I had in mind to write down a few thoughts about Sean Carroll’s latest book “The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself”. Following their excellent article by Alexander Vilenkin on the beginning of the universe, and other good articles by Gregory Chaitin and Jean-Pierre Luminet, I sent my review off to “Inference: International Review of Science”.
So, here it is. Not my original title, by the way.
I should make clear here just how much I enjoyed and was impressed by Sean’s book. (My final paragraph along these lines was cut by the editor, unfortunately.) It is a vast improvement on the average cosmologist’s foray into philosophy and beyond (especially in recent popular books), and I highly recommend it to anyone trying to think deeply about naturalism.
In future posts, I’ll make a few more comments on some things that I cut from the article for length. So stay tuned.
Thank you for that.
Only 2 days before your book is coming !
I wish you the best !
Max (France)
So … Goddidit?
https://www.amazon.com/Fortunate-Universe-Finely-Tuned-Cosmos/dp/1107156610
You forgot to mention chapter 7 and 8.
😉
Great piece, thanks for sharing Luke!
@Arkenaten
Your point?
@aleksyl – don’t bother asking, you won’t get a decent conversation out of it. He’s classic New Atheist High Inquisitor: all he wants is to let you know that if you think God is even on the table for discussion then he thinks you’re a dick.
Well you always come across as if you are, Steve.
Hi Luke,
Have you given up on pretending to be a disinterested observer? Your choice of publisher for your review of Sean Carroll’s book is … shall we say “interesting”?
I write about it at more length here, but in short you’ve now managed to hitch yourself to a Discovery Institute wagon as well as the Templeton. Are you going to continue to pretend to not be a(n old universe) creationist or is this part of an ongoing effort to uncloak as a theist? You might remember that I called you out on this years ago, but it’s cold comfort indeed to have been right all this time.
While on the topic of uncloaking, is there any reason why you have not told your readers about your appearance on Unbelievable, on which you were referred to (twice) as a Christian? (more here)
I never pretended to be an objective observer, since no one is an objective observer. What I said was: wait for the book. The book is here, in which I defend theism. If you have anything relevant to say about the case I make there, then go for it. You’ve said literally nothing of value in the discussion about fine-tuning thus far, just speculation, well-poisoning and conspiracy theories. In the book, my co-author Geraint critiques my position, and I critique him. You might want to read it to see what a substantial interaction between worldviews looks like. Alternatively, if you’re just waiting to dismiss me as a theist without actually considering what I said, then go ahead.
No, I am not hitched to the Discovery Institute wagon. If you’ll read the book, you’ll find that I have no problem with evolution. Inference is not connected to the Discovery Institute, and Alex Vilenkin has written for them as well. Is he hitched to the Discovery Institute?
My Unbelievable interview was going to be a two-parter, with the second half interacting with Sean Carroll. It looks like that won’t happen any time soon, so I’ll post the first part.
I’ve read where Geraint very gently and respectfully disagrees with your position, Luke. I’m sure there will be more vigorous disagreement in the future, hopefully by people who are equally qualified (which does not include me).
As to your gossamer thin protection, pointing out that Vilenkin was published in Inference, you seem to have missed the point. I wrote about it here:
“What I am not suggesting is that Inference is a journal that is literally awash in Intelligent Design propaganda (by which I mean metaphorically awash). Not at all. What I am suggesting is that Inference is a journal that acts as a platform on which high-brow Intelligent Design propaganda can sit side by side with mainstream science. Another journal which is peer-reviewed, and does not have an editorial board that includes a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, would be reluctant to publish the propaganda, but Inference seems to have no problems with publishing mainstream stuff that comes their way – because it aids their cause.”
Of course Inference is going to publish proper science if they can lure proper scientists to get involved. Note that I granted you old universe creationism – which is the end goal of your fine-tuning acrobatics – but I did not (at least above) suggest that you are personally against evolution. What I might suggest is that you would have leanings towards an evolution+ sort of paradigm, rather than an evolution only one. In other words some sort of guided or delimited evolution, such that humanity would arise and, after a few hundred thousand years, be in sore need of a nice guy being nailed to a couple of planks of wood. You have certainly sounded off against naturalism.
So you’ll come clean about your appearance on Unbelievable now? Will you caveat with a note that you didn’t confirm your christianity? Not that you denied it either, but it was a strange situation in which a previously pro-natural theology guest who is now cooling with respect to fine-tuning was put up against an eager fine-tuning advocate. Openly christian philosopher against cloaked christian physicist … how did that come about? (I also note that a week before, a previously anti-multiverse, openly christian astrophysicist announced that he too was cooling with respect to fine-tuning. How long at this rate will you be hanging onto fine-tuning in order to defend theism?)
Finally, you dismiss much if not all of what I have to say as “speculation”. That’s rich, given that speculation is all you have to tie what appears to be fine-tuning of the universe to your god. Thus speculation is the main element of any discourse when fine-tuning goes beyond the actual science, classic appeal to ignorance, god-of-the-gaps argumentation – “I can’t think of any good reason for this being so, therefore god”.
I look forward to hearing your debate with Sean Carroll.
One link in the recent comment appears to be broken – I was trying to link to the article which contained the text below it. Hopefully that link works.
@Neo
I have no clue why you are trying to inflate the importance of Luke’s personal beliefs.
If Luke was to openly admit that he was a theist/Christian, what real tangible interest would you gain from such a revelation? To be frank, you are coming about like some disturbed stalker with a secret obsession of him.
From my observations of Neo (and not unlike Ark) to their way of thinking the simplest method for debunking arguments for theism is to ascertain the beliefs of the arguer (which as you might expect, generally come from a theist) then swiftly reject any arguments from said arguer as the biased ramblings of a god-botherer.
As Scott has previously identified, this is a specious poisoning of the well, but it’s definitely easier than arguing about fine tuning with an astronomer who clearly knows his stuff!
See Pimping the Well.
Hi aleksyl,
I share your worry about me coming across as a disturbed stalker with a secret obsession. I’ve limited my posts about Barnes and spend very little time at his blog and, most importantly, I don’t start fights in the comments section with people who go all gooey when he puts up a new post about his new book. I also spend a fair proportion of my time posting about other things and the vast majority of it not posting anything at all while I get on with my everyday life. And the concern that I do have has nothing to do with ignorance, which is all you have to base your concern on (you admit to having no clue as to my motivations).
I shall try to assuage your concerns by explaining my interest. I’ve partially explained this before in Luke Barnes (Partially) Decloaks, but here goes …
Barnes isn’t just some guy. He’s a post-doctorate cosmologist whose pronouncements can be (and have been) picked up by apologists and used as if he is an authority. The value of his authority to an apologist is increased if it can be said that he is neutral with regards to theology. WLC doesn’t pick up on the words of atheist/agnostic scientists and philosophers for nothing, if one ignores the frequent quoting out of context, it makes his argument look better. Barnes is more valuable to apologists if he appears not to be a theist.
If, on the other hand, it is clear that he is partisan, and he is partisan, then we can see that his conclusion (that the only reasonable thing to conclude from fine-tuning is that god did it) is predicated on his theological leanings.
You seem to think that if Barnes were merely presenting the facts and following where they lead, then it would not matter if he was a theist, an atheist or a satanist (although I suggest that you might have some difficulties if he actually were a satanist). I’d agree. But that’s not what happens. Barnes presents his facts in a very partisan way. He gives theism a very easy ride and wriggles around to make every other possibility look as impossible as possible. I sort of address this in Chance or Design, but no matter how you slice it, the question of fine-tuning comes down to chance or design (be that divine design or mundane design by super-intelligent aliens, either in a computer or via some universe creation device). Because there are two options, we only need to look at the prior likelihoods of each of them, the prior likelihood of chance resulting in us and the prior likelihood of there being a god, that is capable of and inclined towards creating us. To look at the question and presume god because chance is too chancy is indicative of theism (at best), not of the existence of god.
Why does Barnes put things in terms of his 11 objections? This doesn’t make much sense if he’s disinterested, but it makes perfect sense if he’s a theist. He’s trying to give his god the best odds.
