarre than the assumption that God exists, or that angels exist, or demons, or whatever you want. So what have you gained? The third claim I want to make: I want to argue that even if all this is true, then explain to me who produces all these universes. Let’s say universes are being produced, each universe with a different legal system, different laws of nature. They’re constantly being thrown into space—space in quotation marks, because space too is part of the universe. And thrown, I don’t know, into reality: a collection of universes, each with a different system of laws of nature. What, is there some universe generator that each time produces universes with laws of—randomizes laws of nature and produces a universe with its own laws? So I will of course come back and ask: who is this universe generator? And who operates it? Who created it? According to what laws does it operate? Maybe we can discuss its laws, how exactly it randomizes the systems.

That is my third claim against the anthropic objection. In the end, you are basically assuming the existence of a universe generator. So God, the Holy One, blessed be He, is a universe generator. So what difference does it make what you call Him? I said I’m not committed specifically to the God who gave the Torah; I mean some transcendent entity that stands at the basis of this world, the one that created this world. So what now? You call Him a universe generator—so what? You’re talking about God, just calling Him something else. So what have you gained by saying that He created many universes and not just one? Even better—then it’s even clearer that there is God.

[Speaker D] Yes, but aren’t we again getting back to this issue of okay, so who created God? Then we’ll never get to the end. No, but that argument always wins: it can’t be that the watch made itself, but all we’re really doing is going one step back and another step back and another step back. Where—where—how does this solve the question of who created that? Where is the endpoint?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re not solving it. You’re going back to a question I already dealt with more than once.

[Speaker D] But I didn’t see the endpoint.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, the endpoint? I explained what the endpoint is.

[Speaker D] Then I’m sorry,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The endpoint must be—must be—that there exists some factor, some link in the chain, that itself does not need previous links in order to exist, because otherwise you are trapped in an infinite regress. This is a proof by negation that such a factor must exist. Now what? That factor can of course be anything whatsoever. You can call it a universe generator, you can call it God, you can call it Moisheleh. It doesn’t matter, but such a factor must exist. For me, that factor is God. Therefore there is no problem. I’m prepared to accept the universe generator, but there must be a factor that created the universe and that itself does not need anything to create it in order for it to exist. If you call it a universe generator, you haven’t said anything. Fine. That’s the thing I proved—the existence of that I proved.

[Speaker D] Why didn’t we stop at the laws of nature, for example?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With the laws of nature—I explained that too, I explained that as well. Because the laws of nature are not entities. The laws of nature describe the mode of operation of the machine. It’s like the example with the washing machine or the factory—I dealt with that. They don’t produce anything either. Laws of nature describe processes, but I’m asking who carries out those processes, not how we describe them. Two different things. So the claim, in the end—well, that’s the third claim—in the end you arrive at some transcendent factor. Call it whatever you want, and that’s it. For me, that is God. Again, I’m not entering into the religious dimensions of it. I want to argue that there must be a transcendent factor at the beginning of this process, because otherwise you won’t get out of it. And you arrive at it one way or another, from here or from there—it won’t help, no matter what.

One final claim that comes up here, or the defense the atheist can raise: yes, but quantum theory shows us that there is also spontaneous emergence without there being a generator that produces things. Yes, particles are created from the vacuum, antiparticles are created from the vacuum, even without some generator producing them. So maybe worlds also don’t need a generator to produce them; maybe they produce themselves. Notice, this attacks only my third claim, not the first two. Therefore the first two, in my view, still stand, and so this objection has fallen regardless. But even the third claim—this isn’t true either. My third claim against the objection also does not fall here. Why? Because as I explained in the objection—in the argument from within the laws—quantum theory, spontaneous emergence in quantum theory, is not really spontaneous. Because in a world of vacuum in which no laws prevail, there will be no spontaneous emergence. In a world governed by the laws of quantum theory, then even if it is completely empty, particles can form spontaneously. But for that to happen, the laws governing that world have to be the laws of quantum theory. In a world where no laws govern, a world that is a total vacuum—not only without entities, but without laws, without anything—there will be no emergence of something from nothing. There will be nothing; it will simply remain nothing, and that’s it.

