An interlude XIII

 Listen for it: It's a long hard road that leads to a brighter day, but don't let your heart grow cold just reach out and call his NAME.

On the quest for a more plausible explaining away of finetuning.

 More on Roger Penrose and Fine-Tuning

Granville Sewell

Earlier this month I discussed a video containing a segment on fine-tuning from an amicable debate between 2020 physics Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose and Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. The video was interesting to me because Penrose does not like the multiverse/anthropic principle explanation which is nearly always proposed as the only alternative to design.

I suggested that perhaps one reason Penrose does not like the multiverse explanation for fine tuning is that it would require an awful lot of universes to explain the fine-tuning he has himself discovered. I have since found another video interview, this one with Robert Lawrence Kuhn, in which Penrose makes clear that this is indeed one of his main objections to the multiverse/anthropic principle explanation for-fine tuning, at least for his own spectacular “initial entropy” fine-tuning. 

He calls the other examples of fine-tuning “chicken feed” compared to the fine-tuning required for the “special” initial conditions at the Big Bang and says there must be another explanation for this fine-tuning, though he has only “hypotheses.” But even if a better explanation than chance or design were found for these spectacularly special initial conditions, that would still leave the “chicken feed” fine-tunings unexplained, for example, why the gravitational constant had to be exactly what it is out to 30 or 60 digits of precision! 

“We Ought to Be Observing”

I also noted that in the Penrose-Craig debate, Craig summarized one of Penrose’s objections to the multiverse argument as “We ought to be observing a much different universe than we do” if the anthropic principle could explain fine-tuning. And I said that it appears that Penrose sees the same problem with a multiverse explanation that Michael Behe did in The Edge of Evolution: 

On the finite random multiverse view, we should very likely live in a bare-bones world, with little or nothing in life beyond what’s absolutely required to produce intelligent observers. So, if we find ourselves in a world lavished with extras — with much more than the minimum — we should bet heavily against our world being the result of a finite multiverse scenario.

Other “Extras” from Our Universe

It is clear from the Robert Kuhn interview that Penrose’s objection is indeed that the order in our universe extends far beyond what should be required for observers to exist (4:10+), though he is talking about a specific kind of order that relates to the initial entropy of the universe. Other “extras” that our universe (and our planet) seem to provide us, which are far beyond what should be required for observers to exist, include, apparently, fine-tuning for scientific discovery and technological progress, as the clips from the Fire-Maker (Michael Denton) and Privileged Planet (Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards) videos included here suggest.

In the interview with Robert Kuhn, Roger Penrose still offers as an alternative to design only that maybe some very different kind of life might still have been possible without the fine-tunings we see in our universe (1:15+). And the problems with that alternative are still as expressed in the last paragraphs of my earlier post.

Of course, all of these discussions assume that once you get the constants of physics and initial conditions of a universe right, life could arise and conscious observers could evolve without design, an assumption that is, to put it very mildly, questionable.

James Ch.1:13,14 and eternal conscious torment in an afteflife.

 James Ch.1:13,14NLT"Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. 15These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death."

Death(the expression of divine wrath) brings an end to wrong desire and wrong doing. Wrong desire and wrong doing cannot endure the expression of JEHOVAH'S Wrath.

So death is not merely the penalty for wrong desire and wrong doing death totally expunges wrong desire and wrong doing from the creation.

Roman's Ch.6:7NIV"because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."

The dead are non existent and thus incapable of wrong or right doing.

1John Ch.2:17NIV"The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever."

The expression of JEHOVAH'S righteous wrath will bring an end to rebellious humans and angels and their selfish longings.

In contrast his loyalists will delight in eternal service to our majestic God.

James Chapter 1 New king James Version.

 1.James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad:

Greetings.

2My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3knowing that the testing of your faith produces [a]patience. 4But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be [b]perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

9Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

12Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

16Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 18Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

19[c]So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

21Therefore lay aside all filthiness and [d]overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

26If anyone [e]among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. 27Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.