Essay on a deistic-type entity and physics

[david ford]

Title: The Search for a Loophole to the Beginning of the Universe
and to the Seeming-Design of Physics
Author: David Ford <dfo...@GL.umbc.edu>
Date: 6 October 1999 File: wordnbp7 Words in file: 29,750
Keywords: big bang singularity, Hartle-Hawking NBP, intelligent
design of physics, God of deism

Outline:
1. Introduction
2. Overview of hot big bang model
3. Allegation that GTR's singularities indicate that GTR is
incomplete
4. Alleged indications that quantum effects might change matters
5. NBP applies QM to the universe and half-performs a mathematical
trick
6. With its use of imaginary time, the NBP posits that time became
space
7. To say that time became space is unintelligible
8. Allegation that QM provides justification for having time become
space
9. All the no-singularity quantum cosmologies have time become space
10. The big bang was precipitated by a not-material causal chain(s)
11. Paring a not-material causal chain(s) down to a designer(s), i.e.
down to a main, intelligent factor(s)
12. Answer as to why, unlike the universe, the designer(s) does not
need a cause(s) of its existence
13. Hume on inferring from seeming-design the attribute of
intelligence
14. Three pragmatists' attempted rebuttals to the inference that
physics was designed
15. Cartwright's anti-realism regarding the laws of physics
16. Conclusion
17. Appendix on oscillatory model
18. Acknowledgements
19. Works cited
20. Notes

"If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy
department. The physics department isn't much use." -- Robert
Griffiths [1]

"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you
looked at it the right way, did not become still more complicated." --
Paul Alderson [2]

1. Introduction

In the early part of the twentieth century, it was widely
believed that the universe was infinitely old. By suggesting that the
universe actually had some type of a beginning to its existence,
discoveries in the 1920s in the fields of observational astronomy and
theoretical physics severely challenged the reigning belief in an
infinitely old universe.3 Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein's
general theory of relativity (hereafter GTR) even suggested that the
universe arose out of absolutely nothing in what will be called the
"hot big bang" (hereafter HBB), but it took the formulation of the
mathematical "singularity theorems" in the 1960s for GTR's prediction
to be taken seriously. If going back in time we come to the big bang
singularity, then spacetime and matter-energy began to exist in a hot
big bang.

Largely because of its implication that a theistic or deistic
entity created the universe, the possibility that the universe
originated out of nothing was and remains unpalatable to many.
Consequently, attempts to find a loophole to the universe's apparent
beginning continue to this day.

An early attempt at a loophole was the "steady-state model,"
which holds that the universe has been expanding for time immemorial.
Evidence against the model had been steadily accumulating when a 1965
discovery finally laid it to rest in the minds of all but a very few.
Advanced as a replacement to steady-state, the "oscillating universe
model" holds that the universe has undergone an infinite number of
expansions and contractions. Though it had insuperable difficulties
from its inception, the oscillatory model has persisted in the minds
of many, and it is because of this persistence that I criticize it at
length, albeit in an appendix.

A more recent idea has been floated saying that looking into the
past, there stretches an infinite number of successive generations of
universes being "born" to their respective preceding generations.
Since the idea appears to have had too little development to even
qualify as being called a "model," I do not discuss it.

Since quantum mechanics (hereafter QM) deals with the realm of
the very small, it is expected that QM played a large role when the
universe was very small, i.e., a large role in the "early universe."
Work is currently being done to develop a description of gravity in
the "Planck era," which is the period between a) time=10^(-43) seconds
after the apparent explosion of GTR's predicted big bang singularity,
and b) time=0 second, which denotes the start of the apparent
explosion. At t=10^(-43) seconds, the universe had a diameter of
10^(-33)cm. Loophole-seekers generally hope that the force of gravity
will be found to be quantum-mechanical in nature, and that with a
to-be-discovered quantum-mechanical formulation of gravity, GTR's
predicted singularities will no longer be predicted. A few
loophole-seekers hope that when and if theoretical physicists finally
discover how GTR and QM mesh together, i.e. are unified, in a single,
simple, beautiful theory, GTR's predicted singularities will no longer
be predicted.

The search for a loophole currently focuses on trying to produce
a "cold big bang" model, which proposes that the universe existed
infinitely long in a very small, quiet state, and then for some reason
began its current expansion. In attempting to get rid of GTR's
predicted big bang singularity, cold-big-bang models appeal to QM.
Since there are no "real-time" solutions to GTR that lack a big bang
singularity, cold-big-bang models must use "imaginary-time"
formulations of GTR. "Real-time" is time measured using ordinary,
i.e. "real," numbers; examples of "real" numbers are 3, 8/7, -4, -18,
.333..., and 2^(1/2). In this regard, quantum cosmologists J.
Butterfield and Christopher Isham note that
our present theories' concept of time stems from our
psychological awareness of the temporal ordering of events--a
property that is reflected mathematically in physics by the use
of the real numbers (a totally ordered system) to represent
'points' in time.4

"Imaginary time" is time measured using imaginary numbers; examples of
imaginary numbers are 3(-1)1/2, (5 + 2i), and 4i (the symbol "i" is
short for [sqrrt -1], i.e. [-1]^(1/2). Use of imaginary numbers to
measure time results in what is called a "Euclidean metric," to be
contrasted with the ordinary "Lorentzian metric." According to
Butterfield & Isham, use of the Euclidean metric "makes the use of the
word 'event' distinctly problematic."5 This is because there is no
more time, i.e. no more before-versus-after-in-occurrence, with the
Euclidean metric: by changing from a Lorentzian to a Euclidean
metric, the dimension of time is transformed (on paper at least) to a
fourth spatial dimension. In short, proposals saying that looking
into the past, time became denoted by imaginary numbers instead of
real numbers say that looking into the past, the dimension of time
became a fourth spatial dimension.

I examine and do my best to defeat 1) criticisms of GTR's
prediction of "singularities" and 2) claimed indications that quantum
effects might end up abolishing singularities. I spend much time
critiquing the most prominent of the cold-big-bang speculations, James
Hartle and Stephen Hawking's no-boundary proposal (hereafter NBP), and
especially criticize the NBP's unintelligible statement that time
became space. Since the NBP's time-becomes-space maneuver to avoid
the apparent origination-out-of-nothing-in-the-HBB is used by the
other cold-big-bang speculations, my assault on the NBP constitutes an
assault on the other cold-big-bang speculations.

At this point in the paper, I conclude that the model to beat,
i.e. the best guess science provides as to the universe's early
history, is the HBB. From the HBB's origination-out-of-nothing I then
argue that the universe had an originator, i.e., I argue that the
universe's beginning-to-exist was brought about by a not-material
causal chain(s). In conjunction with an argument that the laws of
physics had an intelligent designer(s), the not-material causal
chain(s) is then found to most significantly consist of a not-material
designer(s). After supplying an answer to the often-asked question of
what made the intelligent originator-designer (or designer(s) and
originator(s)), I look at David Hume's criticisms of design arguments,
and the anti-realism of Charles Peirce, John Dewey, William James, and
Nancy Cartwright as it pertains to the laws of physics.

In short, this paper attempts to argue for a deistic-type entity
(or entities) on the basis of the big bang model and physics'
appearance of having been designed. By 'the God of deism,' I mean a
clockmaker God: God winds up the universe and walks away, so to
speak-- there is no interaction whatsoever with humans. As Wesley
Salmon (University of Arizona) puts it,
The term 'deism' is often used to refer to the doctrine that
there is a God who created the universe, but after the creation
does not interfere with it in any way.6

As far as I know, the God of deism is not considered to know the past
and future and even peoples' thoughts, i.e. to be omniscient, does not
request, require, or deserve worship by humans, is not thought to be a
source of morality, is not interested in what happens to humans, is
not concerned with the fact that humans often die at the hands of
other humans and in natural disasters, and does not pay attention to
prayer requests by humans. The traditional God of deism is unitary in
nature; however, I have not encountered an argument for the unity of
the designer of physics, and will concede that I am unable to attempt
paring a large number of intelligences that may have played a part in
thinking up and implementing physics-- paring that down to a single
intelligence that both thought up and implemented physics.

The arguments and investigations in this paper contain two
aspects.7 First, there is roughly the science, the observations, the
calculations, the mathematics, the physics, the data, the facts, the
factual aspects. Secondly, there is roughly the philosophy, the
reasoning from the science, the reasoning from the observations, the
inferring from the facts, the philosophical aspects. Because the big
bang singularity is an impasse beyond which science cannot go, ever,
anything said about what happened or existed "before" the big bang is
pure speculation. Science can only take us to the big bang
singularity, if that far. Attacks on conclusions reached herein may
take the form of critiquing the science, and may take the form of
critiquing the philosophy.

