Don Page, Physics, and Theology

My last post was on Don Page’s article/talk Does God so Love the Multiverse, which (as far as I can tell) is an attempt to allow modern Christians to incorporate modern cosmological ideas into their theology.  I don’t think the point of the paper was to win anyone to Christianity.

However, in this post I will analyze his Valentine’s Day 2008 Paper “Scientific and Philosophical Challenges to Theism.”  This 25-page paper seemed more like a random musing of a quantum cosmologist who is attempting to reconcile contradictory ideas in his head.  This summary is supported by the last paragraph of the introduction:

Generally I see science and religion as supporting each other, but there are certainly areas in both that puzzle me. Let me discuss some that to me have seemed to be the biggest challenges to theism, and give some thoughts I have had on them. These thoughts are certainly tentative, so I would certainly appreciate any help others can provide on these mysteries. [emphasis added]

2. The Afterlife Awareness Problem

Section 1 was the introduction, which doesn’t (and shouldn’t) add any arguments.

His first discussion starts off in a very theoretical place however.  He begins by discussing the Doomsday Argument which states (in my limited understanding) that given the number of human beings that have existed one can predict the lifetime of the human race.  It essentially assumes that we are more likely to be at least half-way to doomsday and therefore our species has a finite existence.  This is a statistics argument, that I barely get, and still it seems very arbitrary.

Dr. Page’s issue occurs when he extends this idea to an afterlife and experiences after death.  The issue would be that our present observations would be highly unusual (i.e. statistically unlikely) if there were a very long afterlife of experiences to accumulate.  Another way to think of this (perhaps simpler) is that if the afterlife is infinite (or at much much longer than the length of our pre-death lives) than our experiences pre-death would have little overall weight in the total scheme of our experiences.

How he wraps his head around this contradiction is to (unlike normal people - and I say that with the utmost respect for Dr. Page’s intelligence) draw an analogy to theoretical physics (specifically Boltzmann brains), which lets him visualize a solution.  He also brings up various quantum mechanical ways to think about it, and possibly considering the afterlife as a singe experience.

I think a simpler solution (not that I’m trying to solve issues for theism, but I appreciate solutions) is to not underestimate consciousness.  When we’re young and have few experiences every experience seems to take a long time.  However, as we age, time seems to go by faster and faster.  We also have finite brain capacity (while alive), so many memories are forgotten to make room for more in the future.  I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suspect that an infinite number of experiences could happen - we would just only remember a finite number of them (unfortunately), or else if there is an afterlife we may have access to superior functions.

Given that I had previously had faith in an infinite afterlife, though not quite 100% faith, this conclusion certainly seemed contrary to how I had interpreted the afterlife. It has bothered me ever since I first thought of it.

Overall: problem not so bad, potentially solved

3. Human Free Will

A simple statement of the problem:

the question of human free will … Is there any room for human free will in a universe with definite laws of nature and a definite quantum state? I.e., if the initial conditions and the dynamical laws of evolution are determined, how could humans act otherwise than what would be predicted by these initial conditions and dynamical laws?

He again launches immediately into solutions tied tightly to theoretical physics.  First in that humans “could help choose the laws and quantum state of the universe,” however he identifies the obvious problem that causality is a one-way street and we haven’t been around since the universe’s day 1.  He rebuts though identifying to theoretical reason why causality can’t go in reverese, so this could be the fact of the matter, however he says:

I do personally find it rather implausible that human free will choices can help determine the quantum state of the universe from the very beginning.

His bigger issue is that if God created everything for all time, including actions, causes, and entities, then it is logically impossible for free will to exist.  However:

Now I will admit that if we had some independent existence and were not entirely created or caused by God, then logically we could have free will. God might adopt us, or at least our independent free will choices, within a universe that He otherwise creates.

He seems to want to reject the adoption idea (which seems similar to the ideas behind His Dark Materials trilogy.

Overall: Problem remains for traditional monotheistic religion

4. Divine Free Will and Information Content

This section goes between quantum cosmology and the ontological argument.  He begins with an anecdote which essentially boils to the point: if this is a bounded deterministic universe, then God may have just wanted it that way (and is His Will).