When you tell me there is spontaneous emergence, you are actually assuming the laws of quantum theory. So in fact it is not a vacuum. It’s not a neutral world, an empty world, a world without content—no. It has content. There are no entities in it, but it has quantum theory in it. And later I also explained that maybe there are entities in it too, because entities without charge are possible. Remember Anaximander? Yes? The claim is that the entities were there beforehand too; only the charges now split into plus and minus charges that cancel each other out, and that is how the particles are formed. But the substance itself of the particles already existed before, because matter was not created; it wasn’t created something from nothing. In any case, for our purposes, the claim is that even if I’m speaking not about a universe generator but about spontaneous emergence of universes that emerge from the vacuum spontaneously, as in quantum theory, then I say: so there may be no universe generator here, but there is someone who arranged the quantum nature of reality that allows spontaneous emergence of universes. You won’t escape it. Because if there is nothing, as Bibi says, if there was nothing, then there is nothing. In other words, ultimately, if something is created then there is some framework that enables its creation. Something responsible for its creation; otherwise you are just a mystic. You are just saying things with no basis. And in the debate between believers and atheists, to say that atheists are mystics—there’s no greater insult than that, but that’s the case. They are, of course, crazy mystics.

Maybe I’ll add one more thing. I want to finish the physico-theological proof today. So I have two more points I want to get to. One point I already touched on, so I’ll bring it first. I had actually planned to end with it. This is the atheist church—a sociological remark more than a philosophical argument. Many times there is a feeling in the world, including among the religious about themselves, among believers about themselves, that they are dogmatic and the atheists are open to all possibilities, they are rational, they are open, they weigh all the possibilities with a tabula rasa, a blank slate, in the discussion. They see things and let the evidence speak. And believers somehow have beliefs dictated by some prior dogmatic assumptions. The truth is that in reality both sides are religious. Most speakers on both sides—this is a generalization, of course—but most speakers on both sides are religious. I tend to think the atheists are more religious. I have quite a bit of experience talking to people like that. Actually, I don’t have experience talking to people like that because you can’t talk to them. In other words, you raise arguments, they retreat into insane corners with teapots and whatever else you want, just so they won’t have to admit the obvious conclusion. That is much more than the kind of defense you find among religious people trying to defend their beliefs.

I once mentioned here that I read a book—actually I think I still have it. In the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, I don’t know, in Israel there was something called “Sifriyat HaPoalim in struggle.” That was the communist wing of Sifriyat HaPoalim, where they published communist classics. Among other things, all kinds of essays on how Stalin foresaw modern physics, and whatever he didn’t foresee of course isn’t true. Lenin or Stalin—there was one of the little books there, I think it was called Lenin and Modern Physics or something like that. I still remember the author’s name—it was some Omilnitsky. These were translations from Russian, of course. And you would not believe the pilpulim there. In other words, how to explain that Lenin basically foresaw everything, all the discoveries that came later—you can basically find them in letter skips in Lenin’s writings. Now, it’s very funny to see that there, but in fact you see it everywhere. Every ideological group defends its position—which by the way is legitimate. If your position sounds reasonable, then you defend it. That’s fine, that’s logical. But you get into such unreasonable corners just to preserve your assumption that if you are truly an open person, you have to go back and ask whether your assumption really is so clear that it justifies getting into such cramped corners in order to defend it.

And I don’t see how an atheist can be so convinced that there is no God. He can say there are no indications that there is—this is a claim I hear. But to be so convinced that there is no God that because of that, or on account of that, he is prepared to give up the principle of causality—there is no causality, there are demons, there are angels, there are teapots, there are gods, there are universes we haven’t seen—he invents all of that just to defend this position that there is no God. What is this, if not church dogmas? He is basically defending the church dogma at all costs. And an open person, by the way—I say this—an open person is not someone who doesn’t defend his dogmas. Every person has initial intuitions that he truly believes in, and if something attacks them then he defends them, and sometimes he is even willing to be squeezed in order to defend them, and that is fine. This is what the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain about “judge every person favorably.” So they say—Maimonides, Rabbeinu Yonah—on the Mishnah in Avot. What does “judge every person favorably” mean? If you see, yes, Rabbi Shach running with a knife after an engaged girl in the street, okay? So you say, well, apparently she forgot the knife at his house—she was his housekeeper—and he’s running after her to return the knife. But if I saw Barjel running after her, then I’d have to shoot him under the law of a pursuer. Why? What is this preferential treatment? It’s not preferential treatment, and it’s not even an obligation to judge favorably. Logic says to judge favorably. Logic says that Rabbi Shach is not chasing an engaged girl, certainly not in the street, to rape her at knifepoint. But Barjel does things like that. Okay? Therefore the logical interpretation says you need to judge Rabbi Shach favorably. Not because he is righteous and we owe him something, but because that’s what logic says. Logic says that the interpretation that he is going to rape her is not plausible. That is called judging favorably. Judging favorably means being logical. That’s what it means. But not judging Barjel favorably. There is no logic in judging him favorably, because that isn’t right, or at least it isn’t plausible. It could be right, but it isn’t plausible.

