This video presents a detailed discussion between Phil Halper and Stephen Meyer on cosmology and the fine-tuning argument for God's existence. The core debate centers on whether the Big Bang cosmology provides evidence for a divine creator. Meyer argues that observational evidence (red shift, cosmic microwave background radiation) and theoretical physics (singularity theorems by Hawking and Penrose, the BGV theorem by Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin) strongly suggest the universe had a beginning, which poses an explanatory challenge for materialism that theism can address. Halper counters that these theorems rely on classical general relativity assumptions that break down at quantum scales, and that alternative cosmological models (like loop quantum cosmology or cyclic models) can circumvent the beginning conclusion, though they often require unexplained fine-tuning or ad hoc assumptions. The discussion highlights the tension between scientific evidence and philosophical interpretation in cosmological arguments.
Phil Halper and Stephen Meyer Discuss Cosmology and Fine-Tuning || REVIEWAdded:
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As some of you, I am sure are well aware that a couple weeks ago now, this probably two I don't really know when it happened, but this would have Okay, four days ago is when this premiered. So, I'm assuming the discussion probably happened a week or so ago, but there was a discussion between Phil Hopper, um, Skydive Phil is what his channel used to be called here on YouTube. He's been doing YouTube for quite some time. I think I actually first found his channel in like 2017 or 2018 or something like that. Um, started with sort of interviewing a lot of physicists as it relates to big bang cosmology and, you know, extending the history of the universe beyond the big bang and all that stuff. I'm pretty sure the main series on his channel is called Beyond the Big Bang, but don't don't quote me on that. I think that's what it's called. He had a discussion with Steven Meyer. This was on Justin Brierley's Un No, I'm thinking of something else. Um, yeah. No, Uncommon Ground. Okay, that is what it's called. All right. I was thinking it was called something else.
Um, this was an almost three-hour long discussion. I will not be reviewing the whole thing here today in this stream.
They talk primarily about the the cos more calam cosmological argument as well as the fine-tuning or the teological argument. So this review is going to be in two parts. This first part we're going to talk about we're going to be reviewing their discussion um with respect to the Kalam cosmological argument and then probably sometime next week I will I will do another stream talking about fine-tuning going over their discussion on fine-tuning. But this is Steven Meyer and Phil Hopper with Justin Brierly um having a discussion on cosmology and the big bang and fine-tuning and God. Um, this was actually a a really packed discussion. There was a lot of information in this. It doesn't really get like super technical, but some stuff is might go over the average person's head. I'm going to do my best to explain things. I've skipped ahead a little over 25 minutes here. This is just like introductions. They kind of introduce themselves, talk about their books. I'm I I don't I don't really care about all that. Uh, so we're going to jump right in. They they start here with is there a conflict between science and religion and we'll go for about a I think it's about a little over an hour of the discussion from here before we uh before we stop. So I guess without further ado, let's get started.
>> Let's start actually just with with the broad theme of of science and faith. Um I mean Phil, do you feel like there is a fundamental conflict between believing in God and >> Oh, hold on. Give me a second here.
>> I think No, do good science. fixes >> definitely not like no question no you can be a religious believer and you can do good science there's no question about that where does the conflict lie if there is >> so and let me give you another common ground between Stephen I there's this thesis that historians of science use called the Draper white thesis and it says that the relationship between science and religion is is one of perpetual conflict and I think that's false I I think that's obviously false um so I don't sign up to the Draper white theory and I don't think there's um you know any conflict between being a religious scientist that's fine. Um but I do think there what I would call it is a probabilistic conflict. So let me try and unpack what that means. Um and it goes back to something um that basically if you go back to let's say Tahra who was for those that don't know who he was a very famous astronomer um and he was he was like the greatest astronomer of his age just before the telescope and he um examined the capernac model or I say capernac model actually capernicus didn't come up with a heliocentric model it was Aristocus of Samos about 2,000 years earlier but anyway they he didn't necessarily know about that but um So the capernel model came out and tahhei says you know he gave arguments against it from physics but he also said but it contradicts holy scripture which must be paramount. Um and I think science today says not only is holy scripture not paramount but it's not to be considered at all. And so there's whereas of course in in the religious tradition or in the Christian religion tradition which is you know the one of relevance here because you know Steven's a Christian um you know two Timothy says all scripture is God breathed and you know that then you have this distension right um what what happens when holy scripture seems to contradict the consensus in science and of course there are many many things that scripture at least on the face of it says that do conflict with science.
So the world is not 6,000 years.
>> Yeah. The the point that Phil is making here is that f first off the claim is there a conflict between science and religion isn't really like super clear-cut.
There's a little bit of nuance there.
What like what what do we mean by conflict? What kinds of conflict are we talking about? But I do agree with him generally that there is sort of a conflict between science and religion in that religious religious traditions at least primapaki oftent times run counter to what what what the consensus of science tells us such as the age of the earth how the earth or the world the universe was created um various ways that life was classified 2,000 years ago So stuff re relating to medicine, it gets a lot of stuff wrong. And in order to maintain both your belief in the science and your belief in the religion, you would either have to reject those parts of your religious doctrine or you'd have to reject those parts of science, but you couldn't hold both of them at the same time. And so in that sense, there is just fundamentally a conflict between science and religion. Now, there can be a discussion as to the the I I guess sort of the seriousness of that conflict. I don't think it's very serious. Most people would probably reject a lot of the religious doctrine there, such as the earth being 6,000 years old or, you know, something along those lines, the earth being created in six days, some stuff like that. I don't think that it's wrong to project those.
I think one should reject those. And I think one can still be religious. I think one can still be a Christian and reject those things. But the point stands is that there there still is a conflict there between what the religion is teaching and what science tells us.
>> Year is old. Um there wasn't sort of primordial water. There's not a solid dome of the sky. Um it wasn't created in six days. Um and on and on we can go many many examples. So now with that in mind there are sort of three positions I think you could broadly take. Right? One is to embrace the science and reject the religion. two is to um embrace the relig religion and reject the science or three find some way to reconcile them. But notice that two out of those three strategies is going to lead you into a conflict. And we have some data that's all hypothetical. Of course, we actually have data on what people really think.
So there was a survey in Time magazine of Americans and they were asked, "What would you do if a scientific fact contradicted an element of your faith?"
and 64% of them said they would reject the science. There's surveys of how many people think the world is less than 10,000 years old. And it does the answers do often depend on how you phrase the question. Um but it's somewhere between sort of 20 and 40%.
Um surveys of um people on climate change, we find something like 90% of atheists accept the science. About 45% of Christians do, about 32% of evangelicals do. So what you find is >> what you find is that American evangelicals are really [ __ ] dumb.
>> That what this why saying it's a proistic conflict. It's not that um religion or Christian religion in particular forces you to oppose size, but what it does do is increase the probability that you will.
>> That's that's how putting it. Yeah. That that in in real life situations, if you are a Christian, you're more likely on average to be skeptical of certain signs. It's just like smoking.
>> By the way, I have watched this this whole discussion before doing this. I know I don't normally do that, but I wanted to listen to this and I decided after hearing it that you know what, I'm going to do a couple of reviews on this.
Uh I actually think Justin Brierly, not that I I I don't really have any issues with him as a person or anything. I think he does a pretty good job of moderating this discussion. I think obviously Justin himself is is a Christian. I think there's just a slight just a very slight favoritism towards Stephen. I think Stephen gets is given just a little bit more time to speak, but I do think that him and him and Phil for the most part had a relatively fair amount of time to speak. Um this this was actually I think a really really good discussion um on particularly the Kalam cosmological argument and the fine-tuning argument and the defenses that are given for these as well as what the objections to these arguments are. I think this as I I think you guys will see this was a a really really good discussion. Something else that I want to say that I know there's going to be a lot of detractors to what I'm about to say but I think it's true. Um, I I think Stephen Meyer is a lot more formidable than people give him credit for. I think he's um a lot more knowledgeable than people give him credit for, and I think he's got I think he's pretty rhetorically skilled. Um, compared to your run-of-the-mill evangelical apologists, you think somebody like Frank Turk, I I mean, e even amongst your your typical apologists at specifically the Discovery Institute, I do think that Steven Meyer is is a cut above them. I think that that he he does a better job in in his defense of his faith than even other people at the Discovery Institute do, let alone people like like a a Frank Turk or something like that. And like I said, I know there's going to be people that disagree. Oh, that's Steen Meyer.
He's just an idiot. And this I'm not saying he doesn't get things wrong as we're going to find out. Um but I I do think that he is more formidable as an opponent than a lot of people give him credit for and I think this discussion reveals that.
>> Right. If you smoke, you're more likely to get cancer. Does it guarantee you get cancer? No, it doesn't. Could you Could you get cancer without smoking? Yes, you can. Right. So, similarly, you can oppose science and be an atheist.
>> Well, be interested in your perspective on this, whether you you broadly agree or not with Phil's take on the probabilistic way in which >> it's a very nuanced way of explaining the the view he has. I I found that illuminating. Um my I've written a lot on this and not just the origins questions but just on the models that people have developed for capturing the relationship between science um and religious belief biblical faith if you will in specifically um one of the things we we are starting a new center in Cambridge called the Hule Center for Science and Natural Theology and one of the things that's very clear in the history of science is the very important role that uh that Judeo-Christian that is biblical assumptions played in the foundation of modern science particularly in the period that historians call the scientific revolution and that that natural theology itself played a very important role in that um we I'm quite a fan of the work of John Ray who's often regarded as the father of modern botany turns out that Ry was very close with um Isaac Barrow who was Newton's tutor and there's this tradition ition of natural theological thought in Cambridge that was crucial to the rise of the scientific revolution. Um my um one of my Cambridge supervisors uh historian of physics uh told me when I was doing work on the the debate about universal gravitation in the in the 17th century he said if you miss Newton's theism you've missed everything. The Principia was a theological project. So I find I I I like that Phil has >> I mean if that's true there's not a lot of theology in the precipia in within the preipia it's primarily him outlaying the methods of the basic calculus that he uses in in his derivation of his laws and then his derivation of his three laws and an explation of what they are.
Um his understanding of gravitation how his laws recover Kepler's laws that's all in there. I mean obviously this is the mid late 1600s. Stephen or um uh Isaac Newton rather mentions God you know creator a couple of times in it but I I mean I would I'd say it's far from a theological work.
Now did Newton's faith play a role in how you know helping to motivate him to look at things a certain way? Of course.
Uh, I think that's very much true for a lot of scientists primarily from like the 14 1500s into the 1800s.
But I don't think that and and Phil pretty much gives all the responses I would give here as well. I don't think any of this means that Christianity is unique amongst institutions in its contributions of science over and above all of the other institutions and all of the other sort of cultural practices that have without a doubt influenced science and helped to develop science along the way throughout human history.
has rejected the the draper and white thesis that science and religion have been always at odds and in are intrinsically so um once then that's the sort of conflict model the alternative I I like to think of this in terms of propositions that you have um there are propositions that come out of the scientific endeavor there are propositions that come out of a biblical text or out of a theological tradition and those propositions can either disagree in which case you have conflict they can often be talking or they can agree in which case you have some kind of harmony or concord um or agreement or they may be propositions that are addressing different topics altogether and can either agree or disagree. And so there are there are four basic models that people talk about when they talk about the relationship between science and and faith. They'll talk about the conflict model, the compartmentalism model, a variant of that called the complimentarity model where it's not that science and religion are talking about two completely different things, but they're talking about the same thing in different incommensurable language, which also leads to the proposition that science is inherently neutral with respect to metaphysical or religious claims. And then there's a model that I've kind of developed which I call qualified agreement and that it acknowledges that yes there have been times of conflict. Just as a point of clarification, most metaphysicians of science would not say that science is neutral on uh at least some metaphysical claims that science makes metaphysical claims and that science can and does answer certain metaphysical questions as well.
>> Uh it also acknowledges that often times science is and religion are talking about two different things. There's the famous Galileo apherism that says that um that uh the Bible tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. Um but I also point out that there are many re uh questions that science addresses that are not religiously neutral.