The first issue he discusses relates to Anslem’s ontological argument.  He deduces that if God is a necessary entity and His creation of the universe is also necessary then there is no way He can have free will.  However, he is able to reject the argument since the ontological argument only requires the greatest necessary being (which isn’t necessarily worthy of the title “God”).  He finishes arguing that if God were necessary He would have no information content.  He fails to define information content, and I’m not fully clear on the implications of this argument.

Overall: If God is necessary he’s not worthy of being a god.

5. The Complexity and Probability of God

Here he quotes Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion.  He considers the arguments of chapter 4 which “are not very tightly stated” so he enlisted William Lane Craig to help and figured the argument was:

1. A more complex world is less probable than a simpler world.
2. A world with God is more complex than a world without God.
3. Therefore a world with God is less probable than a world without God.

To which he asked Dr. Dawkins if this was appropriate and he quotes the response:

After circulating this form, I did get the obviously hurried reply from Dawkins: “Your three steps seem to me to be valid. Richard Dawlkins [sic]” (1 February 2007).

His response first questions the probability of complexity - namely whether premise #1 is accurate.  One quote he names says God could make complexity over simplicity by simple choice, however, such a suggestion had the effect of  “shaking {Dr. Page’s] fundamentalist physicist faith in the simplicity of the laws of nature.”  He is therefore willing to grant the first premise as a scientist (who typically look for the simplest theories).  He then moves to question whether God is complex, or adds any complexity.

He then contradicts his earlier statements of section 4 by saying if God is necessary He would be simple and therefore would add no complexity.  The contradiction is that if God is necessary then He has no free will.  This rebuttal to Dawkin’s argument makes the issue of section 4 stand and then God has no free will.

Overall: Don Page vs. Richard Dawkins - either Dawkins is right or God has no free will

6. The Problem of Evil and Elegance

If God is the best possible being and created everything, why does evil exist?

The traditional response he identifies quickly: because we have free will, however he realizes that natural evils (disease, disasters etc.) are not solved.

therefore I do not regard the problem of evil as sufficient for me to give up my simple hypothesis that God created and determined everything contingent other than Himself.

Once again Dr. Page turns to theoretical physics and assumes a solution coming from multiverse theory this time.  He assumes that perhaps “God created all universes that are better to exist than not to exist.”  Basically any universe with net Good vs. Evil is in existence.  His analogy is that he has done some evil but it’s (subjectively) better for him to exist than to not (although some of his Phys 244/281 students may disagree).

The issue he finds is that he would expect slightly more elegance than ugliness in physics but not enormously more.  His issue “is that the laws of physics are enormously more elegant than ugly,” and therefore it is questionable why such elegance exists.  He basically claims that he has reformulated the problem of evil into the “problem of elegance.”  However, anyone in experimental physics (not theoretical) will realize that the models put forth in theoretical physics do not hold as elegantly as we might like to believe.  We are able to model a lot with simple equations, however, there is a lot that is much more difficult to model, and what I would be reluctant to call “elegant.”  A simple situation (even in theoretical physics) is given by the difference between the Atwood’s Machine (a simple pulley system), and a swinging Atwood Machine (one of the masses on the pulley swings), the first can be easily solved, research only began on the second in 1982 and can only be analytically solved in a few situations.

Overall: The problem of evil remains, as well as the potential “problem of elegance”

7. Conclusions

Let me close with an aphorism that I coined to summarize my thoughts as a scientist and as a Christian:

Science reveals the intelligence of the universe;
the Bible reveals the Intelligence behind the universe.

The statement I most agree with from this paper is here: “Whether God is seen as probable or improbable
depends on one’s assumptions.”

Overall Don Page presents several issues to his theism that he has considered, and tries to reconcile them using his theoretical physics background.  Several issues remain, but he clearly remains committed to his faith.

What should I read?

This post is a request to Christians, theists, or anyone who has a suggestion for a good book (not including the bible) for me to read that would highlight the best arguments for god/religion/theism/response to Dawkins et. al. that are out there.  I’ll take any suggestions and then try to get through a couple through the summer with an open mind.

Shooting fish in a barrel

Alright, so I feel like writing a post and I needed some brain fodder to get me going. Naturally I look up a mental opposite who is well known, and perhaps respected (among his peers, not mine) and decide to find a writing of Dinesh D’Souza’s.

