God and science

Sometimes people I disagree and argue with hold extreme positions. This frequently happens in politics and religion, and it’s currently happening globally in the Western world. A curious observation I’ve made is that people, who hold an extreme position, often assume that anyone who disagrees with them holds the extreme opposite position – there’s no room for compromise or nuance.

This is especially true when arguing about religion. People who believe that the Bible is the sole arbiter of truth, when challenged, will automatically assume that the challenger is a militant atheist in the mould of Richard Dawkins. I’ve struck this from both sides. For example, on this blog, when I once pointed out to an anonymous contributor that the Universe created the means to understand itself (a point I’ve often iterated), I was told that I must be a creationist.

The reality is that extreme positions begat extreme opposition. So, when Islamists practice extreme prejudice against non-Muslims (to the point of genocide) it creates a backlash against all Muslims.

In recent posts, I’ve argued strongly against the idea that ‘mind’ pre-originated the Universe and therefore us. This could be taken as an argument against God, but it’s not. Mind is something that we experience and it has evolved. Most scientists and most people (with a Western education) believe that there existed a time in the Universe’s history when there was no mind. In fact, in the context of the history of the Universe, it was mostly absent of any mind (that we are familiar with). God, on the other hand, must exist outside the Universe, and therefore, arguably, outside of space and time. Even Augustine made this point (according to Paul Davies, if my memory serves me right, in one of his many books, probably The Mind of God).

I mentioned Dawkins earlier, as an exemplar of someone who holds militant atheist views (by his own admission), yet he’s always referenced Davies with respect, even though they are philosophically miles apart.

In the latest issue of Philosophy Now (Issue 122, October/November 2017), the theme (they always have a theme) is Socrates, which, of course, must include Plato. In fact, they coin the term ‘Socrato’ and boldly write it on the cover. Within there is an article by Ray Liikanen called The Reverse Solipsist, which is a fictional Socratic dialogue between a resurrected Socrates and a science philosopher (in the mould of Dawkins). I was suitably impressed by this ‘dialogue’ that I looked up a reference for Liikanen at Causalargument.com where there is a 50 page document discussing Kant’s and Hegel’s arguments for ‘first cause’ and Liikanen’s own specific argument, which ostensibly answers Leibniz’s famous question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Liikanen is not credited with any titles or academic credentials (neither am I) but is cited for his essay, Beyond Kant and Hegel, published in The Review of Metaphysics (March 2013).

You are probably wondering what my 3 introductions have in common. Well, the crux of Liikanen’s 50 page argument is that the answer to Leibniz’s question is ‘mind’, and, whilst I disagree with much of his argument and his overall thesis, it contains elements that I actually agree with.

In particular, he references a Socratic dialogue (by Plato this time) whereby he puts a compelling argument (in response to Anaxagoras) that explaining an effect does not explain its cause. Socrates argues by analogy, that explaining how his muscles and bones and sinews work to get him in a sitting position doesn’t explain the motive and mental processes that led him to decide to sit. Liikanen extends this argument to the entire cosmos, whereby cosmology explains the evolvement of the Universe in all its machinations and Evolutionary theory explains the diversity and progenitorial process for speciation, yet no scientific theory explains the cause. To quote Liikanen:

Where all empirically grounded theories naturally fail is that they are limited in their explanatory scope. It is for this same reason that present day apologists employing an empirical method fall into the same kind of fallacious reasoning pointed out by Socrates more than twenty-four centuries ago.

But where I part company with Liikanen is that he argues that ‘pure reason’ can provide answers that empirical science cannot. I argued in a post almost 3 years ago (Dec 2014) that science is a combination of theory, mathematics and evidence, but only evidence can gives us ‘truth’. Mathematics provides abstract truths and its role in formulating physical theories has become increasingly significant in the last 4 centuries (since Galileo, Kepler and Newton), yet, without evidence, mathematically based theories (like String theory) are just theories.

Liikanen takes Kant’s and Hegel’s arguments for a priori deductions over empirically derived ones to give an ‘inevitable’ answer - even a proof - that the cause for the effect we call the Universe is ‘absolute mind’, which, of course, equates to God. I readily admit I can’t do justice to Liikanen’s arguments, given the time and space, but I have a fundamental issue with the premise that pure reason can provide answers that science is unable to furnish. If there is one thing we’ve learnt from science (especially in the last century) it’s that nature’s mechanisms, at all scales, are beyond anything we can imagine. Pure reason is not going to solve a puzzle that science can’t fathom. And, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, there will always be puzzles beyond science, because science is a never-ending endeavour. But I actually agree with Liikanen that there are limits to what science can tell us.

Liikanen makes the point that we live in a finite universe (thus far) that arose from an infinite nothingness or void. And here’s the thing: infinity is something that we struggle to grasp cognitively let alone intuitively. Only mathematics provides a home for infinity in a way that we can cognise, even to the extent that we can differentiate between countable infinities and uncountable infinities.

If one looks at other intelligent species like all the primates or dolphins or some species of birds, none of them can grasp the astronomical reality that we have discovered – a discovery that started very early in human development – let alone esoteric topics like quantum mechanics or complex algebra or differential calculus. My point is that there could be concepts that are beyond us in the same way that cosmology is beyond every other species we know.

Science tells us that the Universe is fine-tuned for complex life to emerge, and as I’ve said before, we are the evidence. Whether this implies a God is completely dependent on what one believes irrespective of science. I’ve long argued that science is neutral on the question of God, and I agree with Michio Kaku that whilst there are some unanswered questions that will be answered by science (in say, 100 years time) the existence of God isn’t one of them.

I’ve always maintained that God is totally subjective. Liikanen’s ‘proof’ for the existence of God is a philosophical argument premised on the belief that there must be something instead of nothing even when there was nothing.

Liikanen makes the point, that I’ve often made, that without mind the Universe may as well not exist. But mind is a consequence – it’s an effect rather than a cause.

Liikanen argues that the Universe’s increasing complexity contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. It so happens that I’ve been re-reading Roger Penrose’s book, Fashion Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, and Penrose spends copious print on this specific topic as he does in virtually every book he writes on cosmology, because it’s a conundrum that most science writers tend to ignore. In my last post, I described entropy as being probabilistic and gave the example of perfume molecules dispersing to all corners of a room instead of congregating in one particular place. Penrose describes a similar scenario, only on the scale of the Universe. The difference is gravity, which makes the particles in the Universe clump together rather than disperse.

Entropy occurs when you have a system in equilibrium, but a system that’s far from equilibrium with an energy source (like the Sun) creates self-organising complexity. Davies makes the same point in The Cosmic Blueprint.

Addendum: My reference to Penrose's book is a bit of a gloss. His discussion is quite elaborate, even dense for some readers, including myself. Having said that, I think it provides a refreshing alternative to String Theory and is worth repeated readings if you're interested.