2. Overview of hot big bang model

Evidence that the universe had some sort of a beginning has been
steadily accumulating during the 1900s and comes in several areas.
One area is the observed expansion of the universe, the same movement
coming from an explosion. When air is blown into a balloon with dimes
representing galaxy clusters taped to it, the balloon expands, and
just as it expands, so the universe expands. When going back in time,
e.g., by deflating the balloon, the universe becomes smaller and
smaller. In the cold-big-bang conception, the ever-smaller universe
eventually reaches a point at which it stops getting smaller, while in
the HBB conception, the ever-smaller universe continues getting
smaller until it goes to the big bang singularity. Here are rough
depictions of the HBB model and the cold big bang idea, respectively:

\ /
\ /
\ / <------ A
\/ __________ B

A: Planck time, i.e. t=10^(-43) seconds
after the BB; the universe has here
a diameter of 10^(-33)cm
B: big bang singularity

\ /
\ / <-- C
\ /
| | <-- D
|___|

C: expanding universe in real time
D: hemi-4-sphere with a diameter of
10^(-33)cm, existing in imaginary time.
Note the absence of a BB singularity.

On physical grounds, the singularity is expected as reasoned from
relativity theory in combination with gravity. As we turn back the
clock, the universe's material gets denser and denser from the force
of gravity. The material's resistance, or pressure exerted by the
material in opposition to gravity, to this crushing cannot stop the
effect of gravity because there is a limit to the amount of
resistance: as the material gets ever-denser, eventually a point is
reached at which sound waves can propagate through the material faster
than light. Since according to relativity nothing can travel faster
than light, there is a limit to the material's resistance to the
crushing of gravity.8 This resistance actually increases gravity's
strength because pressure is a form of energy, and energy can be
equated with mass according to Einstein's E=mc^2. More pressure means
more energy, which translates into more mass which results in a growth
in gravity's strength, and combined with the fact that the material
cannot get infinitely stiff, the whole thing goes to a singularity.9

On theoretical grounds weightier than the preceding physical
reason for the singularity, during 1965-70, theoretical physicists
Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and George Ellis rigorously proved
with what theoretical physicist Paul Davies terms "a series of
powerful mathematical theorems" that the universe must have come from
a big bang singularity.10 Their reasoning was similar to that showing
black holes resulted from stars which, having imploded to a certain
extent, were collapsed by an ever-stronger force of gravity to a
region with 0 surface area and thus with 0 volume, i.e., to a
singularity.11 Davies concludes that a big bang singularity "is a
general feature of a universe described by Einstein's theory of
gravitation--or, for that matter, any similar theory."12

Einstein correctly said that time is the fourth dimension, and
that space and time are connected to make something called
"spacetime." If it existed, the big bang singularity had 0 volume,
and thus marked an end to space; because space and time are
inextricably linked, a beginning to space accompanies a beginning to
time.13 The big bang singularity blew up at t=0 second in what is
called the hot big bang, and the universe, presently about 12 billion
years old, exploded into being. Matter, energy, the spatial
dimensions of length, width, and height, and the dimension of time,
came into existence. The hot big bang was an _ex nihilo_ event, the
origination out of nothing of a universe, for neither matter nor
energy is in the singularity. In the words of physicist Arno Penzias,
"the simplest theory-- the one that the astronomers normally espouse,
is a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing of a
universe."14

The big bang singularity has been imprecisely characterized as a
point of infinite density, temperature, and pressure, and been
described as the whole of 3-d space shrunken to a 0 volume, at which
point spacetime ceases to exist. The big bang singularity does not
attract anything. If one takes our universe and make it smaller and
smaller, the temperature and the density and the curvature of
spacetime gets higher and higher. If one contracts the universe all
the way to a big bang singularity, it is often said that we have got a
point of infinite temperature, infinite density, and infinite
spacetime curvature. While it is true that the values for
temperature, density, and curvature go to infinity when you crush the
universe down to a big bang singularity, the singularity does not
actually _have_ infinite temperature, infinite density, and infinite
spacetime curvature, because there is nothing left when one crushes
down to the singularity: no matter, no spacetime, no space, no time,
no energy, no molecules hurriedly running about giving a very high
temperature-- nothing. In short, the common description of the
singularity as a point of infinite temperature, pressure, and density
is the same as nothing.15 Density is defined as the quantity of
something per unit of volume, area, or length, e.g., at a temperature
of 20 degrees Celsius, gold has a density of 19.3 grams per cubic
centimeter. If something has density, it can be made smaller by
compaction. Since a singularity has 0 volume and so cannot be made
any smaller by compaction, this means that the singularity does not
have density. To summarize this modus tollens argument form, if
density, then smaller by compaction; not smaller by compaction; thus,
no density.

From expanding spacetime we get energy, and from the energy
created in the early moments of the big bang, we get matter.16 Since
matter-energy-stress-momentum's beginning to exist came from the
expanding spacetime, and since expanding spacetime began to exist out
of nothing, in a sense, matter-energy's beginning to exist could
similarly be termed a creation out of nothing. The preceding
reasoning stripped down: matter comes from expanding, and expanding
came from nothing; thus matter came from nothing.

In summary, if going back in time we come to the big bang
singularity, then matter-energy, the dimension of time, and the
spatial dimensions of length, width, and height began to exist in the
origination out of absolutely nothing that was the hot big bang.
Astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler put it this way: "At
this [big bang] singularity, space and time came into existence; ...if
the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a
creation _ex nihilo_."17 About such a creation _ex nihilo_, it is no
wonder that John Maddox, a former physics editor at _Nature_, termed
the HBB model "philosophically unacceptable," with science writer John
Boslough criticizing it as "the scientific model of Genesis" and "a
scientific paradigm wrapped inside a metaphor for biblical genesis."18
Along similar lines, atheist physicist Steven Weinberg observes, "Some
cosmologists are philosophically attracted to the oscillating model,
especially because, like the steady-state model, it nicely avoids the
problem of Genesis,"19 while atheist philosopher Antony Flew admits
embarrassment about the situation:
Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore
begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be
embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it
seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof of
what St. Thomas contended could not be proved philosophically;
namely, that the universe had a beginning. So long as the
universe can be comfortably thought of as being not only without
end but also without beginning, it remains easy to urge that its
brute existence, and whatever are found to be its most
fundamental features, should be accepted as the explanatory
ultimates. Although I believe that it remains still correct, it
certainly is neither easy nor comfortable to maintain this
position in the face of the Big Bang story.20

The lameness of Flew's rejection of the HBB model while adhering to
his conviction that the universe lacks a beginning in the face of
seeming "scientific proof" for the universe's beginning is apparent.
Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith perhaps had lameness as this in mind
when writing,
The idea that the big bang theory allows us to infer that the
universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted
the attention of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or
at least lend support to the theological doctrine of creation _ex
nihilo_. Indeed, the suggestion of a divine creation seemed so
compelling that the notion that 'God created the big bang' has
taken a hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the
theistic component of 'educated common sense'. By contrast, the
response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been
comparatively lame.21

The closest physicists can get to creation out of nothing is
creation out of almost nothing, e.g. space, and there is a big
difference. Physicists do not have any equations or even theories
involving creation out of absolutely nothing-- it is almost too
incredible to even think about.22 Or as physicist Richard Morris puts
it,
This [oscillating universe] idea seems very appealing.
Physicists had found themselves uneasy with the idea of a
universe that burst into existence. Although there seemed to be
no good scientific objections to the idea of creation out of
nothing, it couldn't easily be incorporated into existing theory.
_Ex nihilo nihilo fit_ goes the Latin phrase. Nothing is made
out of nothing.23

3. Allegation that GTR's singularities indicate that GTR is
incomplete

John Earman (Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at
the University of Pittsburgh) notes that "faced with results
indicating that singularities are a generic feature of general
relativistic spacetimes, two opposing attitudes are possible."24 The
first view is that general relativity "forces us to recognize
spacetime singularities as a new feature of reality and that we simply
have to learn how to live with this new feature."25 The second view
holds that "no cohabitation is possible since spacetime singularities
are absurdities."26 In fact, "many physicists" believe singularities
to constitute a "formidable obstacle to the acceptance of classical
GTR."27 In short, there are two ways one can approach GTR's
singularities: one can view them as part of reality, or one can view
them as not-real.

