Q&A: Questions of Faith
Questions of Faith
Question
In God's name
Hello Rabbi,
I am indeed aware that the Rabbi has taken a time-out on matters of faith. And rightly so. [There really was an endless flood of questions on the topic.]
But I think this is a case of decrees that the public cannot abide by. And besides, one does not make one decree (website) on top of another decree (email). And nowadays one cannot really issue decrees except within the framework of communal enactments. And enactments made privately (email) need not be observed. a0
From all these things and more, I said I would come by email unlawfully, and what I have written, I have written. a0
I wanted to present the questions that trouble me, and that I have not seen sufficiently addressed in the notebook on the site or on the internet in general.
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After reading the third notebook a0 a0the physico-theological proof,
the Rabbi first explains the definition of a complex thing, and connects it to the concept of uniqueness. So by pure chance it is not reasonable that a complex thing should arise. (And if it does arise, that is a clear sign that there is someone external to the system who "singled out" the system.)
After that, the Rabbi raises the objection from evolution. The fact that a human being came into being did not happen in a random and sudden way.
Rather, there is a systematic process behind it. And so it is understandable how a human being [a unique thing] was formed. And one does not need a creator behind it, "the god of the gaps."
If so, then why do we really need a creator? Here the Rabbi again returns and answers that a process that turns something simple into something complex is not a random, blind process. It is a unique process, and therefore it is reasonable that there was someone [with will] who chose it. And if it truly is not a unique process, then indeed it would not require a sufficient reason.
My questions are directed precisely at the part about the "complexity of a process": (I think the Rabbi did not address this part sufficiently; just as in the complexity of objects the Rabbi introduced the entropy chapter first, perhaps the Rabbi could have given an introduction to the part about the complexity of processes.)
With regard to a process, the concept of complexity does not apply in its classical sense [the law of gravity is not more complex than the Stefan-Boltzmann law or Newton's laws of motion]
and it also does not make sense to speak of a process as unique:
1) Therefore, insofar as there is a process, I do not understand how one can claim that it is special. For just as there can be a0e (infinite) a0processes that keep a simple thing simple, there are e a0processes that can turn something simple into something complex.
After all, processes can create something complex out of something simple from all sorts of "directions" and "possibilities." We have no way at all to define this concept! And certainly not to discuss it. a0
2) Does the Rabbi have a definition of a process that deserves to be called complex, such that it would require a composer/designer [and not as a teleological argument]? And a process that is not complex? And why? a0
Now I will focus on the fine-tuning argument, which gives some opening to talk about the concept of process.
3) a0
The Rabbi argues that a gravitational singular point is the most unique thing we can find. However, at the beginning of the Big Bang it is not called unique, because there was no surrounding space and there was no possibility-space that would allow uniqueness.
And my question is that all laws with any attractive force whatsoever will, over time, produce a gravitational singular point but with surrounding space.
And that point will remain forever. (As before the Big Bang it was forever, according to some views.)
And therefore all laws with attractive forces will turn something simple into something complex. And the probability that they will emerge, if so, approaches 1. (Except for an attraction constant of 0.)
But the Rabbi did not explain at all why he does not see this as a process that turns the simple into the complex, whereas evolution, which "creates" a human being, indeed is.
4)
The Rabbi writes that there is another condition in a process in order for it to be called complex, namely that it produces a complex thing that remains stable over time (not something that happens for a second and passes). a0
A. From where did the Rabbi arrive at this conclusion a0from intuition, or from something beyond that?
B. Does the Rabbi have a quantity of time for which the creation must remain, in order for its process to be called a complex and unique process?
C. For example, the sun is going to become a red giant and wipe us out along the way in a few million years. Is that not a sign that we are part of an unstable system that does not require an explanation?
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Thank you in advance for the reply, which will no doubt be quick! And I hope we will not have to clarify the answers again, because it really never ends… a0
Answer
a0Hello K.,
When I announced that I was taking a time-out, I meant it. It has nothing to do with whether people ask me on the website or by email. These discussions exhausted me, since they never end and in my view just repeat themselves over and over. I expect you to respect that and not keep repeating different questions everywhere and from every direction, as if one could distinguish between one venue and another and between one topic and another, despite the fact that I keep announcing the pause and it does not help me. As I said, I have a few other things to do in life, and that is why I wrote the notebooks. The website takes up a huge amount of my time as it is, and I think I already devote quite a lot of time for the benefit of the public.