Once you understand this, then the power (such as there is any power) of his argument dissipates. He’s not a clever boy showing that there is a distinct path from fine-tuning to god, he’s just showing that if you are already predisposed to believe in a creator god, then fine-tuning can be interpreted as a feature of a god-created universe. It’s just one huge, rather complicated exercise in begging the question.
So, why do I have this apparent obsession with Barnes? It’s because of the influence that he might have, not just on the Barnes’ fan club (aleksyl, Scott Church, Stephen Love, Stephen Law, Øystein) but also second hand via people such as WLC. So long as people might be confused as to Barnes’ motivations, it behooves people like me to point out what his motivations so clearly seem to be.
Which brings me to what tangible benefit would accrue were his theism (actually christianity) to be front and centre. He’d be exposed as a guy who arrived at the conclusion of god because he started with the assumption of god. And the benefit of that? Well, I think that science is lessened if contaminated by irrationality. I think we’d all agree with that, right? Even if we disagreed as to what constitutes irrationality?
I wrote a longer reply, but it apparently got lost in the system. Or it is in the process of being moderated. I’ll post on my blog tomorrow if it doesn’t appear in the meantime (and I might post it there anyway, since I put some time and effort into it).
Hi Neopolitan,
I cannot say I am persuaded by your claims, and I have some issues with your line of reasoning.
First and foremost, Dr. Barnes has not only criticized atheist authors on the FTA, but has also criticized some theistic proponents of the FTA, such as Hugh Ross. He has even criticized some FTA proponents like Craig by means of a video that I have originally brought to his attention. That fact alone is indicative of the notion that he is not as biased as you may think that he is, and thus, I don’t see any merit in the core thesis of your claim.
Moreover, I cannot find any assertion of godidit in any of Dr. Barnes’ published works. If he is just doing science and thus so by sticking to the scientific method, then his personal religious convictions (if any) hold no sway on your suspicion of him being an apologist of some sort. I do however take difficulty with your claim that God ought to be taken of the table because it is a conclusion that you may dislike. I am a Polish Catholic myself so, in a place of free ideas and opinions (such as a blog), there is simply no basis or reason why I should abstain from being able to express my own personal beliefs or convictions freely. If that is what Dr. Barnes decides to do, so be it, but as long as one can seclude a religious conviction and science, I am not persuaded by your objections.
Regards,
Aleksy
Hi Aleksy,
You are more than welcome to express your own personal beliefs and convictions. As is Barnes. The problem comes in when people like Barnes (who now holds a privileged position) present their own personal beliefs and convictions as if they were facts, as if they were arrived at via science when they were actually arrived at via theology.
Barnes does indeed critique Ross and WLC, but any criticism of them was akin to a gentle flogging with the softest of feathers when compared to criticisms of atheist commentators on fine-tuning. Note also that what Barnes wrote about these two came across as correction, rather than any contradiction. He advises Ross to tighten his focus (albeit in a somewhat condescending tone) and WLC gets glowing praise (see the last paragraph of Part 3). Compare this to his critiques of Stenger (“misses the target” in Part 1, and “feeble, evasive response” in Part 2), Adams (“work doesn’t support claims”), Myers (starts off with an implication of true awfulness and ends with the suggestion that no-one should take Myers seriously) and Avalos (“bollocks on so many levels”).
You should be aware that “critique” doesn’t have to be negative, and that there’s a subtle difference between “critique” and “criticism”. That’s a key problem, you see, Barnes critiqued atheist commentators on fine-tuning strongly and negatively while critiquing the theists weakly and (in general) positively. In the comment above, Barnes even admits to not being impartial (“no-one is an objective observer”).
You miss the point with regard to “godidit”. Barnes’ value to the apologetic agenda derives from his not saying that god did it. He viciously attacks all other options but treats the theism option with kid gloves while pretending that he might not be a god-botherer.
I’m not averse to leaving god on the table by the way. I’m willing to cede deism, for the purposes of the argument. However, you’ve still got a very long way to go from “fine-tuning -> a creator of some kind” to the specific god of your imagination, and it is on this leg of the journey that we find that your god really isn’t an option. At the end of the day, all the wriggling about with fine-tuning is a distraction (which is part of the reason why I try not to get bogged down in the details). Barnes being a (probably christian) theist is just an explanation as to why he is so keen on wriggling when there are other, far more interesting things that he could be doing with his education.
Wow so many insecure and butthurt atheists on here. I have zero impressions Luke is a theist. Maybe agnostic or deist perhaps. The only thing I get out of Luke’s interesting thoughts is that it comes down to either the multi verse or some kind of intentional design.
Both have their problems but i’ve never had the sense that Luke advocates a certain position only that intentional purpose may be a valid view as is the multiverse. I fail to see also how he came across it through theology. I’ve only seen him call out BS on scientists who say nonsense and some happen to be atheist. Luke isn’t the only scientist to call out PZ Meyers on BS. It’s really funny to see atheists being as insecure as fundamental christians over here just cause he doesn’t agree with them.
And I think Luke is doing just fine with his education, I could say the same for you wasting time whining on his blog as to why he refutes untrue things scientists who happen to be atheists will say (Just cause you’re an atheist doesn’t mean you’re rational).
Oh come on, Zeke, you aren’t fooling anyone. Barnes raises the faintly ridiculous Boltzmann brain argument (as does his buddy, WLC) as a counter to multiverse (try his Pale Blue Dot appearance). As I reported here, I’ve never warmed to PZ Myers. That doesn’t make him right or wrong, but I’m nowhere close to crying over the fact that Barnes took his scalpel to him.
I notice a few appeals to ignorance in your objection. I’m guessing that works quite well for you.
Regarding your closing parenthetical comment, are you trying to point out that being a theist (most likely a christian) doesn’t necessarily make one a nice person?
I must say that I find the small chorus of defensive theists, circling around and yapping in defence of Barnes, to be quite amusing.
neopolitan sokare: I think your comments are being sent for approval because of the links. I’ll approve them as I get them.
Also, you clearly don’t understand the Boltzmann Brain argument. Here’s Sean Carroll, quoting Feynman: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/12/29/richard-feynman-on-boltzmann-brains/
@Luke, thanks for that. To be as generous as possible, if I recall correctly you recently conceded that the Boltzmann brain argument only works in Boltzmann multiverses (in the Unbelievable episode). I don’t recall you making that concession on the Pale Blue Dot podcast, but none of us has perfect recall. What remains problematical is that people remember what they want to remember, and if you raise an objection that sounds really good against multiverses, and the listener wants to object to multiverses, she can easily forget that the objection was limited to a sort of multiverse that isn’t the sort of multiverse that physicists are generally talking about. WLC capitalises on the fuzziness involved to “win” his debates and for general apologetics work. See his Invasion of the Boltzmann Brain, in which he suggests that the Boltzmann brain generating multiverse has the highest prior likelihood, then goes through to trash it as a concept – all he’s done is show that his initial assumption is wrong somehow and the other sort of multiverses which he assigned lower probability actually have higher [posterior] likelihood than the Boltzmann one. He concludes “(i)t’s amazing that so metaphysical a speculation as the World Ensemble hypothesis should be susceptible to refutation. … The World Ensemble hypothesis fails as an explanation of the fine tuning of the universe for interactive agents like ourselves.”
How about you answer this question straight out: which are the active multiverse theories that depend on local, low entropy, statistical fluctuations in a much more vast, basically smooth, high entropy volume – of the sort that would general Boltzmann brains?
Note also that in the link that you provided, Sean Carroll writes (in the comments): “basically I agree that the combination of positive vacuum energy + BB argument provides very good reason to believe in some sort of multiverse”. In other words, Carroll sees the Boltzmann brain as support for holding multiverses to be true, as opposed to the apologetic natural theologist (like WLC) who sees the Boltzmann brain as being inimical to the multiverse.
You are missing the context in your final paragraph, neo. Carrol writes in reply to Mike that vaacum energy + BB gives reason to believe in multiverses. However, as Mike states in his post, that dark energy is vaacum energy is an (as of yet) unfounded assumtion. Basically, it’s something unobserved functioning as a key to understanding. But as it’s unobserved, it’s also speculation.
Therefore Boltzman’s brain isn’t viewed as support for multiverses by Carrol – what he’s commenting on is what would happen given certain assumptions. Which isn’t included in the Boltzman brain, as of yet.