The position that singularities are not-real can take several
forms. Before concentrating on the fourth formulation, which holds
that consideration of QM will do away with GTR's predicted
singularities, I outline three of the formulations of protest to
conclude with Earman that there is "no obvious merit in the charge
that, even taken on its own terms, classical GTR stands convicted out
of its own mouth of some heinous crime for pronouncing the existence
of singularities."28

One formulation of protest against singularities is the charge
that singularities are intuitively abhorrent. In commenting on the
belief that big bang and black holes singularities are intuitively
abhorrent, Earman points out that
Relativity theory, in both its special and general forms, implies
all sorts of things that seem abhorrent to intuitions trained on
Newtonian physics. But generally the conclusion to be drawn is
not that something is wrong with relativity theory but rather
that intuitions need retraining.29

General relativist Kip Thorne implies that those intuitions are partly
based on experience when he writes, "Whenever we physicists see our
equations predict something infinite, we become suspicious of the
equations. Almost nothing in the real Universe ever gets truly
infinite (we think). Therefore, an infinity is almost always a sign
of a mistake."30

Another avenue of protest is the charge that by predicting
singularities, GTR predicts its own downfall _'beyond'_ singularities,
"'beyond'" meaning 'in some sense on the other side of,' thereby
demonstrating itself to be somehow incomplete.31 In reply, Earman
observes,
either the singularities are essential or not. If they are
inessential (i.e., removable), what's the beef? If they are
essential and cannot be removed by any extension in which the
laws of GTR makes sense, then by the lights of the theory there
is nothing further to be said. The theory is hardly convicted
out of its own mouth of incompleteness for failing to answer
questions about, for example, what happens 'before' the big bang
and 'after' the big crunch,

as long as "the theory implies," as it does, "that such questions are
not physically meaningful."32 The question, 'What was matter doing
before the hot big bang (in which matter began to exist)?' is not a
physically meaningful question, and GTR cannot be accused of and
convicted for failing to answer questions it deems meaningless.

A variation on the incompleteness charge is the charge that by
predicting singularities, GTR predicts its own downfall _at_
singularities. This latter charge arises from the fact that in
predicting singularities, GTR predicts both its and all other laws'
inability to describe. In the words of Hawking, "the singularity
theorems... show that the beginning of time would have been a point of
infinite density and infinite curvature of space-time. All the known
laws of science would break down at such a point."33 The laws break
down at the big bang singularity and at black hole singularities
because no universe is left to describe. Explains Davies, "all our
laws of physics are formulated in terms of space and time," and at
singularities, there is neither.34 GTR's prediction of singularities
that it is unable to describe has thus been claimed to constitute a
prediction of GTR's own downfall. By way of reply, Earman offers the
reminder that "the singularities entailed by the theory do not exist
at any spacetime location, and there is no event in spacetime where
the laws fail to hold."35 To reiterate, at big bang and black holes
singularities, there exists neither space nor time, and with no
spacetime, there is no universe for general relativity to describe, or
for that matter, fail to describe.

A specific example of the charge that a HBB singularity entails
the downfall of all physics laws is the charge that it, in the words
of steady state advocate Jayant Narliker, "breaks a cardinal rule by
violating the law of conservation of matter and energy."36 On another
occasion, Narliker put it this way:
The most fundamental question in cosmology is: "Where did the
matter we see around us originate in the first place?" This
point has never been dealt with in the big bang cosmologies in
which, at _t_=0, there occurs a sudden and fantastic violation of
the law of conservation of matter and energy.37

Narliker's objection is based on an incomplete presentation of the law
of conservation of matter and energy, which states that _within a
system_, the matter and energy present are conserved, i.e., are
neither created nor destroyed, but merely converted from one form to
another. For example, if an atom bomb goes off in the universe, there
is no more and no less matter-energy in the universe after the
explosion than there was before the explosion. The law of
conservation cannot be used to object to a HBB because in the case of
a universe arising out of _nothing_, there exists no _system_ to which
the law can be applied. While the law of conservation 'breaks down'
at the singularity, it breaks down at the singularity in the same
sense that all other laws of physics break down at the singularity:
there is simply no more space or time to operate in, there is simply
_no system to apply to_. Barrow & Tipler aptly put it this way:
At every instant of time in the Friedman universe [i.e. a
universe described by GTR] the general relativity stress-energy
conservation law... holds. The law does not hold at the
singularity, but the singularity is not in time.38

In short, Narliker's charge that a big bang creation-out-of-nothing
"breaks a cardinal rule by violating the law of conservation of matter
and energy" is based on an incomplete rendition of the law and is
erroneous.

Yet another charge is that GTR predicts its own downfall _near_
predicted singularities. Shortly after saying that "all the known
laws of science would break down at such a point," Hawking continues,
"However, what the singularity theorems really indicate is that the
gravitational field becomes so strong that quantum gravitational
effects become important: classical theory is no longer a good
description of the universe."39 And again:
the singularity theorems... indicate that the gravitational field
should get very strong in at least two situations, black holes
and the big bang. In such strong fields the effects of quantum
mechanics should be important. Thus, in a sense, classical
general relativity, by predicting points of infinite density,
predicts its own downfall....40

Hawking is contending that, in Earman's words, "considerations from
quantum physics suggest GTR breaks down in the vicinity of curvature
singularities," the idea being that when spacetime "curvature becomes
sufficiently strong," quantum effects will make classical general
relativity not hold, and will be dominant.41 Earman replies with the
observation that "it remains a pious hope that some quantum theory of
gravity, yet to be formulated, will contain mechanisms for the
avoidance of singularities."42 Regarding the possibility that GTR is
false as it describes the macroscopic world, numerous experimental
tests of the theory say otherwise.43 Thus, greater chances of success
are deemed to reside in the Earman-termed "pious hope" that a
to-be-discovered quantum theory of gravity will demonstrate relativity
to be off-base in regions close to the predicted singularities. In
short, while it has been alleged that GTR must be off-base in
describing regions close to singularities, no quantum gravity theory
has been produced showing that the enormously-successful GTR is
off-base in such regions.

4. Alleged indications that quantum effects might change matters

The claim that GTR must be off-base in describing regions near
singularities is alleged to have supporting indications that quantum
effects in the very early universe might abolish the prediction of a
big bang singularity. We look now at four such claimed indications,
whose relevance lies in their bearing on the question of whether we
can reasonably go all the way back to a big bang singularity.

The first claimed indication is that quantum mechanics has an
"amazing ability" to get rid of "classical singularities," which are
physical quantities in classical physics, e.g. Newtonian mechanics,
that blowup, i.e. increase to infinite values.44 Hawking, in fact,
draws an analogy between QM's known riddance of
classical-physics-singularities and QM's envisioned riddance of GTR's
spacetime-singularities.45 This analogy is complicated by, and I
would suggest defeated by, two "related differences" between a)
classical and special-relativity singularities, and b) GTR's
singularities.46 Writes Earman,
when we shift to the context of GTR.... first, there is no longer
a fixed spacetime background which by general agreement is
non-singular and against which the blowup of a physical quantity
can be measured. And secondly, we are now interested not in
singularities in some physical field on the spacetime but rather
in singularities in the spacetime _itself_.47

Another alleged indication that QM may end up abolishing the big
bang singularity is that using certain "semiclassical approach[es] to
quantum gravity," sometimes the big bang singularity is removed,
though "depending on the details," sometimes it is not.48 Earman's
remark that the quantum cosmology efforts he referred to produce
sometimes-removed, sometimes-not results is generalized and confirmed
by Barrow, who writes that the NBP
avoids the necessity for... a cataclysmic beginning [of the
universe], and is therefore currently fashionable among
cosmologists. However, one should be wary of the fact that many
of the studies of quantum cosmology are motivated by the desire
to avoid an initial singularity of infinite density, so they tend
to focus on quantum cosmologies that avoid a singularity at the
expense of those that might contain one.49

Earman's mention of "semiclassical" strongly suggests to me that the
approaches he refers to use imaginary time in the final product, a
tack that will be discussed below in connection with the NBP.

In a similar vein, Hawking writes that his 1974 discovery that
black holes emit particles via a quantum mechanical process provides
another "indication that" a combination of QM and GTR will lack GTR's
singularities.50 The alleged indication comes from the fact that
Hawking's 1974 results can be rederived by employing certain QM
equations that Isham terms "closely connected with replacing time by
an imaginary number whose value" varies with temperature.51 I do not
know how strong the connection Isham speaks of is.

The third and last alleged indication Earman mentions involves
observing that the singularity theorems rely "on various energy
conditions on classical fields and... even the _weak energy condition_
can be violated for quantum fields."52 More generally, the
singularity theorems require several assumptions, and if one is not
met, the big bang singularity is not mathematically ensured. However,
despite the promise of this third indication, as far as I can tell
there has been little enthusiasm for solving the 'problem' of the big
bang singularity by attacking one of the singularity theorems'
assumptions, the only exception being the assumption that general
relativity accurately describes the universe, especially when near
predicted singularities. As theoretical physicist Jacob Bekenstein
observed in 1989, "It is no exaggeration to say that most gravity
theorists expect this [i.e. quantum gravity] to be the final answer to
the singularity problem."53

Regarding the theorems' requirement that gravity stay attractive
during the Planck era, i.e. during the period between t=0 second and
t=10^(-43) second, when discussing the singularity theorems in his
popular 1988 book _A Brief History of Time_, Hawking mentioned just
the requirement that relativity be correct (as it has been
experimentally shown to be), though he does say elsewhere in the book
that gravity is always attractive. Also, astrophysicists John Barrow
& Joseph Silk call the assumption that "gravity is always attractive"
a "not unreasonable assumptio[n]."54 The theorems also assume that
there is as much matter as we are aware of, and assume that time only
goes forward.55 If one were to dislike the conclusion of the
singularity theorems, one avenue of attack would be to attack their
assumptions.