Questions about for example the origin of the universe and the origin of life and historical questions about for example whether there were people like Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipass and Josephus sorry um Caiaphas and others around the time of the trial of Jesus in the New Testament. So the Bible makes factual claims about time, space, and reality.
Uh and when it does, um there are sometimes points of tension, but what I have seen is a progressive increase.
This is a kind of probabilistic argument, but over time there's a progressive increasing agreement between the two. And um and so that's why I call it qualified agreement. that on balance you have an agreement, but there are some points of tension where either we're getting the science wrong or we're getting the biblical interpretation wrong or we just don't know enough yet.
So, that's kind of the way I look at it.
And I So, I >> I'm going to say something here that you all have heard me say quite a few times because it's very much true. Um, and it's worth it's worth repeating.
empirical facts simplicator do not bear on the existence or the non-existence of God.
I I find science to be I mean I'm I've been uh I've done physics, I've done geology, I've done biology. I love science and I find that it it can the the the broad the approach of the scientific inquiry, the methodology of science and the deliverances of science fit nicely with the the the biblical faith that I have.
>> Um re really helpful that thank you Steve. I mean just just starting to to to draw this together Phil from your perspective Steve one of the points he makes is that the very fact that the scientific pioneers were broadly speaking Christian and did things out of their Christian convictions um I don't know whether you you agree with that broadly but obviously Steve says there is this model that he believes is quite fruitful which is this qualified agreement um obviously quite different to Steven Jay Gold's non-over overlapping magisterian precisely the opposite the opposite of that yeah exactly what what's your feel is That is that a fruitful approach? Do you agree that that science does stand on the shoulders of a number of Christian pioneers?
>> Um well I think yeah but they stand on non-Christian pioneers. Right. So that's the the point. Yes of course Newton was a Christian. I mean unless you think his doubting of the trinity makes him not a Christian, but I always say yes he is a Christian. Right. So um but of course there were lots of people that we owe science to that were not Christians. The Greeks of course made huge contributions to science. So for example with the pcratics we have an axamandanda. An axamandanda came up with this idea that the earth is floating in space. No one had this idea before him as far as I know. Everyone thought the earth sits on water. And Carl Pauper who was you know very very famous philosopher scientist I'm sure most people have heard of. He said this is one of the most portentous most most incredible ideas ever put forward because it's established this idea that actually we explain the world through physical principles. I mean he said everything moves by necessity which in is some people would interpret as laws. Then of course you have the Pythagoreans who said science is described by mathematics where you need mathematics to describe the world. An incredible step. Then we had uh you know people like Aaratphanes who measured the circumference of the world you know they did an experiment they used mathematics and they came to conclusions about the world and they got the answer right within about 10% you know back in ancient Greece this is all before Christianity then we have the Indians the Indians came up with the idea of atoms they gave us the mathematical tools that we need to do modern science then we have the Arabs you know the Arabs had huge contributions so I think >> and then Chinese sort of >> and and this is the point that I would make is that clearly there is a sense in which Christianity as an institution had an influence on science but it's not the only in institution that's had an influence on science and the influence that it had wasn't because science is Christian or only Christian values or Judeo-Christian values and morice could develop something like science as much as it is that Christianity was the reigning cultural institution during these developments.
So of course those developments will happen under the Christian lens because Christianity is the reigning cultural institution of the time. You go to where Islam was the reigning cultural institution and scientific discoveries were made within that or or under that lens. The same if you go to India with the Hindus or you go you go back thousands of years with the Greeks.
So there's been a number of overarching cultural institutions through the lens of which we've made developments in science and mathematics and medicine.
Christianity is not unique here and doesn't have um any sort of monopoly on the development of science modern or otherwise >> of instrumentation.
>> Yeah. The the compass I mean do you mind if I pass that back to to Steve just you know that's a helpful repost. um you know pre-Christian uh civilization and thinkers were starting to develop these ideas even if they were then taken further by Christian civilization.
>> Yeah, sure. I I have very little bad to say about the Greeks. Uh but um I uh in grad school read a really interesting article um history history of science article about the um the jeridical the the about the origin of the concept of natural law. the and the author argued that it was a jeritical concept of theological origins and he specifically traced this back and showed that the in in Greco Roman uh writings you have the concept of law of the natural law but it was a it was the it was the idea of the ability to access the moral law through reason but that the idea of of laws applying to nature was something that came out of the Hebrew Bible and he cited particular passages that were of key >> I'm I'm not sure how true that is >> importance to a number of the the founders of the period in the of science during the period of the scientific revolution and uh and so there were distinctively Judeo-Christian contributions to the rise of modern science and one that a number of historians of science have focused on not just the idea of lawfulness but two others one the idea of intelligibility the idea that that nature >> I I have to be on I hear this well you know all these apologists talk about well the universe is so intelligible why is it I I think that this is just a non-issue I don't think this means anything what what do we mean when we say the universe is intelligible if all you're referring to is the fact that humans can understand and like quantify and qualify formally or otherwise the way the world works that that's not like a property of the world that we can do that we can do that because we are a part of the world. If the world were not regular and were highly chaotic, we would be able to understand that too. We would just understand the world as being irregular and chaotic rather than regular and ordered. So, and there is a sense in which the world is or at least can be irregular and chaotic. The the fact that we understand the world is because we're a part of it, not because understandability is like some property that it has that was put there by somebody.
has secrets to reveal.
>> I I should say it's it's we are a part of the world and we can perceptively interact with it and and this allows us to quantify or qualify again whether formally or informally the world around us. That's not a property of the world.
>> We can understand those secrets because being made in the image of the rational creator who made nature to manifest a rational design, our minds are attuned to the way nature was made. So there was a principle of correspondence between as John Pulkinghorn the Cambridge physicist used to put it the reason within matches the reason without the external the reason built into nature and that gave kind of unprecedented confidence to people in the ability >> and as far as you're aware that didn't exist in >> not all to the same degree and then there was a uniquely Christian contribution which was the idea and this was coming into vogue in the late medieval period with Catholic philosophers uh and also during the period of the reformation and that was this recovery of the doctrine of creation um as opposed to sort of the Greek notion of of an internal logos and with that came the idea of what's called contingency that nature there is an order in nature the Greeks believed in an order in nature and and that that it could be understood but the they believed that the order derived from this common source of all things this logos And so that it could be it could be understood essentially deductively.
Whereas the in the period of the scientific revolution with the idea of a creation that was dependent on the will of an external creator who had a mind who could have chosen to do things otherwise. We couldn't deduce what nature must be like. We had to go out and look and see. Robert Bole said, "It is not the job of the natural philosopher to say what uh God must have done, but rather to go and look and see what he did do." And there was a there was actually a a papel.
>> See, this is why I say that that God is as an explanation. I think it's just really really pos. It's just any way the world is is just the way that God wanted it to be. And we're only saying that because the world is that way. So then it must just be the case that God wanted it to be that way. And I'm just that that's not at all convincing to me.
>> A decree that that um that condemned what was called necessarian theology.
And there were all of these propositions, you know, uh planets must move in perfect circles. Why? Because that's the most logical way for them to do. So, so there was a sense in which the the the Greek um heritage had bound uh science to a set of what seemed to be most logical propositions whereas there was a liberating element as the doctrine of creation began to be more well appreciated again and this idea of contingency >> to a kind of more empirical observational testable sort of way >> which again is not to impugn the Greeks because I think >> well I don't think that came about because people thought the um the world was created. Uh also since he's mentioned contingency, I think it's worth specifying that at least within the context of what's often referred to as modal metaphysics, the term contingency, you'll often in common parlance hear the term contingency used interchangeably with the word dependence. like, oh well, whether we have the meeting today at two is contingent on whether Lisa gets back from her trip in enough time or something like that. That is not the way the word is used in modal metaphysics.
The word contingency just refers to something that is not impossible but is also not necessary. So we have a word for things that do not occur in any possible world. We call those impossible things. To say that something is impossible is to say that it does not obtain in any possible world. To say that something is necessary is to say that it obtains in all possible worlds.
And then to say that something is contingent is just to say that it obtains only in some possible worlds. So it doesn't obtain in no possible worlds.
It's not impossible, but it doesn't obtain in all possible worlds. It's not necessary. It obtains in some possible worlds. It's contingent. So at least within the framework of modal metaphysics and modality, contingency is not a synonym for dependence. It is a term that re that describes what sort of you might say sits in between impossibility and necessity. And I think that that is a point worth clarifying.
>> I think they were just the most enlightened of the ancient peoples. But there was something that they were missing that the Judeo-Christian view I think helped but that the Judic Judeo-Christian view brought that helped to liberate an empirical science and many historians of science have >> anything to say in response.
>> Well, I think that idea of contingency was there already in in the ancient Greeks because there was a notion in Lretius and he talks about something called the swerve. So he he builds on what anxandanda said which is that all things move according to necessity along with the order of time which I think is an implication of something like a physical law. But um what the atomist said the ancient Greek atomist said that there was this thing called the swerve.
So basically you have roughly a deterministic universe but the atoms do this swerve which gives you some degree of indeterminism. So there's your contingency. So it was there in in ancient Greece already. Um, so I think I suppose that that but the sense I get from Steve here is more that it was really in the the Christian period that that this idea of that you can go out and test the universe, look at it and and rather than I think it was there I think you certainly have the notion of chance and necessity in the Greeks but you get starting with uh this university with people like gross tests you get these systematic methods of interrogating nature Um that I know one of your your points Phil is that you think you you know you said that many Christians are um not skeptical enough you know that you you and but what >> and that's the point I just want to say one thing >> this method of isolation of variables of what is the precursor to the method of inference to the best explanation this was coming out of the the the Catholic universities in the late medieval period University of Paris University of Oxford and then >> no that's because universities were initially a religious institution that doesn't mean that like their values and mores were influencing anything.
>> It it blossoms into very sophisticated methods of investigating and interrogating nature in this period when people are convinced first of all that nature is intelligible and secondly that >> also I think there was a lot of people within the Islamic tradition that had the same view of that this sort of interrogating nature. I'm just I'm not seeing how this is specific to the development of science under specifically Christianity >> radically contingent on the will of the creator and therefore must be investigated empirically. We can't rely simply on um and so I I think you there's a a famous Cambridge historian of science Herbert Butterfield who asks this qu it's the he says it's the why why there why then question something unique happens in Western Europe between 1500 and 1700 with roots back to 1300 so forth that didn't happen anywhere else it's roots back back and back and back looks has contributions from All cult well not all cultures but many cultures.
Exactly. So the Greeks look the torch has been passed from culture to culture.
So at one point the Greeks were probably the the leading um developers of science and they made huge contributions to development of science. Right? No one wants to say that the the Christian culture didn't contribute. Of course it did. Right? But I I reject this notion of of earth scientific revolution. And what's funny is that one of your uh colleagues Glenn Scrivener made this point. There wasn't a scientific revolution. There have been many scientific revolutions. Or we could say >> there's a scientific evolution. Maybe that's a better way to put it. Maybe.
Yeah, maybe. Ste, it sounds like though you're you're you not convinced that Christianity was almost required for to bring us to where we are today. In terms of >> Nobody that studies the full history or philosophy of science would say that Christianity was required.
That that's a claim that Christians make and there aren't good reasons to suppose that's true. At least Christianity isn't any more required than any of the other traditions that also contributed to science.
And and this is this is what they want to do. They they want to like single out Christianity as oh well sure other cultures contributed but Christianity was unique in really making science what science is. Well, that's just not true.
>> Think about this. Everyone could see there are regularities in nature. You don't need to have a theological belief to say look there are regularities in nature. Maybe we can understand them.
That goes back thousands and thousands of years. You look at the moon and you see it has phases. You look at the stars. You see that there are patterns.
You can see there are seasons by looking at the stars. Everyone can see there's u structure in nature. There's patterns.
So people want to investigate them.
They're curious. And I think the fact that human beings are curious is actually what's driving this. Well, but during the period of the scientific revolution, what happened was that the notion of regularity having a theological underpinning was then conjoined with the idea of the divine rationality. And the result of that was the mathematizing of those of those regularities and that's a huge surge forward and this is one of the things that mathematization largely happened because we had developed the mathematical tools to do so. um a lot of that being contribute contributed but to by the Hindus and by the Muslims. If you think of the word algebra or algorithm um then the the symbols that we use for numbers today are are Arabic numerals.