Also, just because I find it funny, when did I join a fan club? And does this fan club have a cool name? I’m thinking somewhat along the lines of “Barnes’ Brave Backscratchers, myself, but I wasn’t aware I was a member…
Then you don’t read so well, and especially between the lines.
Dear Luke is definitely in the closet for Jesus.
And that you better believe!
Ah, disregard that comment. I was skimming, and missed a bit. If Luke sees it, and wants to remove it, that would probably be the best.
Yes neopolitan, that parenthetical comment implies exactly that. That should be quite obvious, I’m not a theist LOL.
PS. As I’ve stated already, Luke ain’t the only scientist that’s scalped PZ Myers. And they are atheists to begin with if that comforts you lmao.
So are you not hoisted on your own petard, or at least wide open to accusations of being irrational? But it was always possible, I guess.
I ain’t the one constantly whinging at Luke that he’s some sort of closet theist.
@Zeke … Indeed. I am left wondering what skin, if any, you have in the game. You’ve posted only a very few comments on this blog and they’ve all been defensive of Barnes and/or insulting atheists (“frothing at the mouth” and the faintly homophobic “butthurt”). You seem to have identified my problem, but what’s YOUR problem?
And Barnes doesn’t really need to be a closet theist, he’s more than welcome to come out.
@Oystein,
Carroll is probably referring towards Linde’s Chaotic inflationary multiverse which generates a positive feedback vacuum by way of quantum fluctuations. Linde’s Chaotic inflation has since been falsified.
See: https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.2249
Thanks! Probably a bit above my pay grade, though – I’ll see if I can make an effort in understanding it later.
Hi Neopolitan,
You have yet to produce any concrete evidence to back up your silly assertions. My case in point, unless you can demonstrably show any tangible evidence that goddidit is influencing Luke’s scientific endeavors, then any of your bizarre claims and conspiracy theories are moot as far as I am concerned.
Firstly, other theists also came under fire by Luke, such as Eric Metaxas. Secondly, the criticisms of Ross and Craig don’t seem to exhibit the same degree of leniency that you appear to exaggerate in a prior post. I have no clue as to why you utilize such hyperboles in your claim as to paint Luke as a closeted theist when any such propositions cannot yield any meaningful conclusions.
Moreover, I still cannot find even a single ArXiv paper published by Luke that asserts godidit as an explanation for whatever scientific phenomenon he seeks to explain.
If that is the case, then your proclamations of Luke are probably the result of some strange obsession of him. A point that I stand by.
@Oystein,
Isn’t it great that we are part of a fanclub?
It’s absolutely wonderful. Still wondering about the name, though. “Ludicrous Lovers of Luke”?
Some may notice I like alliteration.
I’ll leave the name up to you if you want to turn a metaphorical fan-club into an actual one (although you could work towards an acronym like ELBA – the Exaltation of Luke Barnes Association, and then hold your annual meetings on the island of Elba, along with the sister organisation (the Exaltation of Luke Barnes Organisation for Women, whose primary responsibility will no doubt be the baking of cakes for all the meetings – unless of course the Association is strangely progressive and allows women to congregate with the men)).
The reason why I identified you, along with the Stephens, Church and Aleksy, is because you (and they) hang around the blog, ready to leap in to defend Barnes and applaud him for doing this or that. Perhaps you haven’t noticed.
BTW, I’d not have originally added Zeke but I think he’s doing enough to warrant consideration. He seems keen, so why not let him in?
Yess cause Arkenaten’s reply to Luke’s thoughtful review to Sean Carroll’s book with “Goddidit” is so thoughtful and enlightening.
I have no problem, I actually enjoy Luke’s blog. It’s only you and Arkenaten that act like you have some sort of bad rash to Luke’s supposed hidden and insidious theism that only the both of you have the power to see through this apparently obvious conspiracy.
Zeke – “Wow so many insecure and butthurt atheists on here. I have zero impressions Luke is a theist. Maybe agnostic or deist perhaps. The only thing I get out of Luke’s interesting thoughts is that it comes down to either the multi verse or some kind of intentional design.”
Zeke – “It’s only you and Arkenaten that act like you have some sort of bad rash to Luke’s supposed hidden and insidious theism that only the both of you have the power to see through this apparently obvious conspiracy.”
Hm, “so many” = 2 ? Interesting.
Nice try, different statements. Enough salty atheists troll Luke’s blog, but it’s you two in particular that think Luke has some sort of hidden agenda. Which again, no one else can see supposedly except you and……
So why and in what way are all the other atheists “butthurt”?
I agree that Arkenaten and I share a conclusion that Barnes is a closeted theist. But I doubt that we are alone in thinking this, even if we are in expressing it in the comments. Stenger certainly thought it to be the case, Carroll may very well think so too.
Fortunately our distaste at Barnes hiding his theism is pretty much overtaken by events now, because it’s much more out in the open now. Barnes doesn’t really have the option to pretend to not be a theist anymore since he put the book out, stumbled while on the Pale Blue Dot podcast and appeared on Unbelievable as a christian.
You have to admit that we were right in our suspicion that he was a theist, and you have to admit that he was coy about it (saying that he was “at least a deist” to Ark a while back). The question then is whether that affects his position vis a vis fine-tuning. I think it does, I suspect that Ark agrees, Stenger did while he was still alive. We have to wait, but I am certain that Carroll would agree (as would other “butthurt” atheists appearing the comments here). You and the theists (noting that you claim not to be one, although you may be a deist, or a vagueist) seem to think that Barnes’ position is totally unaffected by his christianity. That is touchingly naive.
However, it all comes to naught as far as I am concerned since, for the sake of the argument, I am willing to grant you classic non-interventionist deism, which is as far as fine-tuning gets you, because it’s functionally the same as saying “I don’t know” about how we got here, which is as far as my atheism gets me (and where I feel perfectly comfortable to remain until presented with actual, relevant facts).
It is a bit confusing how you argue.
On one side, you point out to Zeke that he leaves the possibility open for him being open to accusations about irrationality, and being hoisted on his own petard.
On the other side, you present assertions like “The question then is whether that affects his position vis a vis fine-tuning. I think it does, I suspect that Ark agrees, Stenger did while he was still alive. We have to wait, but I am certain that Carroll would agree […] You and the theists […] seem to think that Barnes’ position is totally unaffected by his christianity. That is touchingly naive.”
Problem here is, as I noted, that this is an assertion. You have provided no argument as to whether this is true, and as such I have a hard time to see a way for you to claim this rationally. In fact, it is easier to imagine you suffering the problem you accuse Luke of – starting out with your conclusion, and fitting the facts as you see them.
In that regard, I am trying to see your answer about the fan club as humour. I guess it must be. But the underlying assumption that colour your humour – that I and others defend Luke (I can’t speak for others, but for me I don’t – this is about the argument) because we like his conclusion, and that we sort of need to be conservative Christians, and are irrational – they all serve to underline the irrationality of your mission.
If you want advice, it would be preferable for discussion that you assume others not being influenced by their theism. Rather, the rational thing to do (if you ask me) is to assume that their conclusion is reached by trying to assess the evience, and then present arguments as to why you believe they are wrong. You may believe that’s what you’re doing, but it isn’t – you are presenting assertions. That does not help your cause, if you have one, because assertions not backed by argument just turn people away if they are not already convinced by your argument.
Basically, you are preaching to the choir.
Looking forward to getting my hands on the book when i can, Luke. I really enjoyed your podcast over at the pale blue dot, have looked forward to your writings on fine-tuning ever since.
Glad to see you are a theist! (Im scratching my head at the neo guy who is littering the combox. Since when does affirming the existence of God based on fine tuning, coupled with other arguments, a comment on religious views?!) Not only a theist, but was especially glad to see your brief defence of Aristotelian metaphysics in this article. I only came across your article on Ed Feser’s blog, almost finished Scholastic metaphysics and think, at the very least, Aristotelian metaphysics is as defensible today as another other, though im leaning towards it being rather significantly more powerful than other metaphysics (and much more internally consistent to boot!) So, you could understand my delight at your clear defensive and explanation of even stripped down notions of final causality. Perhaps in the future you could comment on your position on A-T metaphysics? Id be very interested.