The latest post on his blog is about Obama and race, not too intriguing for me, but his second latest reeks of failed ignorant arguments. The article is entitled “The Power of Pascal’s Wager.” Here we go (note, this “argument” for belief comes up a lot, so pay attention if you haven’t come across it before).

He launches with an interesting side note about the history of the wager,

Pascal did not invent the wager. It was offered by the Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali in his medieval work The Alchemy of Happiness. Pascal was familiar with Ghazzali and probably derived the argument from him. But Pascal gave the wager its current classic expression, and in doing so he places an unavoidable choice before all believers and unbelievers.

This isn’t critical to the argument, but it does make D’Souza sound a bit more reputable and like he checks sources and knows what he’s talking about. He continues to dig into the meat of the argument itself, and expresses it fairly eloquently,

Pascal argues that in making our decision about God, we will never understand everything in advance. No amount of rational investigation can produce definitive answers, since what comes after death remains unknown. Therefore we have to examine the options, and we have to make our wager. But what are the alternatives, and how should we weigh the odds? Pascal argues that we have two basic choices, and either way we must consider the risk of being wrong.

Basically, the argument set up is that we all have a choice (belief in God), and we must make it before we die.

If we have faith in God and it turns out that God does not exist, we face a small downside risk: metaphysical error. But if we reject God during our lives, and it turns out God does exist, there is much more serious risk: eternal separation from God. Based on these two possible outcomes, Pascal declares that it is much less risky to have faith in God. In the face of an uncertain outcome, no rational person would refuse to give up something that is finite if there is the possibility of gaining an infinite prize. In fact, under these conditions it is unreasonable not to believe.

It’s pretty simple overall, and it’s a convincing argument for many, so where does it go wrong?

First, D’Souza (and Pascal) is assuming that when he “believes” in God that he has chosen the correct one. D’Souza is openly a Catholic, so I assume his faith is in the god of the New Testament (jesus and the trinity). It would be rather unfortunate for him if the Muslims were right, especially since Allah in some forms is very intolerant to the wrong belief. Following the spirit of the wager, should we not weight all religions (even dead ones) and decide which offers the best reward over punishment for belief for our decision? To me the constant threats from Islam are slightly more terrifying then the threat of being “eternally separated” from God. Pascal’s wager here sets up a one-or-the-other option that doesn’t accurately represent the myriad of possible beliefs (and remember, according to Christians^TM there is only ONE path to God).

Second, this wager is dealing with infinities, a mathematical construct, that people cannot possible comprehend.  Therefore, how is it that we’re expected to perform rational judgement on the decision?

Many people argue that Pascal’s wager assumes equal probabilities of being right and wrong, however in D’Souza’s form this is not an issue as the infinite gain/loss should negate that issue.  This still comes back to my last point about the problem of infinity.  Suppose the probability of God (the Christian one) is infinitely small, should you still believe?  Which infinity is larger, the probability of His existence or the reward for belief (trick question, they’re technically equal).

Another key issue with the argument is it assumes that belief is essentially a switch in your brain that you can switch on and start believing.  Or, it assumes that if you don’t believe you can get away by feigning it in front of the Almighty.  This underlying assumption insults D’Souza’s God by suggesting that faked belief is as worthy as ultimate devotion.

However, my main issue with his argument is that I believe you fundamentally lose something by believing that you potentially have by not believing.  If you focus your entire life on the expectation of an afterlife, you have fundamentally devalued the time that you have to be alive.  Suppose this argument is used in a strict Islamic context (the Islam references might be coming since I have the book Infidel in front of me), then you are required (if male) to at minimum pray multiple times a day in the appropriate direction (and much worse if you are female).  All of this time is essentially wasted if you hedged your bet wrong (I’ll grant some benefit to taking some meditation time, but that’s not equivalent to prayer).

I have one life to live, and based on the evidence available, I’m going to spend it enjoying it as long as it lasts (since after it ends there’s no more Ian).

Pascal’s wager devalues life.

But what was the aim for Pascal’s wager?  It seems that the best it does is give a weak reason for agnostics to move to belief, and for believers to feel good about, but not to convert atheists.