So a lot of that had to do with the development of those mathematical techniques. You know the Christians didn't just come along and say, "Oh, we can use math to do science now." And they they were the only ones that ever thought of that. That's just not what happened.
>> The things that was emphasized to me when I was working on on Newton and on the Principia or Principia depending on how you like your Latin, right? Um that that the Principia was a theological project that Newton was trying to explicate the divine uh rationality in precise mathematical form as a way of of giving glory to God and also giving and illuminating nature. And so I think something there there um and we're probably not going to come to agreement on this, but I've got three chapters on this in the book. And I think I think um uh there's I I don't deny that there were preceding uh contributions from other culture, but something really unique and revolutionary happened in Western Europe during >> we're always told that something and this is the second time he said it.
Well, something unique happened in Western Europe with the rise of Christianity with regards to development. So what was the unique thing that happened? because the stuff that he's listed, Phil and myself have responded and show, well, no, that's not that's it's not strictly true that Christianity is unique here in in this respect or in that respect. There's a number of cultures that contributed in very similar ways. So, what is it that was so unique that we keep hearing about >> during that period of time? And it resulted in both the the conjoining of mathematics to the regularities in the development of very systematic methods of interrogating nature, these methods of isolating variables and and uh and and and a revolutionary advance in understanding. You know, there was >> we we could keep going.
>> Can I just say one one last thing?
>> One last thing and then we'll >> happy to give you the last word.
>> Okay. No, you can have the last word.
Five. I just something I've got to go off my chest. that the ma the mathematics was used because the mathematics had been developed over thousands of years. So you it's really hard to do calculations without using the number system that we have that came from the Indians. Let's give them some credit. Right? The algebra came from the Arabs. Let's give them some credit.
Right? So more importantly, I think we shouldn't underestimate the importance of contingency that the fact that the I I agree maybe uh we shouldn't use the word scientific revolution, but there certainly was uh a very significant development that happened in the 17th century. Okay. Um I think a lot of that is just chance and accident. What one of the most important things that happened in the 17th century was the invention of the telescope because what that did was it enabled scientists to compare ancient dogmas with actual empirical observations a way that could never have been done before. The telescope by all accounts was invented by an accident.
People just noticed oh we put these lenses together we start magnifying things and not just a telescope the microscope too because then we started to understand oh my god there's this whole hidden world of of bacterial diseases. So there's so much contingency involved here and and we'll leave it there. I suspect Steven would just say things about that too. empirical method is sort of >> I think we can agree that there especially in that period of history there was not a conflict between science and religion and that therefore there is no intrinsic uh or long-standing perpetual conflict between >> I mean yeah there probably was considering a lot of what science was discovering throughout the 16th and 17th centuries uh ran recalcitrant to what a lot of theological teachings were such as you know earth's position in the solar system. Um so yeah, I I think that during this time there certainly were conflicts between what we were learning through science and what what various theological traditions um were teaching >> between science and religion as the as the >> we're about to start to start really getting into the meat of the discussion here. So I hope you all are ready >> and white folks have said >> that at least is a is a point of commonality. Okay.
>> Hi there. if you think the newsletter big big bang cosmology um and it might be helpful just to again reiterate Steve that in your book return of the god hypothesis let's hold both books up shall we why don't we uh return of the god hypothesis that there are these three specific major scientific decodies that you're talking about from the past century which for you point back towards the idea of a a divine creator um the first the first of which you tackle is big bang cos cosmology the this this idea that the universe had a beginning.
Uh so this is going to be our first major point of discussion. Perhaps you'd like to start by sketching out your your case here for um the way in which cosmology has pointed towards an origins event for the universe and why you believe this lends evidence to the idea of a god.
>> Yeah, sure. There um phase one of the argument. Okay. Um if the argument uh is predicated on the evidence that we have of a beginning that there are several very key discoveries from observational astronomy that have pointed back to the a beginning point. You have the red shift data from astronomy showing that the universe appears to be expanding outward. If you back extrapolate that ex that expansion, you get to a point of convergence where you can't back extrapolate any further, suggesting a starting point for the expansion and arguably the universe itself. Um there are other evidences from observational astronomy that have reinforced that things like the cosmic background radiation that was first uh discovered in the 1960s with Penrose or with Pensus and Wilson. um the the subsequent discoveries of Kobe satellite showing that the kind of pertabbations you would expect on a big bang model were also present in those um in the the background radiation and then and then further there's a whole host of other empirical observations about the ages of galaxies and so forth that that fit with the idea of of a beginning point in the book I also point out that there are developments in theoretical physics the singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose and the the the BG GV theorem of uh Bourd Guth and Valin that in one case I think provides a proof in another case a strong indicator of a beginning. Um the thing about something in theoretical physics or attempts to make proofs is they're always predicated on certain assumptions or conditions. In the podcast Phil you did with Sir Roger Penrose was honored to be mentioned even if it was in the mode of a critique without just to make sure we're understanding each other. uh he he critiqued me for not describing the conditions under which the uh singularity theorems would apply. I have an extensive.
>> So what I want to say here is just that all of the things that that Stephen has listed here um red shift and the expansion of space cosmic microwave background these don't they're con you can make them consistent with a a view where the universe has some sort of absolute beginning but they don't in and of themselves imply that as an answer.
What they do imply is that very very early in the universe's evolutionary history, it was in a very very hot and very very dense state, very energetic, and that it has evolved from that state.
And that the kind of universe that we see today is exactly what we would expect for a universe that has evolved from from an extremely energetic, extremely hot dense state very very early in its history. But there are a variety of models and a variety of ideas about how you can extend that not even necessarily indefinitely into the past although that is an option but just before these earliest moments that we currently know about. So they the things that he said there don't immediately indicate that the universe has an absolute beginning. They're consistent with that idea but they don't immediately indicate it. extensive discussion of that the weak and strong energy conditions the whole the whole issue of of quantum gravity inside the plon unit. So I'm well aware of those those uh limitations on the proof. So my conclusion about the singularity theorem was not that it provided an absolute proof but a strong pointer to a beginning. And it's it's actually kind of worth I think remembering what Hawking was thinking about when he first proposed this that Hawking was doing big bang or sorry was doing black hole Also, the singularity theorems suppose classical general relativity and they don't really indicate that the universe would have a beginning. All they indicate is that there's some point where the mathematics of general relativity stops providing any sort of meaningful answers.
I mean that that that's about it.
You you reach a point where general relativity is no longer a consistent theory for describing what's happening at the particular energy scales. black hole physics at Cambridge. He's a PhD student and he's he's aware that in general relativity, massive bodies cause the curvature of space. So he's thinking about the evidence for the expanding universe and he realizes that as you go in the forward direction of time, matter is going to get more and more and more diffuse. But then if he winds that backwards that as the matter gets more and more densely concentrated in the reverse direction of time then you'll get a spatial a tighter and tighter and tighter curvature going back to some limiting case you some point in the past where you can't get any more tightly curved. Now the the we can and we'll discuss this because as I said I'm well aware of the the the limitation on that proof is that when you get small enough quantum effects become very important and the depiction of matter is no longer as a and uh I'm going to say his name again naash explains this very well that you have um that you know we no longer >> nay I believe >> conceive of matter as um uh spatially discreet, but it's it's a wave. It's spatially extended and it's a particle at the same time. And so we don't really know if you're going to get continued curvature, but but when you get to that point, you're inside um the plon unit, which is 10 theus 43rd of a second or um as Hawking and Ellis pointed out in their uh 1972 book, you're inside um 10 to the minus 33rd of a cime of space.
And in that first book they said 1035 that's not an absolute singularity 1035 >> for all intents purposes a singularity.
>> So I I'm in in my development of the case I want to say that's a very strong indicator as to what was going on in the past that we're going back to a beginning point of some kind. Um >> now that is correct. Everything that Steven said there is correct that this is a strong indicator for the universe again very early in its history being a very very hot very energetic very dense state but it doesn't say that this has to be where where everything started that this has to be some absolute beginning. We don't know if there is if there is such a thing or not. I'm I probably lean towards the idea that there is but I I could very well be wrong about that. And then I I think the the Borg valin theorem provides additional support for that based on special relativity. It's not subject to the same uh uh condition or other conditions that are important and some of these pre- big bang models provide model specific ex exceptions or exemptions to the the BGV theorem. But I think on balance it too is providing epistemic support for a beginning that >> I think it's worth pointing out that the borden theorem is not a theorem about the origin of the universe and does not say or suggested that there is that there is one >> that's part one of my argument the part two >> and even if there was it doesn't tell us anything about that that's not what the BGB theorem does know >> well let's let's just try and bring this into a >> well here here's the big point about that if you have a you have a beginning.
>> Okay. And if we're going to any argument predicated on a beginning is going to create difficulties for a materialistic worldview because >> I do not that that's that what's the argument for that? I think that a naturalist can grant that um that there's some sort of absolute beginning.
That's not in and of itself an im immediately a problem for a naturalist worldview >> because either before the beginning which we have to put in scare quotes because time is beginning or independent of the beginning in an ontological sense um there is nothing materialistic to do the causing because what is beginning is matter energy space and time. So >> yeah, but on on on a naturalist view where the naturalist takes that there is some absolute beginning, all they're going to say is that that that is there is just some initial moment but it is not itself caused. It wouldn't make sense to say that that first moment was caused by something else because then that something else would just be the first moment and then what caused that?
So there's some first moment. It wasn't caused by anything. It doesn't make sense to say that it was caused by anything. It's just that's not that wouldn't be the right way to to look at it from a naturalist perspective.
So on a straightforward on a straightforward conclusion based on observational astronomy and I think the most straightforward reading of these proofs from theoretical physics I think you got you have a not a proof but strong evidence of a beginning and that poses a a problem for materialism an explanatory challenge for materialism that it can't meet that theism can meet because >> I I don't think it exposes an explanatory problem either. somebody is either going to think that this this initial state is just just physically necessary um or they might think it's just brutely contingent. And if the first one serves as an explanation in virtue of the necessity and the second one is just suggesting that there there simply is no explanation to be given. It's not avoiding one. It's not it's not trying to get out of giving one. It's saying there just isn't one to give at all.
>> Because if you posit an independent um entity who transcends matter, space and time and also has powers of valition, you have the necessary conditions of an adequate explanation, causal explanation for the origin of the universe if it had a beginning.
>> Okay. So just before I bring Phil in to to start to push back on on this, just in summary, your view is that looking at the what you might call, as far as you can see, a consensus view on cosmology, >> not so much consensus, but more of a primmaaccia case based on observational evidence, what we know and theoretical physics, >> observational evidence of the universe that that appears to show if you wound the clock back, you would get to this very hot, dense state in the past and and what appears to be a beginning moment. You likewise add in the board goose fenum theorem singularity theorems that Penrose and others formulated and and there's a lot of different strands that point back to the idea that there is a beginning >> yeah it's as I concluded at the end of the chapter on this the sixth chapter of my book as best we can tell there was a beginning >> as best we can tell >> acknowledging that there are loopholes that could be >> and we'll explore some of those >> but that the the reason that this gives us evidence for a creator outside of the universe is because you have to have posit something like that when what you're talking about coming into existence essentially is matter, time, space, and energy. You have >> But here's the problem. Even if you grant that there is some initial moment, it's that this isn't an event where the universe springs into being. That's not what happens. It's just it it would be like saying that the North Pole is where the Earth comes into being. That just misunderstands what what what's being talked about.
This completely misunderstands what the Earth is. The the North Pole, you could argue this equally with the South Pole, but the North Pole is just sort of a point of convergence where all you might say all points on the surface of the Earth can converge onto the North Pole.
But the North Pole isn't an event where the universe was c or where the earth was caused to spring or come into being literally from nothing in some like x nai way. It's just a point of convergence. It's just sort of this initial point where where where everything you can't go past. There's no such thing as a past to that. So I I I think granting that there's some sort of absolute beginning for the universe, saying something along the lines of this is a moment where it comes into being is just using entirely the wrong language.