So the same thing here. If I have a position that seems very correct to me intuitively, when objections arise against it I will be willing to offer strained answers to defend it, to judge it favorably. And that is perfectly fine. Why? If I really have good reasons to hold it. A scientific theory that explains very, very many phenomena. So as Thomas Kuhn said, even when it is attacked by various facts that don’t fit it, I find strained answers, or even if I don’t find answers I wait—but I do not give up the theory. Why? Because I have good reasons to hold it. It explains a great many facts. When do you abandon the theory? Thomas Kuhn says: when there is a paradigmatic crisis. When the number of difficulties and the amount of squeezing you have to go through in order to defend the theory becomes so great that then you need to go back and ask anew whether you should still hold the theory. And here the question is tested whether you are an open person or a closed one, a religious fanatic, yes? Not on whether you defend your positions. Defending your positions is perfectly fine. Even going into strained corners in order to defend your positions is perfectly fine. You are open in the place where the strain you enter into is commensurate with the confidence you have in the assumption you are defending.

Now, I don’t see how, as an atheist, you can have such great confidence that there is no God. Let’s say: I have no indication that there is. Fine. But to be certain that there is not—I don’t see on what basis. I know of no argument in favor of there being no God. I know arguments that say there is no indication that there is. But the arguments of “there is no indication that there is,” once I bring him indications, then he should say, okay, now there are indications that there is. But the arguments that do not accept the indications for the existence of God are arguments that say there is no God, not that there are no indications that He exists. No—I know that there is no God. And then every indication I bring him, he produces strained excuses and they get into religious apologetics. And that’s what happens. It’s really amazing.

I recommend that you read—the most traumatic experience, I would say, that I had in trying to conduct such a discussion: after I published God Plays Dice, people from Ynet Science approached me and asked me for a series of columns on the question whether belief in God is rational. Now whoever knows that section—the science section on internet sites—that is basically the mediation hall of the atheist church. In other words, a believing person has no foothold there. If you dare say something, you are disqualified on the spot, crucified on the spot. Literally, they crucify you on the spot. There is no such thing. In other words, it is atheist territory. Science and atheism are synonymous there. So I said to myself, okay, this is a challenge, to wrestle with those guys. I wrote a series of several columns arguing that belief in God is the rational conclusion and atheism is irrational. Wow—what happened there, don’t even ask. I suggest you read the talkbacks. You won’t believe it. I was showered there with curses and abuse, don’t ask. There were also a few substantive arguments here and there, and I discussed them. But most of it was simply—simply cursing me. Muslims when you draw Muhammad cartoons for them—I think that’s Vienna drawing-room etiquette compared to what happened there. And it is unbelievable, the religious fanaticism we discover in those circles. And yes, in the end even the editor intervened and stopped the series of columns. He himself responded, wrote a column himself against one of my columns—which ethically one should not do—and stopped my columns in the middle. He didn’t let me finish the series, because clearly the system too is built from people like that. By the way, the editor changed in the middle. The first one who invited me was apparently someone willing to hear it, and the one who replaced him was one of the priests of that church. In any case, that was…

[Speaker F] In what years, sorry, in what years was this published, and how can it be found in a search?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Search “Is belief in God rational” on Ynet; I assume that’s what will come up. I don’t remember anymore—it was already after God Plays Dice came out, so that means, I don’t know, maybe ten years ago, something like that. Okay. There’s, I think, a series there of several—I think six—six columns. Tzvi Yanai also responded to it in a series of columns of his own; after all, I had a debate with him at the Safari, and they also filmed some debate between us. Anyway, he responded substantively. I completely disagree with him, but he responded substantively. In any case… wait, yes.