5. NBP applies QM to the universe and half-performs a mathematical
trick

As was mentioned, the theorems' assumption loophole-seekers
prefer to attack is the requirement that GTR be correct when near
predicted singularities, the hope being that a quantum theory of
gravity will not predict a big bang singularity. After having helped
formulate the singularity theorems, Hawking became just such a
loophole-seeker. We look now extensively at his loophole proposal,
the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary proposal (NBP), which he emphasizes "is
just a _proposal_: it cannot be deduced from some other principle."56
We begin examination of the NBP by looking at QM's sum-over-histories
method of calculating as it is ordinarily used, a calculating method
that Hawking half-performs when it comes to the NBP.

Hawking's 1988 remark that "we don't yet have a complete and
consistent theory that combines quantum mechanics and gravity"57 holds
true today. Hawking believes that such a theory should include
theoretical physicist Richard Feynman's sum-over-histories method of
calculating in QM.58 English physicist Freeman Dyson explains the
method:
In orthodox physics you say, Suppose an electron is in this state
at a certain time, then you calculate what it will do next by
solving a certain differential equation, and from the solution of
the equation you can calculate what it will be doing at some
later time. Instead of this, [Feynman] said simply, the electron
does whatever it likes. The electron goes all over space and
time in all possible ways. It can even go backward in time
whenever it chooses. If you start with an electron in this state
at a certain time and you want to see whether it will be in some
other state at another time, you just add together contributions
from all the possible histories of the electron that take it from
this state to the other. A history of the electron is any
possible path in space and time, including paths zigzagging
toward and back in time. The behavior of the electron is just
the result of adding together all the histories according to some
simple rules that [Feynman] worked out.59

About the adding together of all the histories, Hawking observes,
When one actually tries to perform these sums, however, one runs
into severe technical problems. .... To avoid the technical
difficulties with Feynman's sum over histories, one must use
imaginary time. That is to say, for the purposes of the
calculation one must measure time using imaginary numbers, rather
than real ones.60

According to Hawking, this "use of imaginary time" is "merely a
mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real
space-time."61 At the end of it all, one converts back to the use of
real numbers-- note in this regard Hawking's "for the purposes of the
calculation."

Now, instead of using QM's sum-over-histories calculating method
on possible-histories of _particles in spacetime_, Hawking uses the
sum-over-histories calculating method on possible-histories _of
spacetime itself_. Such an application of a QM calculation method to
spacetime is found throughout the field of "quantum cosmology": about
the claim that QM "applies to the entire universe at all times and to
everything in it," quantum cosmologist Jonathan Halliwell comments,
"Acceptable or not, this is the fundamental assertion of quantum
cosmology."62 Because of this assertion, many physicists consider
quantum cosmology deeply flawed from the outset. Citing "private
communications from a variety of friends and colleagues," Isham
observes, "Major conceptual problems arise when trying to apply
quantum theory to the universe as a whole. This problem is so severe
that many highly respectable theoretical physicists think the whole
subject of quantum cosmology is misconceived."63 The conceptual
problem I will now focus on is quantum cosmology's (partial) use of
QM's mathematical trick of having time denoted by imaginary instead of
real numbers, with the consequence that time is had becoming into
space.

Hawking does a sum-over-histories for spacetime in a manner
similar to doing a sum-over-histories for an electron. In his words,
"To avoid the technical difficulties in actually performing the sum
over histories, these... space-times must be taken to be Euclidean.
That is, time is imaginary and is indistinguishable from directions in
space."64 Keep the "Euclidean" and "indistinguishable from directions
in space" in the back of your mind for a moment. Recall now Feynman's
method's conversion from imaginary numbers _back_ to real numbers for
the final product. As part of his NBP, Hawking fails to do the
conversion. If Hawking were to convert back to real time for his
final product, it would be existing in real time, in which case,
according to his following two remarks, the big bang singularity would
reappear: "When one goes back to the real time in which we live,
however, there will still appear to be singularities," and again: "In
real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities
that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science
break down."65 In short, not only does the NBP use QM's
_particle_-motion-calculation technique of having time (temporarily)
denoted by imaginary numbers for the NBP's
_spacetime_-motion-calculation-- which, in applying QM to the
universe, is highly dubious in itself-- but in addition, the NBP fails
to complete the QM-particle-motion-calculation procedure by failing to
convert back to real numbers for a final answer.

6. With its use of imaginary time, the NBP posits that time became
space

Hawking's use of imaginary time in the final product means that
the NBP has the dimension of time become a spatial dimension. To
illustrate, the following comment is part of Hawking's discussion of
doing a sum-over-histories calculation for things like electrons, but
since he never makes the conversion back to real time in the NBP, the
statement reflects his view of what the NBP's use of imaginary time
physically means:
for the purposes of the calculation one must measure time using
imaginary numbers, rather than real ones. This has an
interesting effect on space-time: the distinction between time
and space disappears completely. A space-time in which events
have imaginary values of the time coordinate is said to be
Euclidean, after the ancient Greek Euclid, who founded the study
of geometry of two-dimensional surfaces. What we now call
Euclidean space-time is very similar except that it has four
dimensions instead of two. In Euclidean space-time there is no
difference between the time direction and directions in space.66

Hawking has also spoken explicitly about the NBP's take on the early
universe when stating that "in the very early universe, when space was
very compressed," it is possible that the "basic distinction between
space and time" was changed such that
space and time lose their remaining distinction - we might say
that time becomes fully spatialised - and it is then more
accurate to talk, not of spacetime, but of a four-dimensional
space. .... The question then arises as to the geometry of the
four-dimensional space which has to somehow smoothly join onto
the more familiar spacetime....67

In short, looking back in time in the NBP conception of matters,
as we approach the early universe, the dimension of real time becomes
a fourth spatial dimension. A "before-after in occurrence" (i.e.,
temporal) relationship is turned into a "betweenness in distance"
(i.e., spatial) relationship. Length, width, and height gain a fourth
brother, another spatial dimension. About the early universe, one can
no longer speak of 'spacetime,' only of a '4-d space' or 'four-space'
or 'hemi-4-sphere.' From a means to finish a calculation-- which,
_when done to completion_, happens to give correct answers regarding
particles' motions _through spacetime_-- Hawking has leaped to a
_partial calculation_ and an accompanying allegation about the way
_spacetime itself_ was in its early history.

Hawking has acknowledged that we live in a universe having real
time, not imaginary time.68 (Though on another occasion, Hawking also
suggested that perhaps we actually live in an imaginary time
universe.69) Because we live in a real time universe, Hawking chopped
his 4-spatial-dimensional-sphere-universe in half, and pasted to one
of the hemi-4-spheres (it does not matter which) our universe when it
was 10^(-43) seconds old. In other words, the big bang singularity is
avoided by Hawking's replacement of the hot big bang model's period of
t=0 second through t=10^(-43) second with a hemi-4-sphere existing in
imaginary time. An illustration:70

\ /
\ / <-- C
\ /
| | <-- D
|___|

C: expanding universe in real time
D: hemi-4-sphere with a diameter of
10^(-33)cm, existing in imaginary time.

Our universe is currently expanding, so looking into the past the
universe gets denser and denser, and in theoretical physicist Lee
Smolin's words, the NBP has "time somehow becom[ing] 'imaginary' when
the universe becomes very dense."71 Smolin observes that nobody
"has... shown that conventional ideas of time and causality
['causality' is deeply connected with the concept of time] must fail
when a singularity is approached," and opines that "until... theory
forces us to face it, or at least until someone explains clearly what
it would mean for time to cease to exist, it would be best to put...
to one side" proposals postulating that "something new and strange and
quantum mechanical happens to time" in the early universe.72 In
contrast to Smolin, Thorne throws caution to the wind when he alleges
that time's ceasing to exist is our currently-best understanding:
As best we understand it in 1993 (and our understanding is rather
poor), quantum gravity takes over when the oscillating tidal
gravity (spacetime curvature) becomes so large that it completely
deforms all objects in about 10^(-43) second or less. Quantum
gravity then radically changes the character of spacetime: It
ruptures the unification of space and time into spacetime. It
unglues space and time from each other, and then destroys time as
a concept and destroys the definiteness of space. Time ceases to
exist; no longer can we say that "this thing happens before that
one," because without time, there is no concept of "before" or
"after."73

7. To say that time became space is unintelligible

We look now at the question of whether or not Thorne and Hawking,
in the words of Smolin, "explai[n] clearly what it would mean for time
to cease to exist" in the early universe. I conclude that to say
'time can become space' 1) is nonsensical, 2) requires the existence
of an additional temporal dimension to escape fatal contradiction, and
3) presents the question of how one temporal dimension can exist
within another temporal dimension.