>> You have to have something that in a sense transcends those categories and and this appears to be the god therefore is >> right. Right. And I think one of the interesting things about the alternative cosmological models is that they always have to posit something that is separate from or transcendent from the observable universe we have. It may be a prior mathematical state as in quantum cosmology or it might be a prior big bang. Transcendence in this in the strict sense of the word as something separate from seems I think by all concerned to be something conceited as a necessary condition of explanation.
Causes need to be separate from the effects that they produce.
>> Okay.
>> I'm not sure what he means by transcendent here, nor what's really being said when he says that causes need to be separate from their effects.
I'm I just I don't know what exactly that's supposed to mean.
I mean, if it's just saying something like causes need to number one, both precede their effects in time and number two have sufficient power to produce their effects, um, then sure. But I don't know if that's that's what he's saying there. That was kind of confusing to me.
>> Okay, Phil. Okay, so let's just take a step back um, and talk about the the broader conversation here about the Big Bang and and the beginning. What's often happening is that there's a bit of a bait and switch happen uh going on.
>> In particular, two notions of the big bang are getting confused. Um so in our book, we talk about one definition of the big bang which we call the hot big bang. And that says the that's a theory if you like that says the universe evolved from an incredibly hot dense state. And that theory says nothing at all about what came before that. It doesn't say whether there was a beginning of time or not. It just says the universe evolved from a hot dense state.
The other definition that we talk about for the big bang is a big bang singularity. So the universe evolved from a singular state. What we mean here is that the curvature, the pressure, the density goes to infinity. This is a sort of beginning of time if you like. Um now all the observational evidence only tells us that there was a hot dense day.
It doesn't say there was a singularity.
In fact, I would say there is no evidence at all that says not not any empirical evidence that says there was a singularity. In fact, you can't really get any empirical evidence um for a singularity doesn't make any predictions and in fact there's something called the cosmic censorship conjecture um which I think is very plausible that says actually singularities are hidden behind horizons and in fact if you could see a singularity uh you would actually have a breakdown of causality which would threaten the calam in the other way it would threaten the cautial principle perhaps um so we can't see singularities there's no observational evidence for them and in fact we did a survey of physicists and I've done two surveys So before he talks about the survey, this is this is how this is viewed in in modern cosmology. What what Phil is talking about when cosmologists are talking about the big bang, they're talking about the hot big bang phase of the universe's evolution and there is a before that and it's it that that is inflation. Now some cosmologists will say yeah well we don't really know that inflation happened and we don't know that inflation happened but there there are um there are certain observations we can make about reality that are very very difficult to explain without something like inflation having happened very very very very early in the universe's evolution and at least in standard lambda CDM cosmology inflation is is understood is something that um happens prior to the big bang that the hot big bang phase was sort of set up by inflation that this is the reheating epic that occurs immediately after the inflationary epic.
Um and Phil is also right that this notion of an initial cosmological singularity is not a part of of standard lambda CDM cosmology. Most cosmologists don't think that there was an initial cosmological singularity, even if they think that there was maybe some sort of absolute beginning. Most physicists don't think singularities are physically real objects in the first place. They think they're what you get when your mathematics is no longer your physical theories are no longer capable of providing meaningful descriptions of the energy scales you're trying to um subject them to.
>> Surveys now. Um and this is very important. Um we asked so the first one we did was at a survey oh was at a conference organized by the Neils Bor Institute in Copenhagen and it had leading leading physicists there in theoretical physics and astronomy um cosmology astrophysics numerical relativity and it had top top people and we asked them various questions and controversies within physics. We asked him, I think it was 12 questions, things like what you think is the best candidate for dark matter, for dark energy. And the only question that we got a majority view on anything on was that the big bang should only be understood as the hot big bang, not as the big bang singularity. So when physicists say we've got evidence from the cosmic microwave background and the red shift and blah blah blah blah blah, they're only saying the hot big bang.
Okay? So this is not empirical evidence of a beginning of the wrong >> button and that that's what I had mentioned earlier is that none of this is evidence for an absolute beginning.
It's evidence for the universe being in a very very energetic very dense very hot state very early in its history.
Could that be a beginning an absolute beginning? Yeah. But the data we currently have does not itself immediately suggest that you have to sort of parse that out of the data that we have. by considering a variety of other metaphysical or or philosophical assumptions with respect to your interpretation of the data as it stands.
But the data itself does not suggest that >> the universe. Okay. Now, in fact, I would challenge Stephen, you know, what empirical evidence could you possibly have of a singularity? I I just can't see how >> should we pass that back then. So the hot big bang is is not evidence of a beginning and the singularity theorem itself is contested says um >> well we'll come on to that. It's more like we couldn't observe a singularity if there was one.
>> Well of course that's where the laws of physics would break down. You know I'm not disputing that. The point is that the back extrapolation that's been involved in inferring the hot big bang state takes you >> that's done utilizing general relativity primarily. Like that's why it all goes back to a singularity when you do this is because your your curvature, your density, all that becomes infinite.
But we we know that general relativity, classical general relativity as it stands today does not apply at such very small scales and uh size scales and very very high energy scales because of the introduction of quantum effects. And we do not yet have a theory of quantum gravity. So we can't really speak about these very earliest moments at least with respect to where we are in the universe's evolution the these very earliest moments until we have such a theory and we we just currently don't.
So the fact that we can back extrapolate to a point and then all of a sudden we reach like a wall we sort of hit a wall is not because that well there must be a beginning there. It's because oh our theories are no longer adequate at these at these energy scales. We need better physics and we don't currently have it.
>> Takes you back to a point of convergence past which you cannot go and that's that's a consequence of the red shift as much as it is the consequence of of the um the singularity of Hawking and Penrose the singularity theorems. Um the the the the point that I'm making is that it's a reasonable conclusion to believe that the universe had a beginning. There's no way of getting beyond that hot big bang to >> I I think that you can make that conclusion but you can't take you can't make that conclusion based only off of the scientific data that we have or the empirical data that we have. You have to take that plus a variety of other philosophical assumptions. um in the case of like Stephen and many others are going to be a variety of theological assumptions that that they have that is then going to inform oh this could this this is probably some sort of absolute beginning. But again, the empirical data in and of itself does not indicate that >> to something before. This is something that uh in in the book um the the stumbling again over his name is is he agrees with with William Lane Craig that there's no um there's no evidence for a beginningless universe.
>> But we also said there's no evidence for a beginning.
>> No, no, no. There's a >> that is true. There is no evidence for what the beginning of the universe empirical evidence for what the beginning of the universe is like at all. If there is one, there is no evidence that there is one. There is no evidence that there isn't one. We don't have the models to give us that. We we we don't have the tools and the technology to understand that yet. So I that this goes both ways.
>> Difference between evidence and proof.
And I think the the what happens throughout your book is that there's a an an absolute 100% standard of proof required for anyone who wants to say that the universe had a beginning.
>> That's not what we're talking about.
>> And and well, that's what the singular to to suspend the the board valan theorem simply because there are models that could circumvent its its conditions is >> but the conditions of the BGV theorem don't indicate that the universe had a beginning.
All they tell us is that inflation is bounded in the past um in the in the past uh nolan time like for nolan time like geodessics past directed nan time like geodessics that inflation has some past boundary but the universe isn't inflation inflation is a process that occurs um on space in the universe. So the universe might be doing a whole host of things prior to its inflationary state, but there is a there is a past boundary to specifically the inflationary state. That doesn't tell us whether the universe has a beginning as both Guth and Bolinkin themselves have clarified >> is to require an absolute proof or not.
>> No, it's not. It isn't. It just isn't.
>> It does. It does. We're not looking for an absolute proof. Let's just leave for a minute or two. Can we agree there's no empirical evidence for a singularity?
>> Well, you wouldn't get an empirical singularity is is an artifact of a phys of mathematical physics.
>> So, let's find the common ground. We agree, >> right? But that's that's a that's a red herring because no one has ever said that. Um, >> well, so you're let me just get this.
>> The singularity has a technical diff in physics which is a place where the laws of physics break down. You wouldn't get there's no possibility of empirical evidence of a singularity. But there are empirical but it's a hypothesis based on extrapolating conjoined with general relativity that would lead you to think that you're getting to a singularity or a near singularity but I I'd like not to get hung up on >> just so that I can understand that the the the the empirical evidence we do have from cosmic micro background radiation red shift and so on. You're you're saying that's that all that gets you is a hot dense state, not a beginning. But you're saying that that you think it's it's consistent with and and and lends evidence towards the idea of a beginning because I don't know what their survey has shown and so on. You know, I first encountered this with uh very compelling talk by Alan Sandage, uh Robert Jastro, many of the physicists who were first articulating the the case for the big bang thought it clearly pointed to a beginning. And and so >> okay, well let's pass it back to to Phil. where we're getting confused is the difference between evidence for something and an absolute 100% certain proof, which is which is >> and and this is asking for that. That's just so you're you're keen to say we're looking for an inference.
>> Yeah. I don't I don't think Phil has at any point here said or um suggested that we need some sort of absolute proof.
Look, if if on on a general definition of evidence that most philosophers, including philosophers of science, are going to work with, uh, evidence is something that's expected given to say that something is evidence for a hypothesis is just to say that it's an observation or what have you. That's expected given the hypothesis and that if you did see it, it would raise the probability of the truth of that hypothesis. um the universe being very very hot, very very dense and very very early in its history is minimally evidence for a beginning. But it's not enough to say that oh yeah, we we can argue that point because it's also consistent with there being a state that evolves from some previous state as well. So and the thing is that state could be the beginning and all that would mean is that the hot dent state isn't what came before the hot dent state is. So it's it's very minimally evidence for a beginning o really only in the sense that it is minimally expected um given a beginning but it doesn't meaningfully raise that probability. It's certainly not enough for anybody to say that we have good reason to suppose that the universe has some sort of absolute beginning >> inference to the best explanation not necessarily this 100% deductive proof but >> this doesn't give you deductive proof.
>> No it doesn't ask you for it. Go ahead.
Go ahead.
>> It seems like you are though. That's absolutely >> I don't I don't know how it seems like like he is.
>> I'm trying to figure out I know what I want to say. I'm trying to figure out how I want to word this cuz I want to be charitable. Um, but I feel like I feel like what Steven is doing something a little dishonest here where he's Steven has presented a case that he thinks serves as evidence for there being an absolute beginning and Phil has um quite elegantly ex explicated that this is not actually at least even remotely strong evidence if evidence evidence at all for there being an absolute beginning to the universe.
And then Steven is sort of countering that by saying, "Oh, you're just demanding some sort of proof." No, he's not demanding proof. He's just saying that you haven't met a a a reasonable standard of evidence for the claims you're making because what we have just from the empirical data itself is consistent with there being a beginning, which Phil has has conceded, but it's also consistent with there not being a beginning and there being something prior to the hot dent state that set the hot dent state up, which we already know exists, and that was inflation. Um, so it I just I kind of feel like that that's just just a little bit dishonest on Stephen's part to to say that Phil is is implying that there needs to be some absolute proof or something like that. I don't think he's doing that at all.
>> You believe obviously Steve's mischaracterizing you?
>> Yeah. It's it's just not we're not asking for 100% proof. No. Okay. What we're what we're asking for is an understanding of physics that we don't have at the moment. Okay, so basically what these singularity theorems prove is that the spacetime that obeys the condition of the theorem encounters a singularity. It but it doesn't say there isn't some other spaceime that doesn't obey the condition of the theorem. So now you have to ask what are the assumptions in the theorem? Are they trustworthy? Because if they're not trustworthy, the conclusion isn't trustworthy. And what I think there's very broad consensus on in physics is that the conclusions are not trustworthy. In fact, right, the people that invented them, Penrose, Hawking, um, Ellis, Garrick, they they I think >> they have abandoned them.
>> They've abandoned them, right? Not not they haven't abandoned the m the mathematics is good mathematics, right?
No one's saying that the the maths is wrong, right? The question is for any physical theory, you have physical assumptions.