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I will answer what you asked here now, but from now on I will not answer anywhere any question on these topics or adjacent ones (without any sophistry about whether the question is about God or about entropy, neither on the site nor by email).
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1. The specialness of the laws/processes can be measured through their outcomes. Laws that produce special outcomes are themselves special. The number of such processes/laws is far smaller than the number of simple laws/processes.
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2. Especially if it is a process that increases complexity (decreases entropy) as it proceeds (especially if it is monotonic; see section 4 on stability). That is an objective definition of the complexity of a process.
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3. Regarding the singular point, I did not understand what you meant, but in any case these are irrelevant pieces of physics hair-splitting. It is obvious that a concentrated material point is an object far simpler than the world around us. A system of laws that starts from that point and brings us from it to the special and complex world around us requires an explanation/cause.
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4. There are many systems of laws that, in the course of their operation, produce complex objects, but they immediately fall apart (that is true of all the cellular automata simulations of atheists like Dawkins that purport to show that there are many systems of laws that produce astonishingly complex objects. This is nonsense, of course. They do not understand the significance of irreversibility and stability, and of course they also choose very specific systems).
The reason is that these processes are reversible (like the laws of microscopic physics, at temperature 0). There is a simple body that becomes complex and returns to being simple. There is no real change here, because everything is reversible. Entropy-changing processes are essentially irreversible. A reversible process does not change entropy. Think, for example, about a gas in a container. If at first it is concentrated in one corner and afterward spreads throughout the container, but later returns and concentrates again in the corner and remains there, that means that in fact the entropy did not change and order did not decrease. Order for a moment is not order. And specialness for a moment does not require explanation. It is simply one case out of many thousands, and there is no wonder that it can happen. The whole idea behind the thermodynamic direction of the arrow of time and the decrease of complexity is that the state in which everything is concentrated in the corner does not return again. It is not reversible. If you look microscopically, there may be a moment when the gas is entirely concentrated in one corner, but that is a fleeting instant that is swallowed up in the thermodynamic state. It is not interesting on the thermodynamic plane because it is part of a reversible process. Therefore, if you suddenly see that all the gas is concentrating in the corner and not returning to disperse, it is clear that there is an external force here, because entropy has decreased. But if it concentrates for a moment in the corner and then disperses again, nothing follows from that. It is just chance.
I have no measure of duration that defines stability. It depends on the relation between the pace of the microscopic processes and the duration of the lives of the complex creatures. If, for example, an evolutionary change happens once a second, then a day is already a very stable duration. If the unit of change is a year, then a thousand years is already stable, and so on. And in our case, meanwhile, throughout the whole process from the Big Bang until our day (14 billion years), there has been a monotonic increase in order. That is enough to draw clear conclusions.
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That is all. I will not answer further.
Discussion on Answer
Hello Rabbi,
A friend of mine asked this question to Rabbi Nadav Shnerb about the definition of the concept of complexity, and he too indeed does not know the answer: "I admit that I have no more than intuition on this point." (Though he did not agree that a singular point would create a more unique state than a human being; rather, he is not sure which has lower entropy in the end, and also not every value of the constant G will create a singular point.) And therefore I turned to you again, hoping that this time the honorable Rabbi will be able to answer.
My claim is very simple; this time I will write it at greater length because I saw that you did not understand above:
The Rabbi presents in the notebook the second law of thermodynamics through the example of a gas container, in which the gas particles are gathered in one corner, and when you leave them alone they spread throughout the room and will never again return to being gathered in the corner.
And this is exactly the second law of thermodynamics: that a unique state will not come into being without an external hand.
But what would happen in a situation where the system is in a remote place in the universe, such that the attractive forces between the gas particles are significant? There, if we disperse the gas in the container, within a few moments it will all gather in one place,
so we see that a simple law (gravity, with whatever value the constant G may have) causes a unique and ordered state to arise from a disordered state.