Looking from the present backward, the NBP has time denoted by
real numbers become time denoted by imaginary numbers, which has the
effect of making time become a fourth spatial dimension. The flip
side of stating the preceding is, looking from the very distant past
(if we can even call it that) and going forward (if we can even say
that), a spatial dimension became real time. The names "length,"
"width," and "height" denote the 3 spatial dimensions familiar to us.
"Venth" will hereby denote the aforementioned fourth spatial
dimension. The spatial dimension of venth would be at right angles to
length, width, and height.

Starting with an initial statement, we make successive
explications, i.e. unpackings: a) The spatial dimension of venth
became real time. b) Venth underwent changes that resulted in its
transformation into real time. Since both "became" and "changes"
suggest the presence of before-vs-after, and so suggest the presence
of some sort of temporal dimension, we obtain c) Venth underwent
changes within temporal dimension A (hereafter TdA) that resulted in
venth's transformation into temporal dimension B (hereafter TdB).

The question arises, which is it: 1) TdB is identical with TdA,
or 2) TdB is not-identical with TdA? (By "identical," I mean 'what
can be said of one can be said of the other.') If the answer is 1),
then we get the contradictory statement "Venth underwent changes
within the TdA that resulted in venth's transformation into TdA."
Since this is contradictory, possibility 1) is hereby eliminated.
Incidentally, 1) is a contradictory proposition Robert Deltete & Reed
Guy (of Seattle University's philosophy and physics departments,
respectively) discuss when they wrote about the claim that [D&G]"real
times are later than imaginary times,"
If some real time t_r is later than some imaginary time t_i, then
is t_r later than t_i in real time or in imaginary time? If it
is later in real time, then t_i is also in real time, although
earlier than t_r, which contradicts the supposition that t_i is a
value in imaginary time. But if it is later in imaginary time,
this contradicts the supposition that t_r is a value in real
time.74

In other words, considering

t_i t_r
<-------------------------->

does the line denote real time or imaginary time? If real time, then
t_i is in real time, but this would go against [D&G]"real times are
later than imaginary times." If the line denotes imaginary time, then
t_r is in imaginary time, but this would go against [D&G]"real times
are later than imaginary times."

Deltete & Guy did, however, overlook the possibility of option
2). Option 2) results in "Venth underwent changes within TdA that
resulted in venth's transformation into the not-TdA TdB." The
questions then arise, Exactly _how_ did venth become TdB? Exactly
_how_ does one temporal dimension, namely TdB, actually exist within
another temporal dimension, in this case TdA? These questions suggest
that while option 2) gets rid of contradiction, it nevertheless still
has the following:
A) a severe problem in having a temporal dimension become a spatial
dimension,
B) a problem in requiring the positing of the existence of another
temporal dimension with no basis for doing so other than that it
is needed to make the imaginary time business avoid fatal
contradiction, and
C) a problem in making necessary an answer as to how one temporal
dimension can exist within another temporal dimension.

Problem A) will now be examined by looking at two remarks by
Davies, the first of which is his claim that "quantum fuzziness smears
together some space bits and some time bits."75 Translating Davies's
remark, we get: quantum fuzziness smears together some portions of a
separateness-relationship and some portions of a
before-vs-after-relationship. I do not understand this. Second
translation attempt: quantum fuzziness smears together some portions
of say length (say 4 meters), and some portions of time (say 5
minutes). I do not understand this, and in my opinion, Davies does
not provide a clear explanation of what he thinks is occurring. The
second remark is Davies's "in other words, time intervals might be
indistinguishable from space intervals."76 Translation: intervals of
sequences-of-occurrences might be indistinguishable from intervals of
distance. Second translation attempt: it might be impossible to
distinguish between the causal sequence E-->F-->G-->H, and the length
from point T to point M. Davies's second remark appears to me to be
nonsensical.

In response to this conclusion of not-sensicality, it has been
alleged to me that several individuals _have_ understood and have
explained clearly what it would mean for time to become space. In
response, I would direct the reader to Butterfield & Isham's
observation that "space and time are such crucial categories for
thinking about, and describing, the empirical world, that it is bound
to be ferociously difficult to understand their emerging, or even some
aspects of them emerging, from 'something else'."77 Since Butterfield
& Isham's paper does not explain how time (or for that matter, space)
can emerge from something else-- and that would include emergence from
a spatial dimension-- I interpret their remark to mean that the
allegation that several individuals _have_ understood and explained
clearly what it would mean for time to become space is erroneous.
Incidentally, Butterfield & Isham's speaking of _space_ emerging from
something else is a consequence of their belief that time will be
discovered to have emerged from something else: according to GTR,
space and time are connected as spacetime, so with 1) their acceptance
of this unification, and 2) their belief that time somehow emerged,
Butterfield & Isham are committed to the conclusion that _both_ space
and time emerged from something else.78 It is curious that they are
willing to dispense with GTR's use of real numbers for measuring time,
yet apparently not willing to dispense with GTR's unification of space
and time as spacetime.

8. Allegation that QM provides justification for having time become
space

Having determined that the NBP's time-becomes-space proposition
is nonsensical, i.e. unintelligible, we turn now to Davies's
allegation that "there is indeed some justification"79 for having time
become imaginary, i.e. spacelike in the early universe. We scrutinize
Davies's explanation of his claim, that explanation being,
quantum uncertainty has the effect of smearing out, or
introducing a fuzziness into, all measurable quantities on a
microscopic scale. This includes space and time. When they are
stitched together as spacetime, it can happen that the quantum
fuzziness smears together some space bits and some time bits. In
other words, time intervals might be indistinguishable from space
intervals: hence "imaginary time."80

"Quantum uncertainty" refers to uncertainty, i.e. error, in our
measuring such things as subatomic particles' energy, time of
duration, position, and momentum. To illustrate, the
position-momentum uncertainty relationship states that when measuring,
you have a certain amount of precision to play with. One can
determine precisely a particle's position, but that comes at the
expense of not knowing anything about the momentum. One can also
determine precisely a particle's momentum, but doing so comes at the
expense of being unable to determine anything about the particle's
position. You can also split your precision, and determine with some
uncertainty, i.e. error a particle's position and determine with some
uncertainty the same particle's momentum. The having of only a
certain amount of precision to play with is the consequence of
disturbing the particle more the more precisely one attribute is
measured. Science writer Jim Baggott provides another example of an
uncertainty relationship when stating,
the moment of emission (say) of a quantum particle will be
uncertain by an amount [delta]t related to the uncertainty in its
energy. The more sharply we can measure (in time) the creation
or passage of a quantum particle, the more uncertain will be its
energy, and vice versa.81

One interpretation of the uncertainty principle is that, using
Baggott's phraseology, "there are limits on what is _measurable_ and
it is impossible to do anything other than speculate on what is not
measurable."82 An alternative interpretation of the principle is that
"the very idea (one might say the physical reality) of the [say]
electron's position and momentum are undefined until the act of
measurement."83 To repeat, the first interpretation says there exists
a fundamental limitation to what we can determine about the quantum
world. The second says that prior to observation, quantities in the
quantum world are _actually spread out_-- put another way, observation
of quantum quantities results in their becoming less spread out. This
second interpretation is termed the "Copenhagen interpretation," and
according to Baggott, proposes that
elements of an empirical reality are defined by the nature of the
experimental apparatus we construct to perform measurements on a
quantum system. It insists that we resist the temptation to ask
what physical state a particle (or a cat) was actually in prior
to measurement as such a question is quite without meaning.84

I personally view the Copenhagen interpretation suspiciously, as do
many others if Sheldon Goldstein (mathematics professor at Rutgers
University) reports correctly:
Many physicists pay lip service to the Copenhagen interpretation,
and in particular to the notion that quantum mechanics is about
observation or results of measurement. But hardly anybody truly
believes this anymore--and it is hard for me to believe that
anyone really ever did. It seems clear that quantum mechanics is
fundamentally about atoms and electrons, quarks and strings, and
not primarily about those particular macroscopic regularities
associated with what we call measurements of the properties of
these things.85

Davies either pays lip service to or agrees with the Copenhagen
interpretation in his assertion that "quantum uncertainty has the
effect of smearing out, or introducing a fuzziness into, all
measurable quantities on a microscopic scale. This includes space and
time."86

Davies continues by saying that when space and time "are stitched
together as spacetime, it can happen that the quantum fuzziness smears
together some space bits and some time bits. In other words, time
intervals might be indistinguishable from space intervals...."87 Even
if I grant that time and space individually are spread out prior to
being observed, i.e. grant that the Copenhagen interpretation is
correct-- which I am extremely hesitant to do-- I do not understand
how it follows that spacetime is itself spread out, nor have I seen a
description of how this can be the case. Moreover, what happens to
the 'both time and space are spread out prior to _observation'_ part?
It would seem that Davies conveniently forgot the observer, and the
spreading out must persist until the arrival of a conscious entity,
perhaps God (who was supposed to be made unnecessary by the NBP) or
humans (who are about 12 billion years too late). Furthermore, even
if I grant that spacetime is spread out, in accordance with the above
'unintelligible' discussion I do not see how it follows that time
intervals can become indistinguishable from space intervals.