Holy [ __ ] [ __ ] I am muted. Okay, thank you for that. I I love you guys.
Um, I paused this at exactly the right moment. Phil is absolutely correct assumptions and as I understand it, remember I'm I'm not an expert as I maintain a lot. I'd like at least like to think that I know my physics, but I'm I'm not an expert. As I understand it, the the Penrose Hawking singularity theorems rely on classical general relativity.
So if that's the case and we know that classically general relativity doesn't hold it, it it it it gives way to a a deeper more underlying theory that includes qu variety of quantum effects, then those singularity theorems are probably wrong. Now there are there have been people who have suggested that um utilizing some new information from things like black hole thermodynamics and the statistical mechanics of black holes that we can formulate a quantum singularity theorem. I' I've really only looked at some of the papers on that. I haven't really looked into it very deeply. Um, and if and when I do, there's some people that I want to talk to that know vastly more than I do about that so that I can be sure that I understand it correctly. But I I I do know that it's not like a super popular like it's talked about. I do some physicists that have proposed this, but that it's not super popular and that the at least currently the consensus amongst the relevant cosmologists is that singularities are not physically real.
the singularity theorems probably do not hold in the quantum regime and we need a theory that incorporates those quantum effects to have a better understanding both of what's going on with black holes but also what's going on in the very very early universe so the question is are the assumptions trustworthy now there are various assumptions we go through them in the book I'm not going to go through them all here but I'll pick the one that I think is the most important and that is that Einstein's theory of gravity describes the universe at all scales and that is an assumption that almost I think most cosmologists would say is wrong. Right? It's wrong because there's a contradiction between relativity and quantum >> quantum mechanics of course.
>> Right? So they contradict each other.
Right? Now for the most part we can ignore that. Right? The quantum effects are very big things are tiny. Um so we we just ignore it. It's fine. It it it doesn't matter. But the big bang it does matter, right? Because here >> in this plank unit of time >> Yeah. Well, when you get Yeah. When you get >> Oh, the whites. When will the whites learn how to pronounce names?
Plunk. Not plank.
Plunk. Mox. Plunk.
Yeah.
when you get when you get uh to when the >> and Phil rightfully corrects Stephen later when Stephen keeps saying bored goth felankan theorem and it's borda goth falankan theorem >> but it's incredibly hot and dense you're going to have to bring in quantum mechanics right that's that's the broad consensus view there are a few exceptions right there I mean Penrose actually thinks you don't need quantum mechanics but nevertheless one of the other he challenges one of the other assumptions of his own theorem And his assumption is that you can measure um you have to assume there's three space dimensions, one time dimension which you can measure with rulers and clocks. And he's saying you couldn't build a ruler or clock in the early universe. So actually out with a singularity theorem.
But let's put that to one side. The main the main one is this quantum uh gravity issue. We want to combine general relativity with quantum mechanics. And until we do that, we can't believe what the theory is telling us. Now have we done that? Not successfully. Yeah, I mean there are proposals, there's string theory, there's loop quantum gravity, there's causal sets, there's asmtotic safety, >> there's quantum cosmology, >> right? So there's there's but even if all of those are wrong, until we get that theory, we just don't know, right?
So it's not that we don't have the final proof. We're not saying we need this 100% tight um you know, deductive proof.
No, science doesn't work that way. What we're saying is the theorems just can't be trusted. Full stop. because they they they need this quantum gravity theory.
>> This is where I disagree, Phil. I think they're pointing to >> Well, they can't be trusted. What physicists mean by that is that the current standing of our best physical theories about how the world work do not work as they currently stand once we start getting to to these very very very early moments in the universe's evolution. They just don't.
they stop working. We can't get answers that make sense out of our current physical theories when we apply them at those energy scales. We can't do it. Th this is also the case in like quantum field theory past a certain energy. The mathematics just gives you gobbledegook.
So, physicists invented a way to say, well, let's just not do that. And we call it effective field theory. All of our physical theories breaks this. They break once you reach certain energy scales. They don't work at those energy scales. This is not controversial in physics. And as a result of that, there is an extent to which once we start approaching certain energy scales, we can't rely as much on our physical theories and what they tell us as we would like to because of the fact that they break down when we start to approach those scales. We need better physics and we don't have that yet. And until we get that, we can't make definitive statements or really even confident statements about whether or not the universe has some sort of absolute beginning, which there are cosmologists who think, "Yeah, maybe it does, or whether it extends indefinitely into the past in some way, shape, or form, or whether saying something like has an absolute beginning or extends indefinitely into the past are meaningful statements to make, we might discover that these really these kinds of questions don't really make sense.
to something and the and borgguth falink which is not based on as restrictive conditions I think points more decisively in that direction but the other part of my argument is that when you if you decide you don't want to depict the beginning of the universe classically in general relativistic terms as it were and you invoke a pre uh plon time uh quantum description of the universe you invariably get a universe that is depicted as a superposition of essentially possible states of affairs, possible gravitational fields with different configurations of of of of space and and and matter within those fields. And the depiction is essentially not materialistic. It's it's mathematical. It's a depiction of possible states. And uh Valin has pointed out that this is very odd because you have this whole mathematical apparatus that precedes the beginning of the universe in quantum cosmology which is taking into account the limitations of the singularity theorems the the conditions that have to be met and says we need a theory of quantum gravity and you end up with with a system that has a big hairy equation the wheeler dit equation that needs to be solved to give us a universal wave function and the idea is that if the universal wave function function includes among the possible states of affairs in superp position a universe like ours, it will then constitute an explanation of the origin of the universe. But that mathematical apparatus that precedes the origin of the universe is mathematical.
It's conceptual. It's conceptual. So well the math is but the thing with that is well number one the the wheeler the weight equation is is used a lot in quantum cosmology but it's not like you have to have that as a part of your approach um I I probably couldn't explain the wheeler the weight equation is I don't know if it's would be correct to call it a sort of equation of motion um but I know it's important when understanding quantum cosmology but there are approaches that don't use it um but also a lot of people who take that kind of approach are going to think that this universal wave function is a physically real like a concrete thing.
So they wouldn't think that it's just mathematical.
>> So what what Valen has noticed and is that is he says what is uh what if before there's matter time and energy what tablet could these laws referring to that whole apparatus be written on?
He said if math is the domain of the mind are we actually saying that the ma that the universe has come out of mind and what I'm arguing is that when the straightforward colum argument rendered however whether as an inference to the best explanation or as a deductive argument is circumvented by alternative models of cosmology and I could I think every one of the ones you discuss reveals this that something is affirmed in those models that is that has its own theistic implications. In particular, uh uh unexplained fine-tuning or in quantum cosmology, the big hairy equation that has to be solved, the Wheeler Dewit equation is solved by the physicist making arbitrary choices of the boundary constraints are going to apply to the the equation in order to get a universal wave function out that includes a universe like ours. It's a teological modeling where there's an information input by the physicist into the mathematical apparatus to get a wave function out that will provide an explanation of the origin of the universe. Well, that's intelligent design. They're modeling the input of information into a mathematical apparatus to model how the universe could have come into existence. And I f and you find this in the Steinhart model, not the same kind of thing, but this these unexplained inputs of information or fine-tuning in all the attempts to circumvent the beginning. So yes, you can get around the beginning, but at an epistemic cost of naturalism.
And that is always the affirmation of unexplained fine-tuning and often some very very wonky physics, which is why you're correct to say, >> but if the if the fine-tuning is just of the physical theories, okay, then we we fine-tune our physical theories to better describe the world. That doesn't imply that the world is finely tuned.
That just implies that we probably have incomplete theories >> to say that you're probably right. Most of the 25 models are not are not going to be correct.
>> Okay. So, there's a lot of information there. All right. So, >> there's a lot le Okay, let let me >> the point I'm making is I'm not hanging the whole of my argument on the the evidence for beginning. I think we've been far too diffident about seeing what the the the the grainman of the body of evidence is showing that it's pointing strongly in that direction. But if you don't like the beginning and you circumvent it with a quantum cosmology or a conformal cosmology or any of the others discussed in the book, you invariably have an epistemic cause.
Okay, >> that so if I could attempt my layman's summary and feel free to correct me on this that there um yes, there are other models and you represent a number of >> By the way, I think this is a good time to point out what I said earlier when when the stream started that I think Stephen Steven Myers more formidable than he's given credit for. Um I mean you just listen to everything that that that he just said. Yeah, it wasn't. So I mean a lot of it was in fact correct like a lot of what he said about the Wheeler Dewit equation and this approach and how physicists use this to approach understanding the universe with respect to quantum cosmology is correct. Not everything that he said I don't think was correct but this is not something that your typical run-of-the-mill apologist really talks about. Um so yeah I I think Steven Meyer is a bit more formidable than than people give him credit for. number of them in the book that don't necessarily point to a beginning but each of them comes at a cost says Steven in terms of there being some other payoff which in his view do do have some kind of theistic interpretation and in the end the you know particularly those that invoke a kind of a mathematical kind of solution to to some of these issues are are kind of are kind of inferring some kind of information input from from the outset >> they require they require it as a condition of explanation all of our physical theories.
>> Whichever way you look at it, that there's going to be something pointing back to the God conclusion as far as Steve is concerned. Okay. Where do you want to begin?
>> There's so many topics that that Steven's raised there. So, and I want to try and cover them all. So, you'll have to bring me back if I forget one or another. So, I I want to go back. So, first off, he quoted Alex Felen, and I think that's a misquote because Alexin doesn't believe in a god, right? He believes that the universe um does have a beginning, but it doesn't need a cause.
>> Okay. So, he has this he does mention like where could the laws of physics be written? You know, I think that was honestly a bit of a >> turn of phrase.
>> It's a turn of Well, >> I thought it was an insightful rhetorical question.
>> Hang on, hang on. I I think >> never claimed that he believed in God, nor does my argument what he >> Right. Let's make that clear because when you when you have that comment, it sort of hints that oh, he's thinking there's mind. He's not thinking that. In fact, if you read his book many worlds in mind is incredibly anti- all of the arguments that Steven and other theists put forward. He basically although he thinks the universe at the beginning, he doesn't think it needs a course. So out with a calm. He also thinks like the multiverse is real and solves fine tuning. So out with a fine tuning argument. And people often quote Alex Valenin and don't quote this fact. It just seems incredibly un it's a bit selective.
>> Yeah, it it is. It is. Now hang on Stephen I didn't okay now let's talk about the board of Guthan Duran what I've actually sat in Guth's office and Valhen's office and asked them about this right first off I can say and I think maybe we can clear this up that it's pronounced border not board okay everyone seems to pronounce right I got that from Alan Guz and I think he knows how to pronounce his colleague's name okay so if I slip up and say board or borde um please correct me so okay what does this theorem say okay it Basically what was going on is that they came up with this theory called inflation. So Alan Goo came up with this theory called inflation which has this accelerated expansion um >> in the very early moments of the universe.
>> Yeah. This inflation period.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And um it was thought by Valenin actually uh he was one of the pioneers of this to be eternal into the future. So once inflation starts it never stops. It makes universe after universe after universe. So it's it's eternal. So they asked the question, well if it's eternal into the future, can it be eternal into the past? And their conclusion was no, it cannot be eternal into the past. So inflation requires a beginning. What's in the paper is that there's a boundary to the inflating space. Okay. Now, first off, other people have challenged that. This is not like an agreed upon fact by everyone. There's a recent paper um by Leneski and Davis and Essen saying actually they made a mistake and it's actually you can have an inflating space that goes back into there in other papers that have said this. Now again the point I want to emphasize there's no empirical way to adjudicate this disagreement. Okay, if inflation happened and it's eternal and suppose there's some beginning to eternal inflation, we are not going to see it empirically. So that's that puts caution on this conclusion, right? because we want science to be empirical. This is kind of why I think we need to emphasize the uncertainty here. We're in much more uncertainty about these topics than it would appear, right? We don't know if inflation, you know, even happened. I think there's a good case to be made for inflation. Um, but it's not watertight, right? It's, you know, it's reasonable.