Anyway, completely agree with the article Luke.
Hi Callum,
Nice to meet you. Neapolitan is likely an atheist basement dweller who spends all his time online bashing those with a atheist worldview point. He along with Arkenanten generally troll Luke and some other posters with threats and intimidation, with a hint of overall mockery.
Ahh i see, thanks for the heads up!
Hi Neopolitan,
Have you yet managed to find goddit in any of Luke’s publications? So far, no luck on my part.
Hi Aleksy,
This is no surprise to me. I am not expecting to see a “goddidit” claim by Luke, the absence of one is entirely consistent with my hypothesis. As I wrote above (emphasis added):
“You miss the point with regard to ‘godidit’. Barnes’ value to the apologetic agenda derives from his **NOT** saying that god did it. He viciously attacks all other options but treats the theism option with kid gloves while pretending that he might not be a god-botherer.”
He sets up a situation in which an overt, “old universe” creationist, such as William Lane Craig can come along and claim that “goddidit” using Barnes’ interpretation of fine-tuning in support. I was pondering this over the weekend and came to the the conclusion that there is a(t least one) problem (for Barnes and WLC) with this approach. Where Barnes is most useful to the apologetic agenda, his expertise is no longer relevant. All Barnes can establish is that there is some “fine-tuning” (in quotes to distinguish it from “evidence that uniquely supports the design inference”). No-one can seriously dismiss “fine-tuning” in entirety, the most we could do is argue around the edges as to its extent, making it an argument about how fine “fine-tuning” is. And there’s plenty of scope to say that some claims to “fine-tuning” are overblown, even Barnes has indulged in that (see his critique of Hugh Ross).
In a sense, all of us are “fine-tuned”, cosmographically and temporally. Of all the locations in the universe we humans just happen to have been born on planet Earth, even though the Earth is a minuscule fraction of the universe’s volume (in the order of about 10^-56% of the visible universe). Amazing, huh? Not only that, we were born to a family that live on the surface of the planet, not high in the atmosphere, or at the bottom of an ocean or in the core – and on a bit of the surface that was conducive to life (not near the top of Everest, in the crater of a volcano, in Death Valley or at the South Pole). And, given the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years, with no sign of it coming to an end at any time soon, it’s reasonably amazing that we should be alive just at the same time that Barnes is alive and has his blog available to comment on. Some thousands of years ago and we’d have to satisfy ourselves with hitting each other with rocks. Even forty years ago and we’d have to be doing this on paper and no-one would likely ever see our correspondence.
So we can agree on fine(-ish)-tuning, to some extent. Once we’ve done that though, Barnes as a cosmologist has no additional authority with respect to the topic. It’s then all down to interpretation regarding the fact of “fine-tuning”. Even if Barnes can dismiss everything other than design as “highly unlikely”, he is still stuck between something that is a highly unlikely (intelligent life as the result of brute chance) and something that is highly unbelievable (intelligent life as the result of some sort of magical design agent).
Of course, it is easier to believe in the highly unbelievable as the best explanation for something (or anything) if you already believe in it for other reasons.
—
Right, now I have been kind and tried to explain this to you because you did seem to be confused. But I think that you, Øystein and Zeke are distractions. I’m not interested in persuading you – as individuals – that your gods (or whatever, in the case of the non-theist Zeke) do not exist. I am interested in cajoling Barnes into admitting that he is a theist and that his self-admitted lack of objectivity has driven him to interpret the appearance (and likely existence) of fine-tuning as evidence for his god.
I asked him a question above, which he has yet to answer. Perhaps he will deign to answer rather than leaving it to the rabble to continue muddying the waters?
This was the question (with typo corrected): “which are the active multiverse theories that depend on local, low entropy, statistical fluctuations in a much more vast, basically smooth, high entropy volume – of the sort that would generate Boltzmann brains?”
Well, we’re at least – as distractions (as you are to Luke, btw) at least trying to be polite. Your “fan club” comments, your “rabble”, “muddying the waters” – none of those are argued for, none are polite and none put you in a good light.
Furthermore, why should Luke bother with your question when it’s clear it isn’t asked in good faith, and will be used (or, rather, misused) to support an irrational argument (“This person believes X, therefore argument Y is unsound”)? This is a serious question, and one which you should ponder.
Also, putting fine-tuning in quotes doesn’t make sense. It isn’t in the book, which (if you remember) is co-authored by another author – with similar credentials – who doesn’t hold God as an answer. Fine-tuning is fine-tuning – trying to make it sound like you don’t like the existence of the fact, but that, as you are probably aware, doesn’t change the fact. Putting it in quotes merely makes it seem like you do not understand the argument apart from the conclusion (that is, the one you don’t like).
Your examples of fine-tuning are equally strange. They’re not examples of the fine tuning for life, discussed in the book – they are arguments for the fine-tuning of you, spesifically. But that argument isn’t remotely interesting in this context.
Adding this to the misunderstanding you had of Carrol earlier, and I am wondering as to whether you actually try to understand, or whether you simply are harping on about your pet peeve even if it doesn’t fit.
Distraction out.
Hi Øystein,
I’m glad that you take offense at being called a distraction because I consider you (out of a rather small field) to be a primary distraction – the blow must have struck home.
That said, you do highlight a couple of more interesting instances of misunderstanding. Firstly, you seem to think that if (when) Barnes acknowledges that he is a christian (ie he believes X) then I will “poison the well” by saying that because he is a christian then argument Y is unsound – by virtue of him having used it as a christian. That would be a terrible thing to do, but it’s not what I am doing nor is it what I am intending to do. The truth is a little more nuanced, so hopefully you can follow along.
Argument Y (the argument that I take issue with) is fundamentally “fine-tuning -> god”. As I’ve said to Aleksy, Barnes doesn’t explicitly present this argument nor do I expect him to. That’s not the role that he has assumed. If anything, the argument he makes is “fine-tuning + the refutation of every explanation for fine-tuning that isn’t god-related -> ?” But he doesn’t really make the argument himself, he just lays the groundwork for someone else (like WLC for example or Hugh Ross, but it could be any old apologist) to come along and put the last piece of the puzzle in place.
The primary thing that interests me is that he is so lenient on on the theism answer and overstates the case against other possibilities, like when he trundles in the Boltzmann Brain argument when Boltzmann multiverses don’t seem to figure in any modern mainstream thinking about multiple universes. It’s his intent, his motivation that interests me. The argument is already wrong, it won’t become any more wrong by virtue of his uncloaking as a christian. What his uncloaking will do is explain his motivation with respect to fine-tuning.
What I’d be very surprised to hear (and somewhat sceptical about) would be a claim by Barnes that he was not originally a christian who felt heartened by all this fine-tuning talk as it seemed to confirm his prejudices, but rather he was theologically neutral person who was pushed into christianity by fine-tuning – noting that my scepticism is based largely on the fact that fine-tuning only gets you as far as deism. I also suspect that he wants to be big in the apologetic world, fighting the good fight for his god. That seems to be happening and I first predicted something of the sort three years ago, so I feel vindicated in that. You may not agree, but it’s unclear what you actually think Barnes is up to and why he is up to it.
Now, “fine-tuning” versus fine-tuning. I wrote “fine-tuning” because I wanted at that moment to distinguish between the sort of fine-tuning that you reach by googling that term, what Barnes would have you think that he is talking about and what I would agree actually exists. Let’s look at the first 50 hits on Google (noting that I logged out in the hope that I can turn tailoring off, I also turned off localisation and set the engine to give me 50 hits up-front). I got: a couple of wikipedia links, a dictionary definition or two, a thesaurus entry and then some web-sites: biologos, godandscience, a PBS page on scientific approaches to fine-tuning, a performance motor vehicle page, a philosophytalk page on FTA for god, the Discovery Institute, some financial stuff, WLC’s Reasonably Fallacious, creation.com, rationalwiki article on FTA for god, Luke Barnes at the New Atlantis, phys.org article on fine-tuning, Barnes’ paper criticising Stenger, infidels.org on the FTA for god, some unrelated medical, physics and education stuff, some marketing (sound systems, programming, etc), Robin Collins on the FTA for god, Reasonably Fallacious video on the FTA for god, philosophical paper on the FTA for god, creationist Bob Enyart on FTA for god and a few sites about tuning of musical instruments.
