Why? The Purpose of the Universe part 2

Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Here I continue with the series begun with: 

Why? The Purpose of the Universe

In the previous section, I discussed the issues Philip Goff presents in his book “Why? The Purpose of the Universe”. There it was noted that Goff, himself, was an early follower of David Hume’s philosophical empiricism and skepticism until, finding a flaw in Hume’s arguments, he (Goff), became a Nihilist.  I briefly covered Nihilism, Antinatalism, Materialism and its offshoot, Physicalism and Goff’s turnaround to search for a meaning to life.  It appears, from what Goff writes, that this was motivated by the fact that he had become a father.  Goff came to the conclusion that that the only plausible options are between Value Fundamentalism and Value Nihilism.  Since Goff claims that evidence for Cosmic Purpose is strong, that eliminates Value Nihilism; but Value Fundamentalism posits that Value Facts are primitive and lead to the idea of a non-physical realm of value facts. He apparently doesn't like that conclusion. So, let's see where he is going with this.   Here, we turn to Goff’s proof that there is Purpose to our existence.

Goff begins with the Standard Model of particle physics.  He cites the fact that this model contains constants, that is, fixed numbers that are needed for the equations to correspond to reality.  He points out that researchers tried many other numbers in computer simulations of the formation of the universe, and the inevitable results were that the vast majority of such simulations resulted in universes that were incompatible with life or structural complexity.  Goff concludes that we either accept that this outcome is a wild coincidence or that physics is based on these numbers because they allow for a universe of great value.  This, then, is the Value Selection Hypothesis.

The Value Selection Hypothesis:  Mathematical constants are as they are BECAUSE they allow for a universe containing things of significant value.

Obviously, the God Hypothesis would be one version of the Value Selection Hypothesis but Goff isn’t going there.  He notes that there can be impersonal forces directed toward the good.  

Goff tells us that Fine Tuning is really, REALLY, improbable and that the odds of getting a 6 in 70 consecutive rolls of dice (1 in 10⁵⁵⁾  are better than getting a universe that is fine tuned (1 in 10¹³⁶).

And so, Goff states that the rational pressure for us to accept the Value Selection Hypothesis is overwhelming!  The constants of physics are what they are for the sake of the existence of a universe with the goal of that universe containing things of great value.  Et voila!  There IS Cosmic Purpose!

Goff is just staggered by his conclusion.  He can’t understand why this is not talked about more (and possibly why he, himself, was not exposed to this information sooner!), why the physics community doesn’t shout this from the rooftops and embrace Cosmic Purpose!

He suggests that the reason this doesn’t happen is because the Value Selection Hypothesis has always led to the God Hypothesis and that just won’t do!  He then notes that there is a strong cultural resistance not only to God, but also to any kind of purpose or goal directedness at the fundamental level of reality because it would overturn Darwin.  Our Western Culture – and science in general – is so inculcated with Darwin, that we are cemented into a materialistic world view.  Goff laments that science has done away with Cosmic Purpose so thoroughly that they are incapable of opening their minds to their own evidence – the evidence in favor of the Value Selection Hypothesis.

Goff gives the argument a good effort.  He brings in The Likelihood Principle of Bayes: If the evidence is more likely assuming the theory is true that is assuming the theory is false, then the evidence supports the theory. That is, by the Likelihood Principle, the evidence of Fine Tuning supports the Value Selection Hypothesis.

Goff notes that physicists brought in the Many Worlds interpretation (and later, String Theory), in order to explain away the Fine Tuning.  From my perspective, it was just an effort to extend Darwinism into physics.  Given endless time and endless universes, more or less, at least one is going to be suited to life. Goff is having none of that.  He brings in the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy argument.

The regular gambler’s fallacy is that the longer you play, the more likely you are to finally get a winning hand or roll of the dice.  The fact is that your odds of the next roll or hand being a winner are the same as the odds of any other individual roll or hand winning.  How many times you’ve been dealt a hand or rolled the dice, is irrelevant. (Obviously, counting cards is another matter.)

The Inverse Gambler’s fallacy: you walk into a casino and immediately see one player having incredible luck and assume from that fact that the casino must be full of players.  So the fallacy is that the number of people playing in a casino can increase the odds of any one of them having ‘good luck’ and winning.  However, the number of people playing has no bearing on the odds of any one of them getting lucky.  That is, whether or not there are other universes has no bearing on the odds of our universe turning out to be fine-tuned for life. And here, the Anthropic Principle won’t help because it is irrelevant. It is still a fallacy to infer from one person having good luck and winning that the casino is full. So it is a fallacy to infer many universes from one fine-tuned universe regardless of the fact that we couldn’t have observed a non-fine-tuned universe.

Goff says that the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy is a fallacy also because it violates the Requirement for Total Evidence.  The inference to a full casino starts from the evidence that someone in the casino has had an extraordinary run of good luck.  The number of people playing has no bearing on how likely it is that this one person will win over and over again.  The Specific Evidence is that this one person rolls winning dice over and over again.

We have specific evidence that the universe we inhabit is fine-tuned and the existence of other universes has no bearing on how likely it is that this universe turned out to be fine-tuned.  The Requirement of Total Evidence obliges us to take the evidence of fine-tuning to consist of the data point that this universe, the only one we’ve ever observed – is fine tuned.  We have no other evidence.  And that evidence is highly improbable if, as the Cosmic Fluke Hypothesis assumes, the values of the constants were determined by chance (Many Worlds).  The Evidence that our universe is fine-tuned is massively more likely (says Goff) assuming the Value Selection Hypothesis.

Goff concedes that this does not rule out an eternal inflation multiverse, but we are obliged to adopt only versions of inflation in which something is ensuring that a significant proportion of bubble universes are fine-tuned, for only on this basis is it likely that this universe if fine-tuned.

Goff notes that a common strategy used in response to fine-tuning arguments for purpose is to increase the demands for proof. And so, Goff hauls in Bayes Prior Probability argument. This is how likely the hypothesis is based on what we know about the world in a more general way, before we look at the latest evidence.

A hypothesis with a reasonable prior probability won’t need a great deal of evidence to end up having a high overall probability.  On the other side, a hypothesis with a very low prior probability is going to need a lot of evidence to get anywhere near to likelihood.  (Sagan’s famous expression: Extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.)  Physicist Lee Smolin estimates that the probability of getting fine-tuned constants by chance is 1 in 10²²⁹. 

Philip Goff, Scientific American  January 10, 2021

From the above, I think you can get the idea of Goff’s arguments for the Value Selection Hypothesis.  But, despite railing against the apparent Darwinism of physicists, Goff isn’t ready to let go of Darwinism completely.  

In the next section, we will meet Meaning Zombies which would be the result of plain old Natural Selection if something else wasn’t in play…