But we, in the book, we go over a whole fights about arguments for and against inflation, and I often change my mind about it every other day. Uh, it's a difficult topic, right? But even if inflation did have a beginning, okay, so something could have come before inflation, right? It doesn't have to be um something abstract. It could just be simple. There was a collapsing universe and then there was expanding universe.
>> This is where where other models come in that there are other options on >> and we don't know which one is correct.
So basically we have to be agnostic about these sorts of issues, right? It's just not correct to say that these points are beginning. In fact, Alan Guth thinks the universe is eternal into the past, right? And surely Steven knows this, right? I mean, this is very well known. Uh, and and so from your perspective, Phil, what you're dealing here is that there's lots of different people with different perspectives, some of which might indicate a beginning, but that doesn't necessarily mean a god beginning. It could be there's some other formulation which which suggests there's there's something else happening in the quantum realm, whatever it might be.
>> Right? So, so let's just take an example. Suppose you get a collapsing universe that expands.
>> Okay? I don't say what on earth is immaterial about that. I mean it's it seems >> this doesn't have any theistic implications.
>> I don't know what theistic implication is supposed to be of that. Like why is that right pointed to the not saying this is right? Um, I I think this would be a good time to um ju just to say that regardless of like if you believe that God exists, I don't think at the end of the day your belief in God is going to to sort of hinge upon whether or not the universe truly is eternal to the past. I I think that if you were to go ask William Lane Craig, if we discovered empirically that the universe is eternal into the past, um would you stop believing that God exists? I think he would say no. I think that that he would be like, you know, I' I'd have to give up obviously the calam and all that and maybe rethink about some things, but I I think he would be firm in saying that no, he would not stop believing in God.
And I think that most people who run a calam style argument would also say that yeah, maybe not all of them, but I think most of them would say, "Yeah, if we dis if we did discover empirically that the universe were eternal in the past, I wouldn't stop believing in God." And I just don't think that I mean, suppose for a second that God does exist. I don't think whether or not the universe has a beginning has any bearing on that.
I just I I I just don't.
Also, I really I I do want to say I really like how Phil um sort of outlined the the BGV theorem there and what's really what's really going on is that it says that inflation the inflating region of space has a boundary in the past.
That doesn't mean the universe has to have a boundary in the past. Now, if one wants to argue that this boundary to the inflating region is an absolute beginning to to to space or to the universe, they can. But the BGV theorem itself does not indicate or suppose that. All it says is that there's a past boundary to the inflating region of space. It does not say that that space or that the universe must start there.
And this is explicit in the paper. I this is one option >> but it's it's it's a plausible option among the options. This is this is right on point. Okay.
>> Okay. So do you mind if we go back to Steve?
>> Can I answer this thing about inputting information?
>> Shall we do one thing at a time? We'll come back to information as well, but but we're on Bord sorry Border between the inflation.
>> Um, and Valenin certainly seems to have uh said this implies a beginning, >> although well wait.
>> Well, yeah, Phil's probably going to say the same thing I'm about to. Valenin does not say that the BGV theorem implies a beginning or at least that's not currently his position and that can be proven. Um, and I will probably do that in just a few minutes. Uh, he does believe in a beginning, but I it's not because of the BGV theorem. It's just because of, you know, probably personal philos philosophical considerations that he has.
>> No, wait a minute. When I sat in Valen in his popular book, he said that this was a proof of the beginning. That was in a popular book. All right. Not in a scientific paper. Okay.
>> Right. And when I asked him about it years later, he backed off that claim.
He said no. It only proves that inflation had a beginning. When I asked him, he said no. This only proves inflation had a beginning. It doesn't say that the universe had a beginning.
So we're going to quote these people.
When they when they quote this theorem, when they quote Valenin, right? And they don't quote what they say now, which is that these theorems only say that inflation had a beginning. How you know Has it switched? Yes, it has. All right.
>> That means that inflation must have had a beginning. It doesn't really say that the universe must have had a beginning, but it says that the universe could not have been expanding forever.
>> The theorem proves that inflation must have a beginning, right? Uh the universe uh as a whole um it doesn't the theorem doesn't say that.
It says that the uh expansion of the universe must have a beginning.
>> That means that inflation must have had a beginning. It doesn't really say that the universe must have had a beginning, but it says that the universe could not have been expanding forever.
>> The theorem. So, I mean, I think that kind of settles that there. You have two of the three authors explicitly saying that this theorem does not say that the universe has to have a beginning. It says that inflation as a process on space cannot be extended indefinitely into the past. You could not have inflation according to the theorem. You could not have inflation happening if from from eternity past. That's what it says. You could have the universe existing past eternally in some non-inflating state. And the paper itself even says that you would need some other physics, some non-inflationary physics to describe the universe prior to the inflating region or the the the boundary of the inflating region. So if if these authors thought that this theorem was some strong empirical theorem for an absolute beginning to the universe, why are they talking about extending our understanding of pre-inflationary physics by appealing to physics we don't currently have? By saying, "Oh, well, if you want to describe what happens before this, you need different physics." That doesn't sound like a sentence that would be in a theorem or in a paper outlining a theorem that supposedly shows that the universe has an absolute beginning.
You'd think they'd say, "Yeah, this theorem shows that the universe has an absolute beginning." That's wraps. They But they don't say that. Why?
we've had a a whole uh problem of of taking him out of context on the other side because I think the the s he wrote an article in the journal inference edited by my colleague David Berlinsky where he was very clear he thinks the universe probably did have a beginning that the the models that circumvent the the BGV theorem are all the models that imply an eternal past are all problematic and so on balance as it the the in the >> so number one he doesn't think the universe has a beginning because of the BGV theorem and number two he doesn't think that some of the models that subvert the BGV theorem fail simply because they subvert the BGV theorem they fail for a variety of other theoretical or observational reasons >> in a strict sense it only establishes that inflationary big bang had a beginning that if the universe is on average expanding from a beginning point there you can take it back that far. There are models that obviously propose a pre- big bang contraction for example the Steinhart model and that is a good one to illustrate my point. Okay, because in the in the Steinhard model uh first of all there have been papers come out now that Steinhardt has conceded that his model uh his uh cyclic ectopic model does require >> e pyrotic >> e pyrootic thank you model also um is subject to BGV but the idea is you can't go back the BG the the the the model the BG GB theorem takes you back to the point where inflation starts.
What happens before that? Well, there are contracting models that something there was a previous phase and the universe was contracting. In Steinhart's work, he has he posits a unique field that uh changes the energy energy density of the universe from positive to negative and back again. Now, there's no other field in our knowledge of physics that does something like that. So, one of the epistemic costs of these alternative cosmologies is often a a a gross violation of AAM's razor in that they multiply theoretical entities and often uh very imaginatively so. But in order to get the contraction phase to work just right, so it smooths out the background radiation so that you get a um a homogeneous background radiation in the next phase. the mathematics has to be exquisitly finely tuned. And so if if you have someone who is gerrymandering the mathematics to make the model work, that is a reflection of what would need to be taking place in nature that it would itself need to be finally >> No, that's not a reflection. The fact that we have to fine-tune our models to understand the world doesn't mean that the world must also be finely tuned.
>> Tuned. And my contention is that these these alternative models to the big bang the alternative models that get rid of the of of a beginning invariably have problems with unexplained fine-tuning or inputs of information and the the preont the the pre-Big bang contraction phase of the Steinhard model which is cited as one of the the the model specific exemptions to BGV is subject to that very condition that I'm talking out. So there's a robustness to the >> I mean I could be wrong but I don't the e pyotic model doesn't have inflation as a part of it. So I don't know how it could be subject to the BGV theorem which applies to inflationary spaceimes.
Epyotic cosmology is is a a different model than inflation.
I don't know all that much about it though. So I could just I who who the [ __ ] knows? I I could just be saying gobbledegook right now.
>> The argument that we're developing, we're not hanging at all on the the singularity proofs or the observational astronomy. I think on balance they point in that direction to a beginning. But the point is to circumvent that conclusion invariably very h very speculative models uh have to be invented that they actually have three epistemic costs. one, they usually affirm something that has theistic implications like unexplained fine-tuning.
>> Um, well, that doesn't ne that doesn't immediately have theistic implications, number one, but number two, um, I would argue that if our models are fine-tuned, then it's just obvious that we're the ones that finally tuned them since we are the ones that make up the models.
>> Secondly, they usually violate AAM's razor because there's a massive multiplication of theoretical entities.
Um, I list them all in the in the string inflationary model of explaining the multiverse uh in in chapter 16, but I've I've seen this repeatedly in these cosmological models. And then thirdly, there's often either something completely unprecedented being asserted about how physics will work or something that violates physics uh basic physics really established physics that we know.
for example, Phil's co-author.
>> Also, just on the point of Aamus Racer, this is really just sort of this principle of parsimony that you shouldn't multiply your assumptions beyond what is needed in order to do the explaining. So that that's what that that means. If you need to posit more assumptions, but they also add to the explanatory power of the model, that's not really a violation of parsimony. Um it it now that model might not be as parsimmonious as a model that explains the same things equally well with less assumptions.
But um the the other point there is that parsimony in and of itself isn't the beall endall of theoretical virtues. A model might be more parsimmonious. Model A might be more parsimmonious than model B in that it makes less assumptions, but model B might um have greater explanatory power or explanatory scope.
It might um fit better with with the established precedent with the data that we have. So it might meet a variety of other theoretical virtues, but not parsimony. So parsimony alone doesn't determine what model we should go with.
It's a variety of various theoretical virtues against which we're going to judge these particular models. Parimony just happens to be one amongst many.
>> Posits a um a return of the ether, a second dimension of time and a um and that the speed of light is no longer constant. and and goes on to say that if he is allowed to uh add a second dimension of time to his his depiction of the universe that uh that may imply that that causality is not a fundamental property of the universe. Well, that's a high cost to pay to formulate a model that gets around the beginning.
>> That's really helpful.
>> Well, I don't think positing that causality isn't a fundamental feature of the universe is at all a high cost. I don't think that causality is fundamental to reality. There are some, not many, but some who would say causality isn't actually a thing at all.
They're what they're what what are called causal eliminativists. They think that causality is just more the way that we talk about the world, but it isn't a thing in the world in and of itself. You know, that's just kind of how humans talk about it. The causality isn't something out there in the world to a causal eliminist. Um I'm not one but I I respect the view.
>> Okay, Phil, you might want to pick up on the the information sort of being bought at the beginning sort of point here as well as again so many points to to go back. So first of all I mean the cyclic model of Steinhard Steinhart and Anna Eas has been working on this. Let's give her some credit too. Um and and of course it goes back to earlier work >> e >> pyrootic >> epyotic model right so um >> is this the collapsing >> no there's a confusion I think Steven just got confused here right what I was suggesting was there was a collapsing universe and expanding universe that does not imply cyclic universe of Steinhard and ES not at all right it doesn't imply a cyclic universe >> I'm not sure which one you're talking about the point is that their model >> Yeah but I'm not talking about their model >> well okay but I'm talking about it because it illustrates my point well their model is a a model specific ex it has an exemption.
>> Sorry, Stephen. I didn't apply.
>> I didn't interrupt you, Stephen. So, maybe let me speak. Okay. But but regardless, you might want to speak to I'm not I wasn't talking about the aerotic model. What I was talking about is a collapse followed by expansion.
Now, a cyclic universe of the aparotic type has collapse expansion, collapse, expansion, collapse, expansion. And to get that to work, right, there are other things that you need. I'm not talking about that. I wasn't proposing that.
didn't even mention that.
>> Do you concede that you need finetuning to get that model to work though in the mathematics?
>> Uh um that's a complicated answer. Uh let let me let me sort of answer some of the points you made before going on to some other points. Right.
>> Just for clarification maybe stop interrupting.