Basically, when it’s talking about cosmological stuff, it’s almost exclusively about trying to argue for god – and in the couple of instances where it’s not, fine-tuning is talked about in relation to a solution that is specifically not god-related with an eye to the fact that fine-tuning almost always is raised by god-botherers.
This is me providing my argument, by the way, that when you say “fine-tuning” most people will understand that to mean “the fine-tuning argument for god”.
I’m in the middle of writing something for my blog about fine-tuning for me and you. But I do note that you have a problem with it. That’s all good, I didn’t expect you to like it.
Ok. Let me start from the start here:
You write that”I’m glad that you take offense at being called a distraction because I consider you (out of a rather small field) to be a primary distraction – the blow must have struck home.”
I don’t know how you got this impression that I take offense at being called a distraction. I don’t really think you’ll believe me, but I really don’t care about that part – what I was pointing out is the rather impolite way you deal with what you consider distractions. As I wrote: “Well, we’re at least – as distractions (as you are to Luke, btw) at least trying to be polite.” The point here is trying to be polite, as should be sufficiently clear from reading the text itself.
That you think of your comments as “blows” implicate that you’re not arguing in good faith, but rather try to punch home a message. I hope that’s not correct, but your choice of words leave that interpretation open. Doesn’t do anything for your image, I’m afraid.
Further on, you try again to distance yourself from the claim that you’re not going for the fallacy “Person belives X, therefore argument Y is fallacious”. Yet, even though you nuance your position, the problem remains: you aren’t focusing on “argument Y”. Your focus is “person X”. Or, spesifically, that Luke seems to – in your view – go to lightly on the arguments for this pointing towards a god or gods. In this, I find your critique lacking. Firstly, because I happen to think – as aleksyl does – that Luke doesn’t go as lightly on those arguments as you claim. Neither do I think he viciously attacks other arguments. He points to weaknesses both places, and he – as a person – believes some weaknesses are more important than others. If you think otherwise, you should argue for that yourself, not attack Luke for what basically amounts to “not being you”.
The argument of “Boltzman Brains” goes here. If you feel this is a bad argument, you should present those arguments (btw, this is the one place where you have presented your arguments, so mostly this should be considered, I think, your best effort so far), and have them evaluated by their merits. Problem here lies in that you do not really seem to understand it well, as shown by your comment where you thought Sean Carrol saw it as a case for strengthening the multiverse theory.
Your argument for “fine-tuning” for me also falls flat. What Luke means by that is actually explained in a book, and in scholarly articles. That you then come along and say ” I wanted at that moment to distinguish between the sort of fine-tuning that you reach by googling that term, what Barnes would have you think that he is talking about and what I would agree actually exists. Let’s look at the first 50 hits on Google”. Here, you seem to indicate that you know what Luke thinks. However, unless you are God yourself, you do not have that knowledge. As such, keeping to the argument he presents rather than what you believe are his motivations, is the way to go. The existence of fine-tuning, as explained in the book (and articles) exist – and that is independent of whoever uses the argument. WLC, who seems to be a hang-up of yours, used the argument prior to Luke writing anything scholarly.
Finally, you note that I have a problem with fine-tuning for me and you. That, again, is reading things into what I wrote that isn’t there. What I did point out was that this fine-tuning isn’t the fine-tuning under discussion here, and as such it is irrellevant to the question at hand.
tl;dr: you are reading too much into motivations you cannot know, you do not argue sufficiently for your position, and when you do try, there seem to be flaws in your understanding.
I’m only going to bother about two things: first, the Carroll issue. Perhaps you could interpret Carroll’s words, which I wrote above: “basically I agree that the combination of positive vacuum energy + BB argument provides very good reason to believe in some sort of multiverse”. Carroll wrote them here (http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/12/29/richard-feynman-on-boltzmann-brains/) in the comments to his article.
I accept that he caveated it as part of a combination of things, “the combination of positive vacuum energy + BB argument”, but even so, he’s suggesting that the Boltzmann Brain argument is not necessarily a multiverse killer and can, given certain conditions, provide support to the notion of multiverses. I don’t see how you can read that any other way. Perhaps you could enlighten me.
Second, maybe Barnes doesn’t realise that given no other context, “fine-tuning” is about a natural theology argument for the existence of god. You seem to have forgotten that I was explaining why I used “fine-tuning” in quotation marks, I wasn’t explaining what Barnes thinks. Even if I suggested that Barnes might want us to think something specific when he writes “fine-tuning”, I didn’t speculate on what that might be – instead I went into a third option which was what a Google search indicates as the meaning of the term. I don’t know what Barnes thinks or believes. I merely have my suspicions. He’s had plenty of opportunity to allay such suspicions (not merely for my benefit, but for the benefit of other people who might be prepared to dismiss him as just another god bothering cosmologist like Hugh Ross or George Ellis).
But note, if Barnes means to do no more than simply suggest that the universe is fine-tuned without surreptitiously pushing a “god did it” agenda, then I could agree with him. I note that trying to assure me that this is actually the case, and that I’ve just misunderstood Barnes, isn’t your approach – nor does it seem to be Barnes’. Which means that you (both of you) agree with me, that you agree that he’s an undeclared partisan. All you object to then is the assumption that I consider his christianity as prima facie evidence that anything that he has to argue must be wrong. And that’s a false assumption. I consider aspects of what he is arguing to be wrong anyway – but not everything that he argues – and that is irrespective of his motivations (much as I disagree with Zeke is he agrees with Barnes, even though Zeke protests that he is not a theist and even if he were a fellow butt-hurt atheist).
As answered above, it a) isn’t in the article, it is in the comments (you said so yourself), and b), as aleksyl points out, it is speculation that seems to be falsified. You are simply rehashing what you’ve earlier written, without taking into account what has happened inbetween.
Second, your suspicions are what makes your endavour .. interesting. They always crop up, you point to them constantly, feel vindicated in some of them etc.. So when you say you don’t speculate on his motives, you do. Constantly. As you did with my motivation/feelings in your previous reply.
Perhaps this is a blind spot for you, I can’t say. I just see in your posts constant speculation in motives – way more so than actual arguments.
Your last paragraph does this again. I have pointed out to you, repeatedly, that the argument is what you have to consider. Instead, you infer what I try to say between the lines, which just happens to be your preferred conclusion. What I propose instead is that you look at what I’ve acutally written – and respond. Suffice to say that your inference is wrong, and not supported by what I write.
Interesting effort there, Øystein. Yes, Carroll wrote what he wrote in the comments, and I told you that so you could go back to the source and see that he wrote what I said he wrote. It’s immaterial that he wrote what he wrote in the comments rather than in the main text of the referred article, my point still stands that Carroll has indicated a belief that the Boltzmann Brain argument (together with something else) can provide support to the notion of a multiverse.
As for Aleksy, he himself was speculating about what Carroll was referring to – read his words “Carroll is probably referring towards Linde’s Chaotic inflationary multiverse which generates a positive feedback vacuum by way of quantum fluctuations. Linde’s Chaotic inflation has since been falsified.” See the probably? Then he provides, as support for this claim an article which concludes with “We therefore conclude that stochastic inflation based on a stochastic forcing term would not produce an infinite number of universes in some multiverse ensemble. In general, since the Einstein field equations in both situations were not well-posed, we conclude that the existence of a multiverse via the stochastic eternal inflation mechanism considered in this paper is still very much an open question that will require much deeper investigation.” See both the caveat (based on a stochastic forcing term) and the reference to this not being a settled issue (still very much an open question that will require much deeper investigation)? Pfft. So, yes, I am repeating what I’ve previously written but only because there’s been no refutation to it. Merely attempts to distract.
Then you seem to have problems with nuance. It is true that, in general, I do tend to ponder over the motivations of others. Not just Barnes, but also you and Aleksy and Zeke and others beside. But that does not mean that in every single utterance I am explicitly devoted to pondering motivations. You seem to have missed that subtlety. In the comment I was referring to I had deliberately held off from speculation, but you are indeed right in that I do speculate at other times. And your problem with that is … ?
