existence-of-god, intelligent-design, lottery, lottery-mistake, fine-tuned-universeThere is a very common argument for existence of intelligent creator of the universe:
“If any one of the values of several dozen physical constants wasn’t “set” to a value extremely close to the actual value we find, then life would not be possible in our universe.”
This makes sense since current cosmology declares that physical constants were defined during first moment of the universe.
The counterargument to this is something like this: “The lottery has terrible odds, but someone eventually wins. We won the cosmological lottery, enjoy your winnings.”
I thought a while about this counterargument and I doubt it is applicable. You see, we know about only one “lottery ticket” - our universe, and so, we can’t say that “someone should win anyway”. It seems more like a single dice roll not a lottery. And winning a dice roll on a dice with a trillions sides seems like a miracle to me and an argument for existence of a intelligent creator.
So my question is: do you think “lottery mistake” counterargument is flawed or not and how can you argue your point of view.
I’ve always considered the greatest weakness of this argument to be a lack of imagination. Feynman once opened a speech with the following:
You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!
The point he was making is that it’s very easy to take a triviality and put it up on a pedestal and say that it’s exceptional. The odds are astronomically against seeing that one license plate…If you were looking for it. But the odds of seeing one of the millions of valid license plates? It’s very high.
So to take our existence and say, “If anything was changed, it wouldn’t exist!” is wholly true. But it doesn’t follow that therefore nothing would exist, or that there aren’t an infinite number of other ways it could have all come together to the point where idiots would be walking around telling each other how special and unique it is.
They use the same argument with regards to evolution. “Look at this animal! What are the odds it could have come to this exact shape?” Through the fossil record it’s very easy to see the flaw: it didn’t. It arrived at that shape after millions of years of tiny variations, and to then make the claim that the current shape is special, is as flawed as pointing to a single license plate in a parking lot full of cars, and claiming that it is special.
I've said it before - the fine-tuning argument is probably one of the best arguments for theism. It essentially forces the atheist to choose between:
None of these solutions are quite satisfying intellectually or scientifically.
However, it's easy to dismiss the first option. If theists believe that the unlikely alignment of fundamental physical constants is so amazing that it necessitates a super-intelligent, all-powerful Mind, then the existence of such an incredibly complex Being should demand that a yet more intelligent being created Him, and so on.
But ultimately, we have to admit that something exists as a brute fact. So which idea is more parsimonious: a quasi-infinite multitude of Universes, or a single Divine Mind? I would argue that the only minds we are currently aware of are physical minds in the form of human (or animal) brains. In general, brains are extremely complex neural networks which (as far as we know) only appear after billions of years of physical processes. And yet, a Divine Mind, with its infinite Intelligence and Wisdom, would seem to have to be something inordinately more complex than the vast inter-connected network of neurons and synapses which constitutes the human brain. So why is it reasonable to assume that something as complex as a Divine neural network should simply exist, as an ultimate brute-fact? If we posit a "Multiverse" as the ultimate brute-fact, at least we're on safer grounds – because we know that at least one Universe exists, and that its existence preceded the existence of anything so complex as a brain.
I think your objection is fair, but you have to realize that the lottery argument is usually only made within the context of theories that predict multiple lottery tickets existing. The appropriate term for the principle is the anthropic principle.
Without a theory that allows for multiple universes, the argument is not worth much. Besides, even if such a theory is allowed, there is still the daunting task of gathering evidence supporting it.
Personally, I don’t think this is an interesting rebuttal to the theistic argument anyway. It misses the point. The point is: how is a deity an explanation for the fine-tuning of the constants? How is a deity an explanation for anything for that matter? Please, explain why a deity setting the constants solves the problem? It only shifts the problem upon the deity, which is so intangible that it really doesn’t explain anything. Saying “god did it” was never an explanation for anything.
Life as we know it might not have been possible. Who’s to say some other form of life would not have been, on some other planet, in some other part of the very very very large universe? You’re assuming that only one definition of “life” matters. The life which arose on this rock was the kind which adapted to thrive under the variables which exist. Different variables, different adaptations required.
One of the key bits to the lottery argument which your question misses is that it is factoring out luck/chance entirely. The lottery argument relies on a many-universes theory that there were/are infinite universes expressing every possible configuration. Perhaps most would collapse in fairly short order; and others would have very different configurations of life that we can’t easily imagine; and it’s no surprise that we live in this one because this is the one where we would arise. In the lottery, given every ticket is played, one will win - not that only one ticket is played, and that one won (which would be quite fantastic).
Describing the design of the Universe as a lottery is an acceptable argument: simply because the probability of winning the lottery is low, you wouldn't say that it's impossible to win unless you cheat. Thus, simply because the probability that the Universe was designed the way it is is low, you wouldn't declare that it's impossible unless a god intervened.
Stopping at that might not be satisfactory though.
The next step is to talk about what Neil deGrasse Tyson calls "stupid design." If the Universe was created with humans in mind, whoever designed the Universe didn't think it through.
Most places in the Universe are not places where humans can't live and there is a very long list of things that can kill us. It's not really the Garden of Eden. In fact, even places on our own planet are not places where human can't live, not to mention all the things that are actively trying to kill us such as viruses, batteries, and animals.
Our bodies are highly inefficient. We exhale most of the oxygen we inhale. We share a canal for eating and breathing, which allows people to choke up and die. Babies, when they are born, cannot yet walk. Worse, their head is so large that the mortality rate is unusually high.
It sounds compelling until you realize it’s backwards. The universe is not fine tuned to us - we are fine tuned for it, through evolution. Everything that doesn’t find the world “well suited” to their needs, dies.
Think of Goldilocks. She found food & lodging that was just right for her, so she’s the one the bears found when they came home. But remember that dozens of other picky little girls also broke in looking for food and shelter. The rest either found the porridge inedible or the accommodations uncomfortable – and died of sleep deprivation, starvation, etc. So of course the only one alive when the bears return is the one that liked the environment.
So of course the species that exist are the ones that are able to survive.
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