>> I just was wanting your clarification though for me. Which model are you talking about with the the collapse contraction? Could >> I've well there's many models that would just have a collapse and expansion. So it's what we would call an hourglass model. So an example of this would be let's say loop quantum cosmology right so here what you're doing you're not trying to circumvent the beginning that's the wrong language okay this is >> I I I don't like Phil's exactly right there that is the wrong language and you you'll notice that a lot of these apologists William Lraig does the same thing I think Frank Turk talks talks about it that way there are some others that do that oh well these cosmologists come up these models to subvert the the idea of a beginning no it's that we're trying to understand how the universe works and there being a past eternal universe or there being some sort of pre-inflationary or pre- Big Bang state falls out of a lot of these models like that. That's just the way the models are. It's not that people are creating models specifically to get around that everybody knows secretly that there's a beginning and they're trying to come up with models to get around it. That that's just not what's happening. A lot of theists think that what cosmologists are trying to do, they've like they know about the column cosmological argument and it proves God's existence and they're trying to find a way around it.
No. Okay. Most cosmologist probably never heard of the column cosmological argument. They don't care about any of these conversations. What they're trying to do is to extend the border of our knowledge. Okay. So we get to the big bang and that's where our understanding stops. Okay. But they want to push beyond it. So what they want to do is say okay let's develop quantum theories of gravity and apply them to the big bang and let's just see what happens. So I interviewed the people that worked on let's say the quantum cosmology as an example right and what they did was they developed the the theory over like decades before ever applying it to the big bang once they felt they had enough understanding of the theory that they could start to do this then they applied it to the big bang and what did they find that the big bang becomes a big bounce and there's a reason for this because in the theory you find that space has a maximum capacity so think of a sponge okay you pour water on a sponge. The sponge absorbs the water. In a similar way, space can absorb energy as you start to compress it. But what happens is as the water gets poured on the sponge, eventually the sponge gets filled up. It can no longer absorb the water. So rather than becoming water absorbent, it becomes water repellent.
So similarly, space in this scenario bounces out because it's got filled up.
Simple as that. So basically what you do is you find that the big bang is in a the big bang singularity is replaced by a big bang. So there was a contracting universe on the other side. Now it's true in the cyclic model of Steinhart and EAS they have to assume two additional fields. But of course assuming additional fields is not like some bizarre weird thing. This happens all the time in physics. The Higsfield was is even going to say the Higsfield was some uh conflict with Okan Razer.
When you have a problem, you come up with novel solutions. This is what science does. This is completely normal in science. And if you if you thought this was a great problem, you'd be you'd be stopping science in in a sense because scientists are often coming up with novel solutions to stuff. So this is >> it's not about circumventing anything.
>> And the funny thing is is that solving a lot of problems with quantum mechanics and trying to merge other fields with quantum mechanics oftent times comes with or explaining problems utilizing quantum methods. usually comes down to like positing the existence of some field that breaks some symmetry or something like that. That's just kind of how that that's approached and that's because it's been an extraordinarily successful approach thus far.
>> Thing it about just testing different ideas, creative ideas.
>> It's trying to come up with better than what we've got and then seeing what it does. Now, if you find that it solves certain problems and there are certain reasons to take it seriously. So for example if if we say in the loop chronographity case there are re I'm not saying that the chronograph is right okay it's got problem every theory has problems including ones with a beginning and ones without a beginning every theory has problem that's why we've we're writing a book about how people are battling about them all theories have problems what does that really tell us it just tells us that our theories are incomplete right that we don't know what's happening and that this is kind of the whole point of the argument here we don't know what's going on in the early universe. So we can't make any firm conclusions, right? But there's nothing no reason to think that this these ideas require a god, right? It doesn't point to anything other than a lack of our understanding and we try and push forward. It might be that nature doesn't allow us to go and presumably for you just before we come back to you Steve, you do you believe that >> I well we I think we'll need to get to this you know towards the end of our conversation. you you presumably believe that God is a very unsatisfactory explanation compared to continuing to explore physical mathematical other types of >> well I look I won't believe any I don't believe any of the models in our book right and the reason is because I won't believe it until we've made really precise predictions that have been tested thoroughly against observations so what people in this field are trying to do are trying to do that now at the moment is simplified models there's nothing I think absolutely compelling I mean most if you survey cosmologist and in fact we have survey cosmologists. uh uh certainly about inflation versus alternatives because that's that's one debate and then even if you think inflation happened you can ask what happened before right um so inflation is the most popular model right arguably it is actually a pre- big bang model in fact talks about it that way um but we don't we don't know I don't think there's anything convincing right so we basically should be agnostic right and if we're lucky we will be able to push beyond but it's possible that nature's just put up a brick Well, and we'll never know, right? In fact, there's a theorem called uh Mel Manack theorem which says we can't ever know the global structure of space.
>> That's because it was said because it was said quickly. Malament man theorem is what is what he's referring to.
>> If that's right, you know, maybe we're never going to know, but I mean I'm a bit more. Also, there are some cosmologists that have suggested that if if something like inflation did happen, it may be the case that inflation itself destroys information about what was going on in the universe prior to the inflating the inflating phase. We we it it may be the case that there we will reach a point where we there will be no way for us to ever learn more. We we will simply never be able to gather the information. That that's possible.
>> More optimistic than that. But it does say I think that you couldn't observationally tell the global structure of space time. But here's the important point actually. Let let me address this issue about the inputting the information in.
>> Okay, let let's do that and then and then we will pass it back to >> So it's true that uh equations often have infinite number of solutions. So if you just think of a really simple equation like x + y = 2, there's an infinite number of solutions to that equation. Right? It could be 1 plus 1 equals 2 1.5 plus 0.5.
>> Exactly. there's an infinite number of solutions. It could be 3 + - 1, right?
So now when you go to the real world, what you find is that often these things get constrained by the regularities that exist in nature. So um imagine what we're actually trying to describe is apples falling off a tree. Okay, so let's suppose we have some detector and it could detail a sound of something falling, but it can't tell how many apples. But we know there were two instance. So now our equation is x + y equals 2, right? Oh, actually it has to be 1 plus one because there can't be a negative number of apples and there can't be actually from what we know about apples there's not they when they fall off trees they whole apples. So actually the infinite number of solutions collapses down to like one unique solution. Okay now in field theories it's true that there are an infinite number of solutions to those equations. Right? So how do you make progress? Well you impose symmetry. One way you can do it is impose symmetries.
Right? And then you see what you get.
Now a lot of the symmetries might be justifiable by empiricism. So we look at the universe and we see it's homogeneous. So okay let's impose that as a symmetry. So what physicists are doing is trying to make progress. They is true that they have to make assumptions. The God theory has to make assumptions. You have to make assumptions about what God would do, whether he's good, what kind of universe it would. And and this also plays back to um to Stephen Meyer's point about parsimony here is that the thing with a naturalist worldview, the thing that the naturalist and the theist can both agree upon is that there is a natural world. Now for the naturalist, that's all he's saying is that there is a natural world. The theist is saying there is a natural world plus at least one other thing and that's God. So come going back to this parsimony issue that's one more assumption than the naturalist needs to make which means that uh naturalism is intrinsically simpler than theism is as a broader metaphysical thesis.
No one no one can get out of making assumptions, right? But what you do is you have this feedback in in cosmology.
We don't believe even if you make assumptions and you get a plausible idea, right? So I think inflation is plausible, right? But we don't believe it until it's gone through the incredible number of robust tests. And I think I don't want to endorse any theory be it God or a big bounce or holographic cosmology which actually I don't think holographic cosmology does need a wheel equation. You don't use the wheel equation. You use >> No, I'm saying it's quantum cosmology in certain areas of quantum cosmology.
>> Yes, people make assumptions. This is what you have to do to do physics and it's nothing unusual. Coming up with new fields is nothing unusual. It's been done before. That's what the Higsfield was. This is part of doing science.
>> Okay. All right. So, a couple of points.
>> Let's have some further thoughts and I'm going to start to bring this into land so we can also talk about our other big issue which is the finetuning of the universe for life and whether that lends evidence for the godhead.
>> Right. A minute ago, Phil said that we have a lot of confusion about what was going on in the early universe. The word early implies that the universe was near the beginning of its beginning.
>> Well, no. It just means that it's earlier than in in the course of events in in the time evolution of the universe as compared to where we're at.
That's all that means.
>> And the the the the multiplication of these very abstract models that do circumvent the beginning I think is um evidence not of progress in physics.
think models that dolication of these very abstract model. the the the the multiplication of these very abstract models that do circumvent the beginning I think is um evidence not of progress in physics but of a kind of degenerate research program that uh Thomas [ __ ] the historian of science said that when you see a multiplication of of modeling you're not seeing a healthy research program that's making progress if There are 25 different models. They're mainly inconsistent with each other. Um if they require many ad hoc assumptions, the multiplication of explanatory entities, uh this is this is not evidence of making progress. what he inadvertently said in in referring to the the universe as having an early >> so first off that was not Thomas [ __ ] that says this this that was Imratos who's the one that proposed the notion of scientific research programs and progressive and degenerative problem shifts in scientific research programs.
The fact that there are a lot of models developing is not in and of itself a sign of a degenerating problem shift. um adding more uh ad hoc uh auxiliary hypotheses is not in and of itself a sign of a degenerating problem shift. Um oftent times actually when you get new research programs developing there tends to be immediately sort of an addition of more ad hoc hypotheses that then get slimmed down as we collect more evidence. So you can't immediately say that doing this is a is is is a degenerating problem shift in the the research program. And just to verify that I actually know what I'm talking about, give me one second here.
I am actually currently reading Imratosh's book, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programs. You can see well maybe you can see I've got my bookmark there. I'm just a little over halfway through it. And yeah, this this this was I mean Thomas Imratos talks about like Thomas Co and some of the stuff that he developed and he thinks that Thomas Kun got some stuff right but not a lot of stuff right. Um but yeah, this this idea of scientific research programs and the progressive and degenerating problem shifts within them and adding on ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses to hard cores um and having you know a negative heristic and a positive heristic and all of these things. This was developed by Imactose.
Um so yeah I I cosmology I I would not say that cosmology appears to be degenerating right now. Um I do think that we are adding certain ad hoc hypotheses but doing so is not intrinsically bad early state is the most natural thing that most people think even in physics when they're thinking about how the universe began there was a big bang and so what's taking place is these models are attempting to eliminate the idea that there was a single beginning there's they're do there two basic types either you get the the quantum approach approach, the quantum cosmological approach that wants to portray the early universe as a quantum state in superposition of these mathematical possibilities or you have either some type of oscillating or cyclic where you have multiple big banks and um Phil interviewed Sir Roger recently. He has this cyclic conformal model. He posits fields that have again properties that no other fields have. He has to have exquisite fine-tuning after the crossover from the expansion phase of the universe to a a a be a a new phase where you have massive entropy and and it's by a kind of mathematical slight of hand. He reduces that with what he calls sca invariant scale invariance. And then somehow that massive universe that was had lots and lots of of um entropy is now a universe in a low entropy state with lots of energy available to do work simply because he's measuring it differently. Um and then once the universe begins to expand, it has to be the right amount of mass of the right kind has to be introduced by a new type of field. He used to call it a phantom field. Now it's it's a field of unknown unnamed that's producing particles called arerabonds that again have have features that no other no other uh uh massive particles have in physics. So what you're seeing I think is not a healthy research program but a proliferation of highly speculative models that are getting around that very obvious conclusion that if there was a early universe early with respect to what early with respect to its beginning and it would I think be much better to simply >> early with respect to where we're at >> knowledge that there was a beginning and and proceed in physics research based on that assumption rather than than the multiplication of modeling that What what about Phil's contention here that you know this has always been the way of science. People try different things.
They they get creative. They they put out different hypotheses. Uh inevitably some of these are going to be difficult to test because of the nature of the >> but absolutely there's nothing wrong with modeling. The point is what does the modeling show you when you look at it carefully.