I am not sure what, in the last paragraph of my previous comment you consider to be me reading between the lines rather than just paraphrasing of what you have previously written. Perhaps you could be more clear on what position you think I have attributed to you that you don’t actually hold.
Let’s start with the final paragraph.
You write, in your former reply: ” I note that trying to assure me that this is actually the case, and that I’ve just misunderstood Barnes, isn’t your approach – nor does it seem to be Barnes’. Which means that you (both of you) agree with me, that you agree that he’s an undeclared partisan. All you object to then is the assumption that I consider his christianity as prima facie evidence that anything that he has to argue must be wrong”
Here, you infer that I have to agree that Luke is an undeclared partisan. That isn’t a paraphrase, and it isn’t a neccesary conlcusion to what I wrote. In context, in fact, it is unwarranted speculation.
It is, however, an example of you inferring motivation and meaning where none is to be found. Furthermore, it is of no interest to the argument whether it had been right or not – as I have repeatedly claimed.
Then, about the Boltzman Brains. Here, I have referred you back to my earlier comment. It seems you haven’t read it. What you originally wrote was “In other words, Carroll sees the Boltzmann brain as support for holding multiverses to be true”. Note the absence of qualifiers or nuance. I responded: “You are missing the context in your final paragraph, neo. Carrol writes in reply to Mike that vaacum energy + BB gives reason to believe in multiverses. However, as Mike states in his post, that dark energy is vaacum energy is an (as of yet) unfounded assumtion. Basically, it’s something unobserved functioning as a key to understanding. But as it’s unobserved, it’s also speculation.” Now, this is a lot like your current claim, “my point still stands that Carroll has indicated a belief that the Boltzmann Brain argument (together with something else) can provide support to the notion of a multiverse”. But your second here has little in common with your prior, given that your prior is missing everything about uncertainty.
Now, throw in your explanation of the uncertainty of aleksyls comment, and it all seems a bit disingenuous. Nuance is fine – even required! – when speaking about works disagreeing with your position. However, it’s not something you go out of your way to do when trying to reinforce said position. This looks quite like what you accuse Luke of doing in his argumetation – so if you consider it bad, why use the same strategy yourself?
Øystein
Hm? When you write, you have no motivation and you intend no meaning? Really?
Can you not understand why I consider you to be a distraction? I’ll pretend that you didn’t write this and instead point out that anything I write is by necessity reasonably close to what I have thought and concluded – so long as I am not tripped up by a typo or awkward phrasing or an assumption that what is in my head is made clear by the sentences I write. My position is never “I wrote this so it’s true”. I’m willing, as should be obvious by now, to argue my case. Does it help if I make this more clear to you? Here you go:
If you want to be treated better, and maybe even not considered a distraction, you might want to respond with “what makes you think that?” or “I think that your conclusion there is wrong because ….”. This would be far more polite and friendly than something along the lines of “what you’ve written there is wrong, here’s something unrelated which may or may not be true, but is almost certainly not relevant”. (Note that I exaggerate for comic effect, for my own amusement, not yours. I am not seriously implying that you intentionally branch off into irrelevancies. It’s merely my opinion that you drag the conversation away from what it relevant.)
I notice that you don’t like clarifications, I wrote something, then I clarified and now you complain that my “second” doesn’t exactly match my “prior”. This odd, given than an earlier complaint was that I was only rehashing my point, which indicates that you don’t like simple repetition either. I detect a trend. You’re not going to be happy with anything that is written by me, are you? (Note that this is a question, to avoid further complaint, consider it as a proper question, rather than a rhetorical one even though it contains a supposition as to your future states of mind.)
Would it help if I praised you for being correct in that I provided insufficient caveats and context for my statement about what Carroll said? The point I had in mind was not fully fleshed out in the words I wrote. Not that they were wrong per se, but they lacked context. My “second” was a better attempt at conveying what I was getting at. Do you have any proper complaint about my “second”, other than that it does not perfectly match my “prior”?
Now your final paragraph:
You … what?
I’m not sure what you are doing here. Do you understand what is meant by nuance? I didn’t explain uncertainty in Aleksy’s comment, I explained that the paper he referred to didn’t say what he wants it to say (he indicates what he wants it to say when he paraphrased Steinhardt as saying it was a devastating blow against Linde’s chaotic eternal inflation theory, so this is no longer just my inference). From my reading of the paper, Kohli and Haslam are not killing all forms of multiverse, they might be killing some forms, but even then that would be based on some assumptions which might not actually apply. All I do know is that there are people out there who are still heavily involved in multiverse theory who apparently either don’t agree with Kohli and Haslam or are not affected by their paper (because their multiverses don’t fall into the category that is covered by the paper). I am willing to make the conclusion that Guth, Aguirre and Nomura are not deliberately wasting their time despite the existence of a conclusive proof that any and all multiverses as impossible. Perhaps you are not, but we are clearly different people with different perspectives on these things.
Note however that none of this has much relevance to the central issue that started it all. Have a look at my original comment to see how far we have strayed, due to your (plural your) distractions:
I write about it at more length here (in my blog, link removed), but in short you’ve now managed to hitch yourself to a Discovery Institute wagon as well as the Templeton. Are you going to continue to pretend to not be a(n old universe) creationist or is this part of an ongoing effort to uncloak as a theist? You might remember that I called you out on this years ago, but it’s cold comfort indeed to have been right all this time.
While on the topic of uncloaking, is there any reason why you have not told your readers about your appearance on Unbelievable, on which you were referred to (twice) as a christian?
How about we return to that? Do you really think that it makes no difference if he is a theist who is biased towards conclusions that seem to favour a god, as opposed to someone who is merely doing the science and going where the evidence leads? Would it not bother you if a poll was conducted and it showed conclusively that the only people who are persuaded by the fine-tuning argument are people who were originally theists? Can you not understand that such a result would indicate that the argument is powerless? If you can, can you not understand that it is of some interest as to whether Barnes was a theist first, fine-tuner second or a scientist first then theist via fine-tuning?
He, and you, are not going to convince anyone until you get someone who is not already a theist (or more likely a group of them) to do the hard yards on shutting down every single other possible explanation for fine-tuning other than the “goddidit (huzzah!)” When you have theists doing, even closeted theists, you end up in a situation in which proper scientists have to go back over their work to find where presuppositions have led the theists to dismiss options out of hand, to experience failures of imagination or to overlook major issues with the “goddidit” solution.
I don’t seriously expect you to address the Barnes problem. If you don’t please don’t be offended if I choose not to correspond with you further. I am more than willing to be pleasantly surprised though.
Again, you are putting words in my mouth. When you write “Hm? When you write, you have no motivation and you intend no meaning?”, you aren’t really trying to understand what I write.
Technically, this time, your interpretation is possible. It is, however, not logical in context, nor does it seem like an attempt at understanding. Of course motivation matters, but when evaluating an argument, it matters not. Or, to be more precise, when you evaluate an argument, your own motivations matter, but not the motivations of the producer of the argument.
This also plays into the point you make of me going off on tangents. I am not. What I am doing is dismissing your original question as meaningless. I know you don’t agree, but I’ll stand by that – and add, as above, that what matters is your motivations. Those are unknown – and unintersting – to me in order to evaluate the argument.
(Also, if you bother responding, please try to read in context.)
Then you write “If you want to be treated better, and maybe even not considered a distraction, you might want to respond with “what makes you think that?” or “I think that your conclusion there is wrong because ….”. This would be far more polite and friendly than something along the lines of “what you’ve written there is wrong,”
Several things here:
1) I don’t care if you consider me a distraction. You like to be blunt, and not bother with niceties etc – no problem. Of course you’ll be considered rude, and rightly so, but that’s not my problem.
2) “If you want to be treated better”… again, I don’t care. But I think the irony in you saying how I could behave better, while quoting a post where you claim to know my mind, is mindboggling. Suffice to say, you need to walk the walk.
3) As it happens, when you claim to know my mind, “you are wrong” is rather polite. It could be done more politely, of course, but seriously, dude – you just claimed – indirectly – to be God. Expecting people to take that politely isn’t going to fly.
And you need to read the other claims in context. But for simplicity:
– you made a sweeping claim
– this was pointed out to you
– you nuance your claim, while claiming to just repeat it. You get angry when I point out the difference.