But D’Souza doesn’t stop writing once he’s finished about the argument.  He states,

With their trademark venom, atheists typically condemn, although they cannot refute, Pascal’s wager. Christopher Hitchens can do no better than to launch an ad hominem attack on Pascal as a “hypocrite” and a “fraud.” Attempting condescension, Richard Dawkins proclaims Pascal’s argument “distinctly odd.” And why? Because “believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will.” Dawkins is right about this, of course, but the real issue is whether he wants to believe and whether he is open to the call of faith.

This statement is a bold faced lie.  Almost every “new atheist” book comes complete with at least as good of a refutation of the argument as I have provided here.  Even Wikipedia contains a thorough refutation.  Are you telling me that D’Souza didn’t even bother looking at a Wikipedia site before writing his post?

D’Souza started with a common argument that I have heard from enough Christians that I came to expect it, however when his article devolved into bold-faced lies I lost another ounce of respect for the man.  I hope by this point we all understand the title for this post.

Obeying Atheist high command

A new order has come down from Atheist General P.Z. Myers: link to Expelled Exposed to boost their ranks in anticipation of the movie being released on Friday.

This is mindless atheist drone THz signing off.

Quick answers

I don’t feel like doing work right now and want to post something.  So I’ll use Hemant’s post from almost a year ago to inspire me.  These are my short and sweet answers, push me further and I’ll expand on any of them (note, I cheated and gave some “yes/no” answers).

How would you respond to the following questions?

• Why do you not believe in God?

No evidence.

• Where do your morals come from?

My upbringing and society.

• What is the meaning of life?

42 (now it’s cliché) - so for enjoyment.

• Is atheism a religion?

Only if coherentism is (i.e. no).

• If you don’t pray, what do you do during troubling times?

Fix it.

• Should atheists be trying to convince others to stop believing in God?

Yes, to a point.

• Weren’t some of the worst atrocities in the 20th century committed by atheists?

But not in the name of atheism.

• How could billions of people be wrong when it comes to belief in God?

Easy.

• Why does the universe exist?

Why not?

• How did life originate?

Slowly.

• Is all religion harmful?

No, more of a disability.

• What’s so bad about religious moderates?

They allow for extremists.

• Is there anything redeeming about religion?

Getting to drink wine on a Sunday morning.

• What if you’re wrong about God (and He does exist)?

Whoops.

• Shouldn’t all religious beliefs be respected?

We don’t tolerate racism.

• Are atheists smarter than theists?

No.

• How do you deal with the historical Jesus if you don’t believe in his divinity?

What historical Jesus?

• Would the world be better off without any religion?

Probably not, but one can imagine.

• What happens when we die?

Nothing special.

In the REAL Journal

My story has been boosted to the print version of the Edmonton Journal, check out page B6 for the scoop.

Godless and proud

A new U of A club is challenging religious groups on campus by preaching the word of atheism

Gilbert A. Bouchard, edmontonjournal.com

Published: Monday, March 24

Engineering student and avowed freethinker Ian Bushfield is still amazed at how quickly his brand-spanking-new University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostic club took off, and how much of an impact the neophyte group is having on the campus’ established religious community.

Officially founded last summer when Bushfield and some of his god-optional friends grew frustrated with the “overbearing” religious groups on campus, the Atheists and Agnostic group took off like wildfire as soon as it was officially unveiled at the September 2007 Club Fair held at the U of A Butterdome.

“We collected over 300 signatures (from students interested in membership and/or looking for more information about the club), which was one of the highest number of the clubs that participated,” says Bushfield, the founding club president.

“We now have probably about 130 members, and have 10 to 12 people show up to our regular meetings.” Not bad, given that Bushfield, 22, says he wouldn’t likely have formed the club at all if there had been “no other religious clubs on campus.”

By comparison, at a recent event hosted by the U of A Chaplains, Lutheran Chaplain Richard Reimer remarked that he was “really bummed” during the club fair when he dropped by the atheists’ booth and discovered that they had already collected 75 names when the Lutherans had managed to collect four.

“Basically, this club is a way to unite non-religious people together and give them a voice and a social group that can be used to do a bit of activism,” Bushfield says.

So far, club-sponsored activities have included screening a documentary about renowned atheist/scientist/author Richard Dawkins (60 people attended), joining in (in a good-natured, oppositional fashion) public discussions about religion, and waving the secular flag during the recent provincial election campaign.

This commitment to reason-based and secular society is a big point for Bushfield and his fellow club members.