In short, Davies's allegation that "there is indeed some
justification" for the NBP's turning 3space+1time dimensions into a
4space suffers from the unintelligibility of such a transformation,
and is based on a suspect interpretation of the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle and on several not-proved and not-discussed assumptions.
Davies may possibly be referring to some of these difficulties when he
tells readers, "You must understand that the description I have given
of Hartle and Hawking's work covers a multitude of sins."88

9. All the no-singularity quantum cosmologies have time become space

To review, by using imaginary numbers instead of real numbers for
the time component of his final product, Hawking posits that the
dimension of time becomes a spatial dimension. By this spatialization
of time he avoids the singularity: looking back in time, the universe
gets ever-smaller in size as dictated by the general relativity
equations; by turning time into a spatial dimension, there is no more
real time; with no more real time, there can be no more change in the
universe's size-- the universe cannot continue decreasing in size and
go to 0 volume. It would be as if I released an apple and gravity did
not make it fall because suddenly there was no time upon the moment of
release. Looking at the situation from the past to the present, for
some reason one of the dimensions in his
4-spatial-dimensional-always-existing-in-imaginary-time universe
becomes a time dimension, and the universe begins expanding with time.

Not just the Hartle-Hawking NBP has imaginary time shenanigans,
with a concomitant unintelligible transformation of time into space,
for _all_ the quantum cosmologies trying to avoid the singularity use
imaginary numbers for the final product's time component. Writes
Isham,
It is important to emphasize that there are _no_ real-time
solutions to Einstein's equations of the form in _Figure 5.4_.
[figure 5.4 looks like a filled money bag of yesteryear and has
the caption, "The real-time universe emerges from a primordial,
imaginary-time, four-dimensional sphere."] The nearest one can
get is the cone-like spacetime depicted in _Figure 3.3_. And, of
course, unlike the four-space in _Figure 5.4_, this [cone] has an
initial singularity.89

10. The big bang was precipitated by a not-material causal chain(s)

The fact that all the alternatives to the general idea of a big
bang, including the steady state and oscillating universe models, have
been proposed and stubbornly argued for in spite of the abundant
theoretical and observational evidence for some type of a big bang
beginning constitutes evidence that theists are perceived to be on to
something with their arguing for a God-like entity's existence on the
basis of the big bang. In the words of Isham,
Perhaps the best argument in favour of the thesis that the Big
Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is
greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to
scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [i.e., the steady
state model] or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a
tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only
suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much
deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support
his/her theory.90

Contrary to what Isham appears to suggest, no relationship exists
between 1) the motivation for advancing or opposing a particular
claim, and 2) whether that claim is correct. Regarding quotations
where individuals attack the standard big bang model because of what
they think are its deistic or theistic implications, those quotes do
_not_ constitute evidence in favor of my contention that if looking
back in time we reach the big bang singularity, then it is highly
likely that a deistic entity created length, width, height, time, and
matter-energy in the big bang. In short, if one were to ague that
some atheist physicists' unease with the HBB means that the HBB
supports deism, it would be a very poor argument.

Proposals dependent upon imaginary time, which appear to
currently be in vogue, as well as the abandoned steady state and
oscillatory models, have been found wanting. Now it is true that a
way to abolish GTR's singularities may possibly be found someday. But
in the meantime, it appears to be the case that the best theory of
gravity we have is GTR, GTR predicts the existence of singularities,
and GTR will almost certainly play an integral role in the
to-be-discovered theory of quantum gravity.

If it is indeed the case that physical existence had a beginning
in the hot big bang, reason says that it very probably had a
beginner.91 Something along the lines of the argument I am about to
present has been said before, for al-Ghazali (1058-1111) wrote, "Every
being which begins has a cause for its beginning; now the world is a
being which begins; therefore, it possesses a cause for its
beginning."92 In support of his second premise, "now the world is a
being which begins," al-Ghazali argued that an infinite regress of
events is impossible. (Thomas Acquinas's First Way and Second Way of
arguing for God's existence sought a First Cause not in the sense of
causing the universe to begin to exist or causing motion to commence
sometime long ago, but rather sought a First Cause in the sense of
sustaining continued motion in and existence of the universe.93)

Theist philosopher William Lane Craig presents in a modus ponens
argument form an argument from the big bang for the God-of-theism's
existence,94 a revised version of which appears below.
Premise 1: Whatever begins to exist, whether through a conversion of
matter-energy into another form of matter-energy, or whether
through a creation out of absolutely nothing (what I need), has
one or more causes, i.e. has one or more precipitating factors,
responsible for its beginning to exist.
Premise 2: Expanding spacetime began to exist in a creation out of
nothing.
Conclusion: Expanding spacetime has factors responsible for its
beginning to exist.

"Whatever" refers to all entities, all things, all states of
affairs. Thus, if matter-energy, ghosts, God, spacetime, Ali Baba and
the 40 thieves, Jack in the Beanstalk, a book bag, a pencil, a maple,
anger, indebtedness, and a Scud-B began to exist, then they had causes
behind their comings into existence-- there were factors that brought
them into existence, i.e. into being. When I speak of "causes," I am
thinking of precipitating factors. The "causes of V's beginning to
exist" is equivalent to "the totality of factors contributing to the
bringing about of V's beginning-to-exist." Invocation of "cause"
instead of "causes," or of "causes" instead of "cause," depends upon
how far back in the precipitating chain(s) of causes and effects we
wish to go, and depends upon how detailed we wish to make that (or
those) chain(s), in responding to the question, "What caused this?"
For example, suppose I struck a match, and a flame came into
existence; the flame had causes behind its appearance, namely, the
presence of a sufficient amount of oxygen in the air, a rough surface,
a flammable matchhead, and somebody striking the match. If one wanted
to take the question of what caused the flame to appear to a deeper
level, one could add the physics of friction, the appropriate
strengths of gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces and
electromagnetism, the right chemistry for the matchhead, the existence
of a place for the somebody striking the match, etc. Thus, when I
speak of "factors" in the preceding argument, I refer to a chain(s) of
causes and effects, rather than to a single,
immediately-preceding-and-precipitating factor.

Note also that there exists a difference between 1) causes
occurring within the universe, and 2) causes of events occurring
outside of the universe. For example, the statement "Henry caused a
sunflower drawing to begin to exist" refers to a physical sort of
causation, while the statement "God caused an angel to begin to exist"
refers to a not-physical sort of causation.

I will let the reader be the judge of whether he or she should go
along with the entirety of Premise 1. I would, though, like to point
out that just because an event, e.g. the decay of a particular
radioactive particle, was not predicted, that does not mean the event
did not have factors responsible for its occurrence. Also, just
because we could not have predicted an event, that does not mean the
event did not have precipitating factors. To illustrate, just because
a freak thunderstorm could not have been predicted, that does not
necessarily mean that the occurrence of the storm had no precipitating
factors. While it is true that our inability to have predicted an
event does not mean that that event _has_ precipitating factors, we
act as if events have causes, and often go in search of certain
events' causes, and often discover what we believe to have been some
of the events' causes.

Premise 2 is supported by the singularity theorems and the
failure of those alternatives examined. A drawback for premise 2 is
that not all alternatives were examined, and new,
singularity-abolishing discoveries may perhaps be made. On the plus
side, the best no-big-bang-singularity models are considered to be
those along the lines of the NBP, with its having time become space,
and if those are the best alternatives had, I would hate to see the
not-so-best alternatives.95 From the argument's premises it follows
that factors are responsible for the universe's beginning to exist.

Assuming that our universe contains the only matter that ever has
existed anywhere, then the causal chain(s) that led to the origination
of spacetime and matter-energy in the hot big bang could not have been
material in nature. Put another way, the causal chain(s) must have
been not-material, i.e. not-corporeal in nature. Now, regarding the
aforementioned assumption, I grant that it is conceivable that a
material causal chain(s) could have created expanding spacetime out of
nothing. (David Hume, in fact, poses the question "Why not assert the
Deity or Deities to be corporeal, and to have eyes, a nose, mouth,
ears, &c.?"96) In reply to this attack on the assumption, I would say
that it appears to me tremendously more likely for a) material causal
chains to only precipitate simple conversions of forms of
matter-energy into other forms of matter-energy, than for b) material
causal chains to in addition precipitate creations out of nothing.
From what we have seen of them-- and we have seen an awful lot-- it is
in the nature of material causal chains to bring about conversions
rather than originations-out-of-nothing.