The Rabbi wrote a notebook proving His existence from the complexity of life in the universe, and he argued that the claim that the simple does not become complex is really the intuition that underlies the second law of thermodynamics.
There he argues that the number of systems of laws that would take a singular point and turn it into something complex like a human being is negligible, and from this it follows that there is God.
But if we return to what we saw above, that every possible constant in the force of gravity would yield a unique state after the Big Bang, and with a very large gravitational constant all the mass would gather in one place immediately after the Big Bang a0and that is a very unique state, just like in the gas container, where the state in which all the gas is gathered together is very unique.
And intuition is good specifically when there is nothing analytic against it. But here we have something analytic against the intuition a0a calculation (a priori) showing that the uniqueness of a point of compressed matter in space is greater than that of complex life, meaning that it has fewer equivalent states than life does. So how can one go with the intuition? In other words: the intuition has been refuted. Has it not?
Let me again state at the outset that life is complex by any standard. A system of laws that produces life is special. No thermodynamic calculation is needed for that, and these things are obvious to any reasonable person. So this whole discussion is unnecessary.
As for your question, indeed a0and this is basically the question of Maxwell's demon (see Wikipedia) a0if you organize a special force, it can produce a special state.
A state of gas particles clustered in one corner of a container is special, because a strong gravitational force would only cluster the particles together, but would not place them all at some specific location in space. When they are all clustered and the location is free in space, that is indeed less special. And still, it is clear that this specialness is far less than the state of life, and therefore a relatively simple force might be able to produce it. If that were the specialness in question, I would not bring from it a physico-theological proof.
Beyond that, there is no principle that a special state cannot arise in a one-time lottery. The second law only says that a special state will not arise out of a less special state without external involvement (by the way, the law is more complicated, because there are other factors there too, like energy and the like).
But these are questions in physics, and they have no importance whatsoever for our discussion, as I noted above.
And one more point. Even if there were a strong gravitational force, it would not pull the particles into each other; rather, they would continue moving around one another. Think about just two particles between which there is a force (planet Earth and another particle): they would pass by one another like a spring, and would not stick together (except in a plastic collision).
Thank you very much, Rabbi!
Maybe only if the Rabbi could write a positive definition of what complexity is and how it can be measured, instead of disproving examples of what is not complex and thereby giving, indirectly, a negative definition of the concept.
Indeed, I too think that a human being is more complex than a star, etc. But as long as there is no sharp definition of the concept, one cannot know that our world is really so special.
I have no definition, and to the best of my understanding there is no need for one at all.
Why is there no need for one at all? How can one speak about a certain criterion if one does not define it?
If complexity is a subjective concept, then it is a bit problematic to claim something objective about the universe on its basis.
There is a difference between subjective and not definable (or simply that I do not have a definition). Do you have a definition of the color red? Yet we all know what it is. Do you have a definition of quality? Yet I assume we would agree that there are things with quality and things without it (see Pirsig's book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). Complex concepts are hard to define, and still there is no obstacle to drawing conclusions about them. It is clear that life is a complex thing, and it is improbable that it arose just like that without a guiding hand. You do not need to define complexity for that. I also do not know how to define the Holy One, blessed be He, and still I claim that He exists.
In the case of entropy, there is a mathematical definition of complexity, and therefore I used it. In the absence of forces, a state in which all the particles are concentrated in one corner is objectively more complex, since the number of states equivalent to it is very small compared to a state of uniform distribution. When there is a force that causes that concentration, the situation of course changes, and that is what I addressed in the previous emails.
Hello,
Thank you!
Regarding what the Rabbi answered, I indeed will not respond.
Only the Rabbi wrote in answer 3 that he did not understand my question.
I think it is a very simple and clear question: anything with attractive forces will turn something simple into something unique. And therefore the whole fine-tuning argument collapses.
I added a short sketch that demonstrates this a0every universe with attractive forces will, over time, produce a singular point with surrounding space. And they will turn something simple into something very, very unique, much more than human beings.
If the Rabbi can answer this too, even briefly, I would be glad!
(Each square represents space. A green circle represents matter. And the arrows represent the forces at work. An arrow with a rounded end represents the initial velocity following the Big Bang.)
Here is a link to the sketch:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwJAdMjYRm7Ib05ObHdqQVROZVU