“I remember being in elementary school when the Gideons came and gave out Bibles, and thinking to myself that this was stupid, and I didn’t want one,” Bushfield says.

Unlike earlier generations of atheists who had to work hard to shuck a religious upbringing and the constraints of a universally religious society, Bushfield was raised in a diehard irreligious household, and has been inside a church only five times in his life.

Bushfield and his U of A band of non-believers are hardly unique. In fact, it could seem like the group is riding a wave of popular atheism. For example, not only is Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great still ranked number 47 on the Amazon.ca bestsellers list months after its release (at the time of writing), some 20 new atheist groups have been founded on different Canadian campuses over the past year.

“You’re seeing the same thing all across the U.S. as well,” he says. “This is the first generation raised in a secular society that doesn’t feel awkward if it doesn’t go to church.”

A tale of two cities

This past Sunday (Easter), I was riding the Red Arrow from Red Deer to Edmonton, and got a chance to pick up the Calgary Herald.  On the Editoral Page I was surprised (not really in retrospect) to see these articles:

“Cherish freedom of the season“

People who view the state as more important than its people write totalitarian constitutions. Think of Communist parties, for instance, or Louis XIV, who notoriously declared, “L’etat, c’est moi.”

On the other hand, somebody who believes the individual is important because God accepts each one of us on the basis of a personal decision about the resurrection — not because they belong to some favoured class or race — is much more likely to see the state as an instrument of individual empowerment.

and “New breed of atheist treads too much on glib ground“

Besides, the worst atrocities of the last century came not from faith-inspired conflicts, but from Marxism and fascism — atheist replacement creeds for Christianity.

Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Pol Pot — atheists all — went on ideological killing sprees which made the religious wars of the distant past look like an afternoon tea party tete-a-tete between bluebloods.

…

In a world absent of God, the most critical condemnation one can offer is that the meanness between humans is unpleasant, akin to watching other animals tear at each other, and that it offends our esthetic sensibilities.

Moral condemnation implies some absolute standard outside of nature which atheism denies by definition.

Now both of these articles (2 of the 3 published that day) mischaracterize and ostrasize the non-religious population, and Calgary, being a city of over a million, is likely to have more than a few atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists.

The first article intends to claim that without belief in God we cannot have democracy, whereas the second denies morals to atheists (while at the same time contradicting itself by saying there are some moral atheists).

Outraged by this blatantly offensive editorial staff, I paid for the Edmonton Journal (usually I can get a free copy on campus) and found no such articles in it’s opinion pages.  In fact, the journal recently featured my group in an article online!

Now both papers are owned by CanWest media, but it’s clear they have entirely different staffs.  I intend to write a couple response letters to the Herald, and shall posts responses here later.

I should also mention that one of the letters to the editor published ended as “anywhere that funds abortion doesn’t fund fertility treatments,” in reference to a previous article about the need to boost Canada’s birth rate.

I’m in the Journal

For starting a club I made the online version of the Edmonton Journal, Ed Magazine.  It’s good to have some press.

I win again!

I had previously entered the Friendly Atheist contest for Atheist Motivational Posters and placed second.  Now I have placed first in the latest contest on giving a caption for this picture:

Mine was: “That’s not lightening that’s His Noodly Appendage Captured on film. RAmen.”

Why theists can’t be freethinkers

The term “freethinker” as it applies to atheists/agnostics/deists/secular humanists (etc.) tends to get bashed because it seems to imply those who believe in God are close-minded.  Open-mindedness is a positive in this society, and being willing to accept any idea seems to be the ideal.

However, when it comes to the God debate (capital G for an interventionist type), there is only one way to be open minded.  That is you have to be able to describe an (possible, plausibility is up for debate) instance where you would change your mind on the issue.

As an atheist I can say that I would accept a Christian God under some of the following circumstances (which all come down to evidence, this list is also not comprehensive):

• Jesus returns and the rapture ensues (that’d be damn compelling evidence there)
• The efficacy of Christian prayers is repeatably shown to be greater than that of other religions (i.e. there is no natural explanation why it works) (if it was shown that Muslim prayers worked better would Christians abandon their faith?)
• I die and end up at the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter

Now I pose the question to those Christians (and other theists) who claim to be “freethinkers;” under what circumstances would you lose your faith?

Be open-minded, but not so much that your brains fall out.