11. Paring a not-material causal chain(s) down to a designer(s), i.e.
down to a main, intelligent factor(s)

I will now attempt to pare the HBB-precipitating, not-material
causal chain(s) down to a main cause(s), i.e. down to the most
significant cause(s), specifically to a not-corporeal intelligent
entity (or entities) that thought up and implemented physics. The
physical laws, i.e. the properties of the physical world, exhibit
order and harmony, and from this order and harmony that began to
exist, intelligent design of the physical world by a designer(s) can
be inferred.

In his _Dreams of a Final Theory_, Weinberg writes that the laws
of physics exhibit beauty:
The kind of beauty that we find in physical theories is of a very
limited sort. It is, as far as I have been able to capture it in
words, the beauty of simplicity and inevitability-- the beauty of
perfect structure, the beauty of everything fitting together, of
nothing being changeable, of logical rigidity.97

Expanding on Weinberg's remark, the laws of physics exhibit the
properties of simplicity, harmony, rigidity, order, beauty, and
elegance. "Rigidity" characterizes sets of equations that require the
presence of all of their components for them to describe. "Harmony"
is synonymous with consistency; consistency characterizes equations
that mesh with each other, equations that fit together, equations that
do not conflict with each other, equations that when fitted together
exhibit perfect structure. (The word "harmony" has been used to
denote spatial and temporal order.)

Physicists have used several different notions of "order,"
including spatial order and temporal order. "Spatial order" is
regularity in spatial appearance, i.e. is spatial symmetry; for
example, crystals exhibit "spatial order" in presenting a high level
of symmetry. "Temporal order" is regularity in occurrence; to
illustrate, the planets consistently take roughly the same amount of
time to make each of their respective trips around the sun, the sun
rises each day, and eclipses occur like clockwork. Both spatial order
and temporal order are manifestations of symmetries present in the
physical laws governing the way certain atoms link up to form
crystals, the way planets move around suns, etc. Symmetry in the
world of physics contributes to the "simplicity" of equations
describing the world of physics; synonymous with "compactness,"
"simplicity" characterizes equations that describe a wide range of
phenomena with a small number of straightforward equations. Just as
Johannes Kepler did not believe God would have His creation contain
numerous epicycles in the planet's orbits around the sun, but instead
something much more simple, and therefore set out to discover his
simple laws of planetary motion, so also have physicists come to
expect simplicity in their field of study.98

A related notion of "order" is "a lack of chaos." Physics
exhibits a lack of chaos in that its phenomena occur in a regular
manner. For example, a ball dropped 15 years ago fell to earth, and a
ball dropped 10 years from now will fall to earth-- it is not the case
that gravitational attraction between particular objects changes from
one day to the next, it is not the case that the strengths of forces
in physics erratically vary, and more generally, it is not the case
that the world of physics is chaotic. Regarding this
absence-of-chaos, Davies notes that
Every advance in fundamental physics seems to uncover yet another
facet of _order_. ....the physical world operates according to
rational principles.... Logically, the universe does not have to
be this way. We could conceive of a cosmos where chaos reigns.
In place of the orderly and regimented behaviour of matter and
energy one would have arbitrary and haphazard activity. Stable
structures like atoms or people or stars could not exist. The
real world is not this way.99

"Beauty" and "elegance" are synonymous; equations that
theoretical physicists consider beautiful exhibit simplicity, harmony,
and rigidity. GTR is a highly beautiful theory. Theoretical
physicists consider certain equations to exhibit more 'beauty' than
certain other equations, yet there is no standard of beauty of which I
am aware.

Upon considering the absence-of-chaos, some have come to think
that an entity designed physics. A stronger inference that physics
was designed has been made from the spatial and temporal order visible
to the eye: some have inferred that the spatial and temporal order
they saw seemed to possess the appearance of having been designed. In
my opinion, a much more solid inference that physics was designed can
be made from the appearance of the _equations_ discovered to
accurately describe the world, equations that provide for spatial and
temporal order. Not being a physicist, I have not worked with the
physics equations, and so cannot speak from personal experience
whether the equations, for example of GTR and QM, in my opinion
possess the appearance of having been designed. I will thus be making
an appeal to the authority of individuals who _have_ worked with the
equations for their opinion on the matter, and will conclude that the
equations the world of physics follows strongly possess the appearance
of having been designed.

Einstein viewed the seemingly-accurate equations he worked with
as having the appearance of being designed, and concluded that they
were in fact designed. To illustrate, Einstein wrote that Newton and
Kepler possessed "a deep conviction of the rationality of the
universe" and "a yearning to understand," qualities that Einstein
deemed "a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world."100
Einstein considered this mind a superior intelligence:
His [the scientist's] religious feeling takes the form of a
rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals
an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all
the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly
insignificant reflection.101

Einstein admired this intelligence, remarking that "whoever has
undergone the intense experience of successful advances" in
discovering the laws of physics and how they fit together "is moved by
profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence" and
"attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason
incarnate in existence."102 Einstein was, of course, only speaking
for himself when he wrote that and the following: "My religiosity
consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that
reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory
understanding, can comprehend of reality."103 In short, in
theoretical physicist Einstein's opinion, the laws of physics appear
to have been designed. (As mentioned earlier, I cannot at this time
present an argument that only one intelligent entity both thought up
and implemented physics.)

Davies concurs with Einstein that physics has the appearance of
having been designed:
The temptation to believe that the Universe [i.e. the world of
physics] is the product of some sort of _design_, a manifestation
of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming.
The belief that there is "something behind it all" is one that I
personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.104

If I had studied physics I could tell you, on the basis of my own work
in physics, whether I thought physics appeared designed. Not having
studied physics, not having immersed myself in the physics equations,
I have to rely on the opinions of those who have, and in the opinion
of physicists Davies and Einstein at least, physics strongly possesses
the appearance of having been designed.

In response to Einstein's and Davies's conclusion that the world
of physics appears to have been designed, someone may propose that
yes, intelligence is behind physics, but not what Einstein termed an
"infinitely superior spirit," but rather, a collection of idiots. If
such was the case, then the 'idiots' must have been extremely smart
entities. To illustrate, Davies notes that "many of the discoveries
described" in his 1986 book "are the result of intense and collective
intellectual activity by some of the finest minds the world has
known." I conclude that the 'idiots' must have been smarter than the
"finest minds" of which Davies speaks. He continues, "Some of the
theories [I have described] have called upon subtle and obscure
mathematical arguments that could easily have been overlooked, even by
highly competent mathematicians."105 I conclude that the 'idiots'
would have been, overall, "highly competent" in the realm of
mathematics. Davies ends his 1986 book with the sentence, "No one who
has studied the forces of nature can doubt that the world about us is
a manifestation of something very, very clever indeed."106 In short,
if 'idiots' made physics, they were "very, very clever" 'idiots.'

One particular aspect of the physics equations that especially
speaks of design is the harmony, i.e. the meshing, of the equations.
About this meshing, Davies observes,
Traditionally, physics has been divided up into a number of
rather distinct branches, such as mechanics, optics,
electromagnetism, gravity, thermodynamics, atomic and nuclear
physics, solid state [physics], and so on. These rather
artificial divisions conceal the elegance with which these topics
dovetail together. We don't find, for example, that the laws of
gravity conflict with those of electromagnetism or solid state
physics.107

Davies notes that just as we find "words interlock[ing] in a
consistent and orderly arrangement" when we proceed with solving a
crossword puzzle, so also are nature's laws seen to "interlock
consistently" as we progressively "discern the remarkable orderliness
of nature."108 For some reason, "we do not to doubt that the order,
consistency, and harmony of a crossword imply that the puzzle is the
product of an ingenious, inventive mind," yet there are "doubts
voiced" when it comes to the laws of physics.109 The evidence for
intelligent design is often adjudged "compelling in one case but not
in the other."110

Davies mentions three replies to inferences of intelligent
design, those being "that we impose order on the world to make sense
of it; that the reasoning is flawed; and that any order which does
exist in nature is the product of blind chance and not of design."111
The first may be rejected out of hand as it pertains to the world of
physics, where spatial and temporal order is clearly revealed through
patient investigation and is clearly not being imposed on a disorderly
world by physicists.112 John Polkinghorne, a Cambridge theoretical
physicist who became an ordained clergyman,113 concurs with Davies,
and offers as evidence the fact that "the phenomena encountered often
prove extremely surprising and contrary to our intuition. They resist
our attempts to bend them to our prior expectation."114 While
acknowledging that a physicist "approach[es] the world from a
particular point of view," Polkinghorne adds that that view "receives
its confirmation or necessary correction from interaction with the way
things are."115 In short, about the claim that "the order we find in
the world is an order that we in fact impose upon it," in
Polkinghorne's opinion as a physicist, "it is hard to exaggerate how
implausible such a view is."116

Regarding the claim that the reasoning is flawed, we make
inferences that things were designed all the time. The basis for
everyday inferences-to-design boils down to
1) arguments by analogy to things we think _were_ designed. Put
another way, we compare
a) something we believe to have been designed, and
b) an entity that poses to us the question of whether it was or
was not designed,
and we conclude that based upon the high degree of similarity
between a) and b), just as a) was designed, so also was b)
designed.
2) rejection of the possibility that the entity in question could
have arisen via non-intelligence-directed processes. And,
3) our usually-hidden assumption that the entity in question began
to exist.