>> We're it's it's showing that you have to violate AAM's razor with multiple explanatory entities and invariably to make the models work you have to have exquisite fine-tuning. can't get a universe like ours with specificity of features without constraining possibility space mathematically and and so the >> yeah but again that's something humans do for their physical theories personally I have no problem admitting that that our physical theories are finely tuned it's just then obvious who finally tuned them we did >> fine-tuning it becomes an inevitable consequence >> and and we do so because they they're incomplete they're incomplete theories >> of these these models that eliminate a beginning. And so that provides, I think, a basis for a different form of the cosmological argument, an argument from contingency, but still a very powerful pointer to God. You either have a God argument if you start with with with a with the assumption of a beginning with the evidence for a beginning or if you if you circumvent that go in a different direction model a non-binning universe you have you you have to compensate for that with exquisite fine-tuning and I and I would I would assert and I think I can show that you find that fine-tuning in each of these models and it's not something that explains within the structure of the model within the structure of the mathematics of the model it's imposed extrinsically by the modeler and that's the input of information I'm talking about that is I think being inadvertently uh what I think that input of information from the modeler is inadvertently revealing what's necessary to make a universe which is an input of information or find >> that's what's necessary to make an accurate model of the universe >> quick quick response and then I'm going to get you to do the uh the trying to understand each other okay so so quick quick response >> okay so not notice Steven didn't reply to my point about let's say the loop cosmology model. Okay, what was going on there? Nothing metaphysical about it.
It's just a collapsing universe and an expanding universe. There's no need for the extra fields that you have in the aparotic model. Right? Also notice that there's no no reply to the issue of what does the BGB really prove? Right? One thing I I should point out that it's also based off of um particle picture of reality. But we don't think that when we get back to the early universe that we have a particle picture. It's a field picture. Now when I say early universe, I'm just talking about the hot dense day. Okay? Because this is the language that we use. Okay? It doesn't mean as we said we we can actually show you what physicists think. Okay? And they don't think that the big bang was necessarily a beginning. So when but yet they talk about early universe. It's just a turn of phrase, right? the idea of making something big about that. Now he says, well, there's all these like exotic ideas out there. Now, of course, the cost of the ideas depends on what they have in each case. So, for example, challenge the idea that you could have a variable speed of light. You might say that's like an incredibly bizarre assumption. Okay, why would you think that? Well, there are reasons to think that. There's a theory called Hosable gravity. It's a proposal for quantum gravity, and there's a reason to take it seriously. I'm not saying it's right, but there's a reason to take it seriously. This is hangd. I'm sorry, Phil. That's a kind of dodge to say I I don't I don't take any of the models to be correct, but the very fact of these possibly incorrect models shows that the universe didn't have a beginning.
>> No, I'm not saying >> that's not what he that's not what Phil is saying.
Phil, what what Phil is saying is that we don't have enough evidence to say any one of the models is correct. But the the the fact that we we are developing models is something that needs to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, that these models, even if they're incorrect, are serious attempts at trying to carry physics forward and solve some of the problems that we have. Saying that, Stephen, that's a complete mischaracterization of what I'm saying.
What I what I'm saying is that we don't know what the correct description of quantum gravity is. Okay? Therefore, we cannot make any firm conclusions about whether there was a beginning.
Therefore, the singularity theorems which rely on Einstein's theory of gravity or a classical space-time picture and the Borden theorem does require all right a classical space-time picture >> and it also requires that the speed of light can't be violated. Well, if a Java lift shift gravity is true, then the speed of light >> it does not require a quantum gravitational theory.
>> It's a it's a it's a classical picture of spaceime. It absolutely is. It's based on based on special relativity, not based on general relativity.
>> No. No. But it still general relativity.
>> It still requires a classical spaceime.
It still has a particle picture of reality, right? This is something well agreed upon. Okay. Now, the point is yes, you posit new things. This happens all the time in physics. Okay. And then what you do is you have this feedback with experiment. So, what what experimental evidence does the God theory make? Does it predict? So here's a claim made by inflation cosmologists and and in fact I think that um you know Steve very much mischaracterized in his book. So there are simple models of inflation and they they claim to make predictions for let's say the degree of scale invariance or gravitational waves and things like this and in our book we talk about some of these possible tests and at the end of the book I don't want to reveal the ending but we think there's you know a much more definitive test that happens okay and we and the point is we don't believe these theories until these definitive tests have been done. So what test does what does God say about the level of scale invariance or the the strength of gravitational waves or whether they're tilted blue or red? You know, as far as I can see, nothing. Right. It's very easy to say, you know, I I assume a being that can do anything and then it can explain anything. Right.
>> Exactly. The thing is is that if any one of the 25 models outlined in Battle of the Big Bang were correct, you could still say that God exists. Like God doesn't make any unique predictions about the structure of the world such that we can go out and measure the world and see if it aligns with that and definitively rule out that God exists by doing so. And most theists will tell you this, you can't empirically rule out God's existence. And you can't really empirically rule in his existence either. You you have to use the empirics plus various philosophical or the theological assumptions in order to get there. But I I think another point here is just God. I don't think God is a good explanation largely because it's consistent with pretty much any way the world could be because the world could be any way and people could still just be like, "Yeah, and that's the way that God wanted it." And something that explains everything explains nothing because there's no at least in the sense that most people are going to be talking about when we're thinking of explanations particularly if we're talking like some sort of scientific explanation I think but even in terms of how explanation is used in in a in common parlance it's usually I think going to be some sort of contrast of explanation sort of a what explains X rather than Y or some you know something along those lines. Um and if God can be used to explain any states of affairs then there there is nothing against which you can contrast it at as an explanation. And so it's hard then to establish it as an explanation for anything. And it's part of the reason why I think God is is not a good explanation for for many things if not most things if really not not anything at all.
>> Okay. Of course you can. But I say that we don't believe any theory until they've been tested. Now that doesn't mean that something can't be have some degree of plausibility. And I think that some of these ideas like string theory, like loop chronal gravity, like causal set theory, they have reasons to take them seriously. So for example, there are infinities in our equations that can be solved, right? Which you can't do in general relativity. The equations blow up. And in these approaches, equations don't blow up. So that is is a reason to take them seriously. It's not a reason to say that they're true, but it means that I think therefore when you get this, that is a sign of progress.
>> Okay?
>> Because oh my god, there were equations that couldn't be solved. Now they can be solved. There's a singularity that couldn't be resolved. Ah, we actually show that we can resolve a singularity.
I think that's progress. It's far from the end of the journey, right? We need those empirical tests and until then we don't say what's right. And I think what's happening with the theist is they don't have anything like a mathematical description of what God would do. They don't have any predictions but yet they're asenting to that theory.
>> Well, I'd like I'd like to hear Steve respond to that. Um uh >> because I think this this takes us into the important question.
>> Let's be clear about what's going on theoretically.
you go back to as far as we can go empirically to the beginning of the expansion and what all of the models that are described in the book are doing is modeling what came before that. And so there is every bit as much of a boundary empirically to the naturalist or materialist cosmologist as to what precedes the big bang as there is to the theist who posits a a creator. you all of these models are full of unobservables. Unobservable fields, unobservable physics, unobservable um >> uh some some of that's going to depend on h precisely how one defines unobservable, but there is an extent to which that is true.
>> Um um processes that are exquisitly finely tuned. What theism expects, there's a wonderful quote from Dawkins, who I guess you interviewed yesterday.
He said, >> I hate this [ __ ] quote. I'm sorry, the universe we observe has precisely the proper we should expect if at bottom there's there's no purpose, no design, nothing but blind, pitiles indifference.
>> What's implied in that is that metaphysical systems, materialism, theism are every bit as testable by comparing what you would expect to see given the the hypothesis as uh as our scientific hypothesis. I think what we have in these formulations of um pre- Big bang cosmologies is a form of mathematized materialistic metaphysics and that that the proliferation of these models doesn't show that a promising research program but but the opposite and that there are things that you would expect to see in the universe that we see in physics that that invariably cannot be explained within these models. And one of those key things is fine-tuning.
This is the something that agents do that natural processes don't do. If you have an on a vast ensemble of possibilities and only one or very few of those possibilities is necessary to achieve a propitious outcome, whether we're talking about a um a French recipe or an internal combustion engine or you name it. The these are things that we know minds produce. And in all of the naturalistic cosmologies, we have a transcendent dimension.
>> The the thing with this, well, we see minds produce this all the time argument that I hear is that all the times that we see minds produce these things, they do it through physical processes and in ways that are consistent with natural laws.
So, and all the minds that we've ever been able to observe or understand come alongside a brain.
So what what's the what's what's your point?
Something separate from this universe.
Theists agree you need a transcendent dimension. But what's missing in the in the uh in all the the the pre- Big bang naturalistic cosmologies is the is an entity which can fine-tune a system.
That fine-tuning is always modeled by the physic.
>> This is assuming that the fine-tuning is itself a feature of the world and not just merely a feature of our physical theories about the worldist >> as they jerrymandered the equations. And so that's that's an expectation a prediction of theism that is present in the physics.
>> But what provides for that prediction?
Why would God finetune a universe?
And how how how exactly would you determine that the universe was fine-tuned? You can't just say, well, I presume that life is special and life exists in the universe and if we alter its constants by a very small amount, life wouldn't exist. So it must be fine-tuned for that. Well, but that assumes that that God would have wanted to do it that way and that we are the end goal. How did you reach that conclusion? So, I don't again, it's just it's it's going to be very very difficult to establish that God is actually like accounts for for any of this stuff.
>> That's not expected.
>> And this is to answer Phil's objection that that God is not an adequate sort of testable. He wants to say it has no empirical content and I'm saying no it does.
>> Well, I would agree with him. I don't think God as some like a a metaphysical concept has has any empirical content.
>> And the very thing that these models invariably cannot explain is the very thing that theism expects which is present in all of the models.
>> Right. We're going to take >> I my question there would just be how does theism generate this expectation value?
>> Pause just for a moment. Just for a moment because this is fantastic. Um, I'm I'm racing to keep up with all of this, but I think I think I'm there. I'm going to ask us you both to to to just at this point where because I think this is a natural point to maybe start to transition into our other big topic, the the finetuning of the universe, and we'll we'll do.
>> Okay. So, that's the end of the cosmology column part of of Phil and Steven's discussion. Um, the next one is going to be fine-tuning and teology and all of all of that stuff. So, just uh just to wrap it up here, I think I I really think that Phil did a a phenomenal job in this discussion with Stephen. I think at least thus far. I mean, obviously I've watched the whole thing, but um I really like how he does push he he meaningfully and respectfully pushes back against what Stephven says and he does a really good job of emphasizing where it is that the physicists actually stand and what it is that the data that we currently have and the models that we currently have are actually capable of doing and what kind of conclusions we are actually capable of meaningfully drawing from them. Um there's and and the topics discussed are are ones that there's a lot of atheists out there that just really aren't up to speed on a lot of those kinds of of arguments and and all of the the surrounding discussions like Phil is, which is one of the reasons why I really like what Phil does. But I I you know I I I was I was I just was very quite impressed with with the sort of the the it seems like a strong word like that that Phil was a a little bit more aggressive like he wasn't afraid to push back and be like yeah that's just that that's not correct that yeah that's not how this is looked at because I think that I we we need more of that when you that's that's the approach that you need to take when you speak with somebody like Steven Meyer. Not that I think Steven Meer is dishonest because I personally I don't. Like I said at the beginning and then in the middle of the stream, I think Steven Meyer is a lot more formidable than people give him credit for and I think that he's a cut above a lot of the other apologists out there even within the Discovery Institute which Stephen Meyer is a part of. But um I think Phil did very very good. um explicating the BGV theorem, the Bordeauuth Falinkan theorem, explicating the importance of a of needing a model for quantum cosmology and and just really summarizing where where the field of cosmology stands today with respect to these questions. Um and with that, I'm going to leave it there. Stay tuned for part two. Probably won't happen this weekend. I'm going to do it sometime next week. Tuesday or Wednesday would probably be the days to look out for. I am going to do a part two um and go over their discussion on fine-tuning because there was a lot of there a as those of you who have been with me for for most of the stream or have been in and out there that there was a lot packed into this discussion already. Um which is something that I really liked about this discussion is that they really they covered a lot of the points I think need to be covered in this discussion. They did well defending the positions that they're taking. they the the challenges they provided to each other were meaningful. Um these are the kinds of discussions that that I definitely like to review for those reasons. But I am going to end it here.
I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your Friday night as well as the rest of your weekend. And I will see you in part two.
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