Q&A: The Argument from Complexity with an Infinite Number of Trials
The Argument from Complexity with an Infinite Number of Trials
Question
Regarding the argument from complexity: in statistics we know that for any event whose probability is as close to zero as can be, the probability that it will occur over an infinite number of trials approaches 1. Note that I am not assuming an infinite number of different universes in space; I’m speaking only about a uniform duration of time in which there are infinitely many different trials. There may have been several such big bangs until a big bang was produced that was sufficiently suitable for intelligent life to emerge. As for the idea that according to current physics time began with the Big Bang, that relies purely on science. What if tomorrow morning they find a way to say that time is in fact infinite—what philosophical argument, independent of current science, supports the argument from complexity in probabilistic terms?
Answer
I explained this in the book as well. We are talking about our laws of nature, which are responsible for the result we got here. The Big Bang did not create the laws of nature; it operated within them. So it doesn’t help to say that there were many different big bangs within the same framework of those same laws of nature. The question is how these particular laws of nature came into being.
Discussion on Answer
We’re going back to questions that were discussed to exhaustion in the book. As far as we know, the laws were never created at all. We also do not know of any mechanism for the formation of laws, so inventing one is exactly like inventing God—just calling Him by another name. And even if there were such a mechanism, who is responsible for that mechanism itself? God, of course.
And I haven’t even mentioned the obvious point: if there are infinitely many universes with all kinds of strange laws, there is no reason one of them couldn’t also have God in it. So what have we gained? Is that really an alternative to there being a God? It’s basically inventing the Mad Hatter’s tea party from Alice in Wonderland as a substitute for the existence of a single teapot.
So why shouldn’t we ask the same question about the very formation of the laws themselves? Over infinite time, the probability that these laws would come into being approaches 1.