[Speaker B] They ask a question a lot of times: what would cause you to doubt your belief in God? So what do you answer to that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know—if you bring good arguments… Bring me arguments—not arguments that there is no God. Bring me arguments that show why the arguments that He exists are not correct or don’t hold water. I’m satisfied with the claim that there is no indication of His existence; that’s perfectly fine. I do not expect a proof that He does not exist. I can’t imagine how one could prove the absence of something. But I do expect that if I have good arguments in favor of His existence, someone should show me that those arguments are not correct. What is the bug in my argument? So I raised many refutations here. Any one of those, if it had held water, I hope I would have managed—if I am sufficiently… I hope I’m honest enough to say that if they really showed me that my arguments don’t hold water, I would admit the truth. Because I agree that the burden of proof is on me that there is God. I do not expect proofs that there isn’t. But show me that my arguments in favor of His existence don’t hold water. I think they are very good arguments; I haven’t found anyone who convinced me that these arguments have no substance. On the contrary, the objections ultimately turn out to be so agenda-driven and so biased that that’s why I just did all the…

[Speaker B] But how did the greatest scientists not think of this? Einstein, who was Jewish—how did they not think of what you’re saying now?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, I don’t know how to defend the positions of people who disagree with me. That’s a question for a psychologist, not for me. I can tell you what I think about their arguments. Why they didn’t think of these arguments, or thought of other arguments—that’s something you’d have to ask a psychologist. The moralists will tell you it’s bias, the evil inclination, some kind of blindness, maybe they’re afraid of the implications. I don’t know, and I don’t want to get into that. I’m not a psychologist, and psychology doesn’t interest me. I deal with arguments, and as for the arguments, I present what I think. And if Einstein was such a genius and had other arguments, I’m sure he could raise arguments no less good than mine—he was much smarter than I am. So if he had raised arguments, I’d be happy to read them and I’d retract my position. I’m not familiar with arguments he raised. There are big debates about what Einstein believed. I really don’t like that, because those are ad hominem arguments—ad hominem, yes? What do I care what he believed? Give me the arguments. If he has good arguments, excellent. If he has bad arguments, then even if he’s Einstein, I won’t accept them. Okay? It’s like asking why so many very smart people are Christians or atheists. I have no idea. All I can do is examine the arguments. Because with a claim like, “Why do so many very smart people disagree with you,” you won’t be able to hold any position at all. Because every position is disputed, and in every dispute there are smart people here and there on both sides. We have no choice but to discuss things on their merits; we can’t rely on people. That’s why in logic this is defined as the fallacy of appeal to authority, as it’s called. Anyway, I want to finish with one more point, and with that I’ll finish this track. I’ve finished the sociological parentheses, yes, about the Church of Science. One more note: there’s a point about the teleology of science. Maybe I mentioned this already, I don’t remember. Teleology means purposiveness, or outcome-oriented explanation. Usually we’re used to the idea that an explanation is something that presents causes. When I want to explain something, the explanation is supposed to present the reasons for that thing. Why did it happen this way? Once I’ve found a cause, that cause constitutes an explanation. But there are also other kinds of explanation—explanations based on purposes, not on causes. There are explanations that say why this happened, and explanations that say for the sake of what it happened. Generally, traditionally, the type of explanation changes as we move up the map of scientific fields. Let’s say we start with physics, which is the most basic thing. On top of that there’s chemistry, then biology—very roughly speaking, of course there are subfields—then biology, then psychology, which is the human mind. Materialists basically claim that that is built on top of biology. And above that, let’s say sociology and anthropology—that’s already human societies, groups of people, and so on. Now, the higher you go on that scale, explanations tend to shift from causal explanations to teleological explanations. In physics, for example, explanations are causal—and in chemistry too. In biology, certainly in physiology, explanations are teleological. Why do we have this organ? Because this organ does such-and-such. What is the purpose for which it exists? But the question “why” asks why it is found within us, what created it, what cause led to its being there—not what benefit it provides. “What benefit it provides” is a teleological explanation. Same in psychology. You ask about a person: why did someone do something? You can explain what the cause was that led him to do it, and you can explain what the purpose was for which he did what he did. When someone picks up the phone to set a meeting with his friend for tomorrow morning—I talked about this in the context of free choice—he picks up the phone to set a meeting with his friend for tomorrow morning. I ask: why did he pick up the phone? So you can explain that he picked up the phone because