– at the same time, you claim aleksyl make too strong claims, and want them to be presented properly, with all uncertainty and caveats.
Understandable now? I’m trying to be clear, but it will become muddled at times. Happens with everyone.
Hello Neopolitan,
I don’t think we can reconcile our opposing views onto what extent your ideas of Luke’s motivations in regards to whatever alleged theistic ‘agenda’ he has, and at this point, I seriously doubt it will happen at all. I feel your claims are mistaken, but since this facet of the conversation isn’t going anywhere, I feel it is best that we close that chapter.
@Oystein.
The paper I mentioned refutes Linde’s chaotic inflation theory because an inflationary universe powered by e^phi requires stochastic forcing terms that causes Gaussian white noise via quantum fluctuations, bringing spacetime into a strong singularity. To reinforce the merit of my citation, I asked the author of the paper, who replied that their research proves that Linde’s chaotic inflation is *not* possible because of the said reason
Aleksy, okay, I am glad that you will stop trying to deflect me from pondering Barnes’ motivations. Note very carefully that on this issue, you are no more than a distraction. Only Barnes’ can speak definitively on his motivations. Any of us, on the other hand, is free to speculate – which I fully intend to continue doing so until he decides to come clean or make clear that he doesn’t have a theistic agenda that underlies his interest in fine-tuning.
Re Kohli and Haslam, sure they put out a paper, and maybe one of the authors believes that one of the mechanisms for multiverses is untenable. But eternal inflation is not considered dead by other people in the game, such as those who feature on the video by Skydive Phil (as referenced in the Unbelievable episode on multiverses that was a couple of weeks before the one that Barnes appeared on … noting that Barnes has still not advertised that appearance, despite indicating above that he would). That includes Guth, for example. If Guth still thinks that eternal inflation is possible, then he either disagrees with Kohli and Haslam, or he is talking about a different mechanism.
Are you trying to say that multiverses are not possible, or do you have another claim that you are trying to convey?
Hi Neopolitan,
I concur, but I am deeply disappointed by the claim that I am merely a ‘distraction,’ I find this kind of claim to be extremely rude and disrespectful. I wish you treated me with more decency.
As for the Kohli paper, this result of their research has already been cited by places like Wikipedia (look up ‘eternal inflation’), and when I corresponded with Paul Steinhardt, he thanked me for alerting him to the paper and said that it certainly is a devastating blow to Linde’s theory.
In regards to skydivephil. this man is an atheist activist and not a cosmologist. Why do you think his opinion and knowledge of eternal inflation ought to be giveany academic consideration?
I’m saddened at the depth of your disappointment, but I’m just telling it like it is. I would not like to patronise you by thinking you are a distraction and pretending otherwise.
As to why I consider you a distraction, the body of your response is a good example. I asked you a direct question “Are you trying to say that multiverses are not possible, or do you have another claim that you are trying to convey?” but you just ignore it and go off in another direction, reiterating something that seems reasonably clear in Kohli’s paper – they think that Linde’s theory has problems. But now you throw Paul Steinhardt into the mix. Steinhardt has been critical of the multiverse for a decade and a half now, so it comes as little surprise that he’d be supportive of something that is critical of Linde’s variant of multiverse theory. Note that Steinhardt’s preferred theory (ekpyrotic cosmology) has problems raised in the BGV theorem, only a single bounce universe emerges from that unscathed – as expressed by Guth in the Skydive Phil video.
Now, Skydive Phil may well be an atheist activist, but he’s also a skydiver (the hint is in the name), an aurora aficionado and a populariser of science. The video that I mentioned (link here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjsZEZMR7I, at the risk of having my post delayed) is by Skydive Phil, but it’s not just one person rabbiting on about cosmology from the perspective of a layman – his personal opinion isn’t really the point. Phil is merely the central guy who, together with his collaborators, has recorded the words of cosmology theorists Alan Guth, Anthony Aguirre and Yasunori Nomura and observational cosmologist George Efstathiou, with some narration and interviewing by Monica (presumably scripted by the whole team). The point is that Alan Guth, as recently as this year, was still talking favorably about eternal inflation and George Efstathiou, as recently as this year, was saying that the results of the Planck probe provide evidence in support the notion of the multiverse. So, if you are trying to say Kohli is telling us that the multiverse is dead, then I am telling you that Guth, Aguirre, Nomura and Efstathiou are telling you that it’s not. Although at least two variants of it may well be (ie the Boltzmann one and the Linde one, although I am less certain about the latter – I’d seek advice from Guth, Aguirre, Nomura and others on that).
Apologies, to Luke if he may misinterpret what I said, I meant that I concur with Neo that the ‘what is Barne’s motivation’ is a topic that I will cease to discuss.
I’ve been having a bit more of a look at the Kohli paper, having been reminded that you can track citations and thus see how seriously a paper is taken by fellow academics.
It’s been cited 5 times, three times by Kohli himself and twice by other authors in passing:
“Some authors have argued that inflation is not truly eternal even in this case” (in a paper that states, in the abstract, ” We show that despite this, inflation in hilltop models is nonetheless eternal in the sense that the volume of the spacetime at any finite time is exponentially dominated by regions which continue to inflate. This is true regardless of the energy scale of inflation, and eternal inflation is supported for inflation at arbitrarily low energy scale.”), and
“It is a matter of opinion whether the eternal inflation is objectionable, or not” (in a paper that seeks to solve the problem of initial conditions, “It could help to solve the issue of initial conditions for the observed inflation. Recall that this problem was raised long ago in the context of the so-called new inflation scenario. That time it was alleviated with invention of the chaotic inflation in which the de Sitter expansion starts immediately after Planck era. Nowadays, observational data give preference to the low scale inflation with the plateau potential, during which the energy density is nearly ρ ≃ Vinfl ∼ 10−10. Thus a pre-inflationary evolution of the universe from some initial state with Planck energy ρ ∼ 1 is claimed again”).
This indicates (in my mind) that this paper is not highly regarded. Consider in comparison the BGV paper with 42 citations (no self-citations) or Guth’s paper “Eternal inflation and its implications” with 244 citations (admittedly this paper is from 2007, so it’s been in circulation more than three times as long, but there are no self-citations). For the latter, I note that LA Barnes is responsible for one of the citations listed, which allowed me to have a look at the difference between the general type of paper in which Guth is cited and then general type of paper in which Barnes is cited.
Quite a difference there.
Anyway, given how comprehensively the Kohli and Haslam paper has been ignored, I don’t feel any guilt in disregarding it. I’m certainly not going to waste time analysing it. I did also note that Kohli put some effort into attacking Lawrence Krauss’ book A Universe from Nothing (not that he was alone in that). He also went to the effort of criticising it at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/review/R39M6SDWOJW8PP), and in the process reveals that he’s a big fan of the Templeton Award winning GFR Ellis and is a theist (a sikh to be precise).
Just yet another of these uninteresting co-incidences, I guess.
Hi Neopolitan,
The fact that you think that hilltop inflation is in anyway related to chaotic inflation is the decisive evidence that you are simply clueless in regards to what inflation is. Hilltop inflation relies on a rolling inflaton that doesn’t rely on stochastic forcing term in e^phi which propagates space time via quantum fluctuations. As far as I can tell, both Steinhardt and Kohli have confirmed that Linde’s model is utterly untenable and rebutted. I have not denied that I dismiss all multiverse theories, nor do I dismiss every inflationary model, just simply put, inflationary cosmology becomes less and less tenable over time. Before you criticize a paper of some sort, it may be better to understand the mathematical and properties of physics that the authors utilize to form their conclusion.
Moreover, did you ask Guth, Nomura, or Anthony Aguirre confirm the Kohli paper? You said you would ask them on the paper’s debunking of Linde’s model.
Finally, in regards to the so-called “Barnes” problem, I have to say that there is NO such thing as the “Barnes ” problem. It is an issue that is being driven by you for literally no reason whatsoever in order to generate some kind of personal blog publicity or simply your boredom. It is reminiscent of the Discovery Institute’s ‘teach the controversy,’ when in fact there was no evolutionary crisis to begin with.