there was a command from the brain to the hand that activated the muscles of the hand; it sent the hand to the phone, dialed, lifted it—that’s the causal explanation. But that’s an explanation on the mechanistic, scientific level. When I’m speaking on the psychological level, then the explanation will tell us: he picked up the phone in order to set the meeting for tomorrow. That’s a teleological explanation, not a cause; it’s the purpose of picking up the phone. What does he want to achieve by picking up the phone? In other words, physiology—or physics and chemistry—these are causal explanations; psychology, anthropology, and sociology are teleological explanations. Now, within biology itself, in physiology certainly, there are teleological explanations. Most explanations there are teleological explanations. Until Darwin came along with evolution and managed to translate teleological explanations into causal explanations. Before that, people basically made do with teleological explanations. The greatness of evolution is that it showed that even in biology one can speak in terms of causal explanations. Purpose basically becomes cause through the process of natural selection; we talked about that. But what many people aren’t aware of is that there are teleological explanations even in physics. When I go even further down the scale of scientific fields, more toward the foundations—not only in biology but also in chemistry and physics. An example, yes, the example they always bring in this context—I’ll share the diagram for a moment—Snell’s law. Here’s Snell’s law in optics. Look at the red line. The red line describes the path taken by a ray of light, okay? Now let’s say the light ray leaves point P at the upper left, and the white area is air, while the bluish-gray area is water. Okay? So there are different refractive indices, and therefore the angle of the ray is refracted. Now Snell’s law says there is a relation between angle theta one, the angle of incidence, and angle theta two, the angle of refraction. Fine, and this depends on the refractive indices. The product of the refractive index times the sine of the angle of incidence is equal—n1 sine theta one equals n2 sine theta two. That’s Snell’s law. Now it turns out that Snell’s law itself can be described as a special case of a principle called Fermat’s principle, the principle of Fermat. What is Fermat’s principle? Fermat’s principle says that light chooses the path that takes the least time to reach its destination. Now you can prove that all of geometric optics follows from this formulation. It’s completely equivalent. Now, you can describe light through the question of what it wants to achieve—it wants to optimize its path, to minimize the time it takes to traverse that path. That’s one possible description. And the second possible description is that it hits a medium and something happens to it, and therefore the angle refracts—that’s the causal description. Snell’s law is the causal description, and Fermat’s principle is the consequentialist, teleological description. Okay? Think about it. The example they always give in this context is this: suppose point Q here is the sea. At point Q, a person is drowning. There’s a drowning person here, okay? At point P stands a lifeguard. Now the question is: how should he run in a way that takes him the least time to reach the drowning person? So our initial intuition says to go in a straight line, but that’s not true. Because if his speed on land is much greater than the speed at which he swims or rows on the rescue board, yes, then obviously it’s better for the path on land to be longer and to shorten the path in the sea. And if you do the calculation according to his running speed versus his swimming speed, it parallels Snell’s law. You get exactly this path. That’s how they show that Fermat’s principle is actually equivalent; this calculation shows that Fermat’s principle gives you Snell’s law. Now the question that arises here is: which is the correct description? So who’s right? Physicists will tell you: nobody is right. These are two equivalent descriptions, and both are equally correct. There is no practical difference between them; there is no different prediction of these two theories. These are two theories that are completely equivalent scientifically. But obviously—ask physicists—because I think everyone feels that the causal description is the correct one. The teleological description is an anecdote. Interesting: we found a mathematical anecdote showing that you can present a purposive description completely equivalent to the causal description. Interesting, but it’s just an anecdote, it’s not real. It’s not really that light chooses for itself the shortest path; light chooses nothing. Light goes where its nature leads it to go. So to say that light chooses something is a metaphor—you get that, right? It chooses nothing. Therefore teleological descriptions in science—or at least in inanimate science—are perceived as anecdotes. The causal descriptions are supposedly the real ones. For example, Aristotle’s physics was teleological physics. Why does a stone fall to the ground if you leave it in the air? Because it strives to return to its source. Right? It wants to return; it is made of dust—“for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” So Aristotle says: fine, then it wants to return to dust, and therefore it falls downward. Of course, “wants to return to dust” is a teleological description. How do we describe it in today’s physics? Causally. There is a gravitational force pulling it downward, and that force causes it to fall. But even in the modern description there is a teleological formulation—for example, that the stone strives toward minimum potential energy. That is a modern formulation of Aristotle. It’s a teleological formulation. The stone strives to minimize. Think of a little ball rolling over some topographical landscape—mountains, hills, valleys, ridges, and so on. Where will it end up? In the lowest place in Tel Aviv. Right? Why will it get there? Because there the potential energy is minimal. You understand that this is a teleological description. The little ball strives to minimize its potential energy; it chooses a path that minimizes its potential energy. Okay? What would the causal description look like? Suppose the little ball is on a mountain; say the force of gravity pulls it to roll downward—that’s the causal description. Meaning that even in mechanics there is a causal description and a teleological description. In optics too there is a causal description and a teleological description. More generally, this is what is called Lagrangian mechanics, for those who know. In the nineteenth century there was a certain period when Lagrange found a teleological formulation for all of mechanics, in fact for all of physics. Also in electromagnetism, which wasn’t yet known then, but it too has a teleological description through Lagrangians and Hamiltonians. Those who know these formulations know that they are essentially minimum principles. You have to minimize some quantity, and that minimization gives you the path the body will take, just as we did regarding the ray of light. In that case the quantity being minimized is the time the path takes. So this formulation basically shows us that all the laws of nature can be formulated in causal language and in teleological language. In Aristotle the formulation was teleological, and everyone laughs at him terribly because, okay, what—the stone chooses to return to its source? Why is it less funny that the stone chooses a minimum of potential energy? The stone chooses nothing. It’s only our way of describing what the stone does. And from here comes the intuition that probably the causal description is the correct one and the teleological description is an anecdote. It’s not really so—it’s not that the stone chooses. We can show that mathematically one can also offer a parallel description. Now, you have to understand—I’ll say more than that—Aristotle doesn’t really mean to say that the stone has free choice, or that the stone has the option not to return to its source and it decided yes to return, because it misses its parents. It doesn’t. It has no choice to do anything else. So people mock Aristotle unjustly. Aristotle doesn’t mean to say that stones are like human beings choosing a path. He means to say that one can describe the behavior of the stone in teleological terms and not in causal terms. And that is true in today’s physics as well. Except that everyone is certain that the causal description is the correct one and the teleological description is an anecdote—amusing, maybe useful sometimes. In physics it is sometimes more convenient to use the teleological description, but that’s only because it is equivalent to the causal description—that’s its justification. Nobody really thinks this description is true. Now why not? After all, even the teleological description does not claim that the stone wants or chooses some path, or that the light chooses some path and could also have chosen another one. Obviously not. Nobody wants to make such a claim—not Fermat, not Aristotle, not anyone else, and certainly not Lagrange. It’s only a way of describing. Why is the causal form preferable to the teleological form? By the way, many times people connect this to the dispute between believers and atheists—that believers are more willing to accept teleological explanations. I’ll say this briefly because I need to finish, and in any case I’ll complete it next time. When you look at reality through teleological glasses, that means reality is moving toward a goal. It doesn’t mean the stone has free choice, but it does mean that the path the stone takes is in fact guided in such a way as to reach the final outcome. By contrast, a causal explanation says: what happens, happens; it is not directed toward any destination. You understand why atheists recoil from explanations like these. They recoil from them because these explanations basically reflect the existence of some factor that controls what is happening here, that built reality in such a way that it goes toward a preordained destination. The whole point of evolution is to remove things from that kind of explanation. Reality is not built so that in the end it will produce life. Life simply came into being causally, through the evolutionary process. The whole debate between atheism and faith / belief is in fact almost exhausted by the debate between two kinds of interpretation of the laws of nature: the teleological interpretation and the causal interpretation. I’ll stop here because we’ve already gone over time. I’ll complete this—we’ll come back to it and finish it next time. Okay, if there are comments or questions?

[Speaker B] But what’s still left in the series? What haven’t you said yet?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m just finishing this, and then I’m done with the physico-theological proof. After that there’s the… we still haven’t finished the series on faith / belief, but what’s called the third talk in the first book, we’ve finished now.

[Speaker G] I put three comments in the chat that maybe you’ll want to look at before you sign off—not now, later.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, okay.

[Speaker E] All right, anyone else? Sabbath peace. Sabbath peace. Sabbath peace, thank you.