Hi Aleksy,
I’m sorry, but I do think that there is a sense in which “hilltop inflation” is related to “chaotic inflation”. Can you see the second word in both of those terms, the word “inflation”? They are both inflationary models. I think this is a pretty strong relationship between the two of them. Naturally they don’t both involve precisely the same (suite of) mechanism(s), otherwise they’d be the same thing and (probably) given the same name.
I’m glad that you don’t dismiss all inflationary models, if that is what you mean, but it seems that you go some way towards dismissing all eternal inflation models and you appear to have seized on one dismissal of one mechanism for eternal inflation as evidence in support of your position. Note that I am not in a position to criticise the Kohli and Haslam paper, I simply don’t have a deep enough background to do that. I suspect that you are in the same position but I don’t know that to be true. What I can see, without having to be able to analyse the details of the paper in depth, is that none of the scientists who *are* able to understand the intricacies of the Kohli and Haslam paper have seen fit to cite it anything other than passing (in one case in a paper that is favorable to eternal inflation). I note you claim support by Steinhardt. That’s all well and good, I am not even going to assert that just because we only have your word for his support for it then it doesn’t count. What I have already said is that even in the best case, all Kohli and Haslam have done is punt one variant of eternal inflationary theory to the kerb. This is not a big issue to anyone other than those who are (or were) committed to a particular solution to the problem, the Linde chaotic inflation solution. I wasn’t in the past and am not now, so I can’t see why you are bothering to go on about it. Unless you really want to be a distraction.
Note also that, at least in the words of Guth [quite recently] and also in the opinion of your buddy Paul Steinhardt [back in 1983], any inflationary model leads to multiverses. You seem to dismiss all multiverse theories and if that is so, then you have a conflict with Guth and his colleagues on that particular point. Perhaps Steinhardt has some inflationary model that doesn’t lead to multiverses. I’m sure you’ll tell me if he does, so I won’t even bother looking it up – after all, as I keep pointing out and will continue to point out, this is all a distraction.
I didn’t say that I intended to approach Guth et al about anything. I used a contraction that you seem to have not understood even though it seems pretty clear to me in context. I wrote: “So, if you are trying to say Kohli is telling us that the multiverse is dead, then I am telling you that Guth, Aguirre, Nomura and Efstathiou are telling you that it’s not. Although at least two variants of it may well be (ie the Boltzmann one and the Linde one, although I am less certain about the latter – I’d seek advice from Guth, Aguirre, Nomura and others on that).”
I didn’t write “I’ll” (“I will”) but rather “I’d” (“I would”), so I was not signalling an intention, but rather a hypothetical or a suggestion – that I would seek advice: if I were sufficiently interested or if I were you. Remember that all of this is a distraction from my main objective which is to get Barnes to admit to or even accidentally reveal his closeted theism – what I termed as “the Barnes problem” when interacting with Øystein – so I am not sufficiently interested as to dash away down rabbit holes of your choosing. I do understand that you might have other objectives but, and forgive my bluntness here, I don’t particularly care about your objectives.
You might want to clarify one of your sentences, by the way. You wrote “I have not denied that I dismiss all multiverse theories, nor do I dismiss every inflationary model, just simply put, inflationary cosmology becomes less and less tenable over time.”
Was this just incredibly awkward phrasing on your part or does it totally fail to represent your position? If it’s the former, then you would have three positions: dismissing all multiverse theories, not dismissing all inflationary theories and considering something (or some things) about inflationary cosmology untenable (without making it clear whether this is inside theoretical models or with regard the theories in question, or perhaps both). You might want to provide some clarification on your third point.
@neopolitan sokare
Odd how Luke’s fan base ( on here, at least ) also seems to be predominantly fans of the Lake Tiberius Pedestrian.
There’s something that confuses me about this review. Point 1 of Sean Carroll’s book is ‘that there is only one world and its the natural world’. But later, he gives ‘the multiverse’ as a possible explanation for ‘fine-tuning’. That seems like an obvious contradiction to me – am I missing something obvious?
My understanding is that “only one world, the natural world” means that there are no supernatural stuff – angels, fairies, gods, what have you. That in itself does not exclude multiverses, because multivereses aren’t supernatural.
Jonathan,
In popular usage the terms “universe” and “multiverse” can be misleading. In particular the former is often equivocated on, and that’s what Carroll is doing here. There are several proposed multiverse scenarios, but the most viable one (which he supports) is based on eternal, or “chaotic” inflation and the so-called “string landscape.” In this scenario an unknown field (or in some models, fields) generically referred to as the inflaton) gets into an excited state and cause space-time to expand exponentially faster than it ordinarily would due to gravity and the Einstein field equations alone. Eventually this field relaxes to a lower state here and there, forming “bubbles” of non-inflating space-time separated by much larger regions that are still inflating. Each of these bubbles will appear to begin in a hot dense state (“big bangs”), and continue expanding and cooling just like ours does. If string theory is correct, each of these bubbles are expected to have different physics, and this is why Carroll and some physicists believe it to be a solution to the fine tuning of many physical parameters.
When Carroll speaks of “one world” he’s referring to the single connected space-time in which these multiple “verse” bubbles appear, so essentially he’s just stating his opinion that the natural world is all there is. I haven’t read the book yet, only reviews of it like this one, so beyond that I can’t speak to its contents. But presumably he makes the same arguments there that he has in many other forums. As such, I emphasize opinion only because like many materialists, he tends to presume that the word “science” is literally synonymous with his views, including his metaphysical ones. That is not the case. And although I won’t get into the details of it here, this inflationary string multiverse framework of his has never made a single unambiguously testable prediction, nor been supported by any observational evidence. It is no less an act of blind faith than the theistic worldviews he rejects.
Best. 🙂
So – the answer is ‘depends on how you define “one” ‘. This from the same person who wants to abandon falsifiability as a criterion for what constitutes an hypothesis.
Basically ‘physicalism’ works backwards from the conclusion that what is detectable by the senses is the only reality, and then adds ad hoc details as required to support the conclusion.
Jonathan,
Yes. Like most materialists Carroll’s viewpoint is based on scientism. He rejects metaphysics by making a metaphysic of science, thus arguing in a clean, self-refuting circle. The 20th Century logical positivism from which scientism originated did the same thing, and died a rather painful death as a result. Unfortunately, those lessons are lost on most atheist physicists these days because few of them have any formal training in philosophy. To be fair Carroll does have at least some, and has called out his like-minded colleagues for their philistine attitudes toward the subject. But then he ends up going to the same place anyway, and for the pretty much same reasons. He redefines “the whole” and “causality” in ways that only beg the question, and then dismisses any attempt to point that out as bucholic, medieval ignorance–a logical fallacy known as bulverism. It’s the Achilles heel of his entire worldview. 🙂
That’s OK. I am pretty familiar with the territory, I have visited Carroll’s blog and have been following topics and issues of this kind for a few years. He seems a nice person, but not philosophically astute. But then, the difference between science and philosophy is itself a philosophical rather than scientific issue!
Jonathan,
Yes. Like most materialists Carroll’s viewpoint is based on scientism. He rejects metaphysics by making a metaphysic of science, and thus argues in a clean, self-refuting circle. The 20th Century logical positivism from which scientism originated did the same thing, and died a rather painful death as a result. Unfortunately, those lessons are lost on most atheist physicists these days because few of them have any formal training in philosophy. To be fair, Carroll does have at least some and has called out his like-minded colleagues for their philistine attitudes toward the subject. But then he ends up at the same place anyway, and for the pretty much same reasons. He redefines “the whole” and “causality” in an entirely question-begging manner, and dismisses any attempt to point that out as bucholic, medieval ignorance–a logical fallacy known as Bulverism. It’s the Achilles heel of his entire worldview.
Sorry about the double post… I didn’t realize I was stuck in moderation. 🙂
Hi Johnathan,
Carrol posits a naturalistic viewpoint and then attempts to make it more psychologically acceptable by juxtaposing it with a more ‘poetic’ overtone.
I haven’t read the book, but I think that Luke manages to defend a theistic viewpoint very well in his responding review.
Well, I still think that the very first point of his ‘naturalistic thesis’, that there is ‘one world’, is then fatally contradicted by this speculative ‘many universes’ idea. I think it’s a muddle.