To illustrate the two main components of inferences to design, William
Paley stated in 1802 that the human heart, muscles, mammary glands,
and bones each had several components, the absence of one of which
would result in the non-functionality of the respective biological
structures.117 The structures were deemed similar to a watch that we
would clearly recognize as having been designed upon finding it in a
field. Paley thought that the watch and the biological structures he
mentioned contained several components required for functionality,
thought that this interlocking nature spoke of design of the watch and
of the biological structures mentioned, and concluded that like the
watch, the biological structures _were_ designed. Paley thereby
provides an instance of item a), arguments by analogy to things we
think _were_ designed.

Wide acceptance of Paley's argument vanished with the 1859
publication of biologist Charles Darwin's _The Origin of Species_.
Darwin argued for the existence of a non-intelligence-directed
mechanism, specifically natural selection of random variations, that
could account for the existence of seemingly-designed biological
structures. Darwin's theory of natural selection provides an example
of an attack on an inference-to-design made by attacking item b),
rejection of the possibility that the entity in question could have
arisen via non-intelligence-directed processes. Since he first
proposed it, Darwin's mechanism has been thoroughly refuted by the
absence of confirmatory evidence in the fossil record despite 140
years of searching by paleontologists, and by observation of living
organisms.118 According to neo-Darwinism, mutations in organisms' DNA
sequences are the raw material of evolution, yet mutations routinely
result in _cancer_ and genetic diseases, not the arrival of novel body
structures and organs.

When it comes to the laws of physics, nobody has to my knowledge
produced the analogue of Darwin's theory of natural selection for the
production of the laws of physics. Nobody has observed new laws of
physics arising via processes that as best can be determined are
non-intelligence-directed, nor are there known formulas, i.e.
equations, i.e. theoretical predictions that describe the process of
new-law-formation.

On the basis of
a) theoretical physicists Einstein's and Davies's judgement that the
equations of physics strongly possess the appearance of having
been designed, and based on the interlocking nature of the laws
of physics, which is strongly analogous to the interlocking of
words in a crossword puzzle,
b) rejection of the possibility that non-intelligence-directed
processes can result in the formation of new laws of physics, and
c) the fact that the laws of physics began to exist in the big bang,

I infer that intelligence is responsible for the laws of physics.
This inference-to-design could not possibly be correct should it be
shown that physics never began to exist. The harmony of physics laws
implies design of the laws by a designer(s), perhaps in the form of a
single designer and implementer, in the form of a committee of
designers that collectively agreed upon a design plan before
implementing that plan, in the form of multiple designers that thought
up and multiple implementors that collectively implemented, etc. In
short, the not-material causal chain(s) that precipitated physical
existence's beginning to exist in the big bang has been pared down to
an intelligence(s).

Suppose now that the order currently observed in nature ceases to
exist. Spatial and temporal order and stable structures such as atoms
cease to exist. Such an occurrence would not affect the fact that as
matters currently stand, physics strongly has the appearance of being
designed. The fact that design inferences are not dependent upon the
perpetual existence of features suggestive of design may be
illustrated by an example. Suppose we examine an alien spaceship and
conclude that intelligence was responsible for its fabrication.
Should that spaceship fall to pieces shortly after retrieval and
examination, we would not, I submit, change our earlier verdict that
the spaceship was intelligently designed. A more common example of
design inferences remaining valid in the presence of change is
provided by ancient marble buildings currently decaying because of the
effects of pollution. Though a marble building may disintegrate in a
few short years, the presence of disintegration does not affect our
conclusion that intelligence was responsible for the building's
spatial order's beginning-to-exist.

A countermove to the physics-was-designed conclusion might
consist of taking the reasoning that led to inferring design of the
laws, and applying that reasoning to the designer(s) of the laws: If
the laws exhibit order and harmony, then surely the maker(s) of the
laws must also exhibit order and harmony, and if the maker(s) do
exhibit order and harmony, then according to the above line of
reasoning, the maker(s) must also have been designed. Taking this one
step further, the designer(s) must have been designed-- it would seem
that an infinite regress is the logical conclusion of inferring that
the laws of physics were designed. The atheist biologist Richard
Dawkins presents one possible avenue of answering the objection of
what made the deistic entity when he writes,
To explain the origin of the [very first] DNA/protein machine by
invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing,
for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have
to say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow
yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say
'DNA was always there', or 'Life was always there', and be done
with it.119

(The big bang origin of the universe precludes the possibility that
life has existed for eternity past, but that is a topic for another
discussion.) Taking our cue from Dawkins's remarks, if the
deistic-type entity had existed for an eternity to its past, then it
_could not_ have been designed. At this point, Dawkins might reply,
'In that case, you might as well just say, "Physics and physical
existence was always there," and be done with it.' However, if the
hot big bang model is correct, physics was _not_ always there,
physical existence has _not_ existed for an eternity to its past.

12. Answer as to why, unlike the universe, the designer(s) does not
need a cause(s) of its existence

The preceding section concluded that a designer(s) was the main,
i.e. the most significant, portion of the preceding casual chain(s)
causing physical existence's beginning to exist in the big bang. In
answering the often-asked question of what precipitated the existence
of the universe's cause, the attribute of eternality for the cause of
the hot big bang will be arrived at. The cause must exist in some
sense "before" the HBB, and thus exists outside of our time.120 While
the universe requires precipitating factors for its existence, the
cause of the big bang does not. The infinite regression stops with
the designer(s), which conceivably could have always
existed-to-the-past while outside of our time, i.e. could be
eternal-to-its-past. The deistic-type entity precipitating physical
existence in the big bang could not have had a physical cause,
assuming that all physical existence ever existing arose in the big
bang. The deistic-type entity could conceivably have begun to exist,
in which case, in accordance with my "Whatever begins to exist...."
premise, it would have had not-physical factors precipitating its
beginning-to-exist. However, our ignorance of "before" the big bang
allows me to speculate that the deistic-type entity _never_ began to
exist, in which case it could _not_ have had causes bringing it into
existence, for the simple reason that it never began to exist. A
diagram of this possibility of a never-beginning-to-exist will shortly
be presented.

"Time" is defined as that dimension, i.e. region, i.e. province
where cause and effect events occur [121] in accordance with the
"second law of thermodynamics." Our time is basically the second law
in action: the passage of time equals the guaranteed gradual increase
in the overall "entropy" of a system, in this case the universe, as
cause and effect phenomena happen.122 With each cause and effect
phenomena, energy is turned into a more-disordered, i.e. less-useful,
form, i.e. "entropy" increases. The second law and causes of a
material nature came into existence with the birth of the universe to
which it is applied. Now the province of cause and effect that
existed "before" the big bang would be another dimension of time,
distinct from our second-law time. One dimension of second-law time
would be depicted as a line; with the addition of the dimension of
cause and effect known as no-second-law "pre"-big bang time, the two
dimensions of time could be depicted as something like a plane.123 In
the following plane representing the two dimensions of time, the
universe appears on the right, and the designer(s) on the left:
[plane of time is represented by a rectangle; our universe is depicted
by a vertical ray pointing up (like a flashlight beam); the designer
or committee is depicted by a vertical line pointing both up and down,
with little arrows jutting out to the sides] If it wanted to, the
designer could interact with the universe, but would not be confined
to our sequence of causes and effects. This depicts how the
precipitator of the big bang could be eternal-looking-back and so
would not itself require a cause(s).

Someone might ask, "Upon what grounds you say that it is
conceivable that something exist yet never have begun to exist?" I
unfortunately do not have an answer, and am in the company of others
in lacking an answer. The atheist Carl Sagan states that "it is
perfectly possible that the universe is infinitely old and therefore
requires no Creator."124 As previously noted, Dawkins favorably
writes of the possibility that life exists and yet never began to
exist. The atheist philosopher Quentin Smith writes, "Since it [the
NBP's hemi-4-sphere] was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the
timeless god of theism."125 Hume writes of the possibility of
"eternal revolutions of unguided matter."126 As far as I know, Sagan,
Dawkins, Smith, and Hume have not presented any arguments that it is
conceivable that the universe, life, the NBP's hemi-4-sphere, or
matter never began to exist.

Someone could, I suppose, also reply that an existing yet
never-beginning-to-exist intelligence requires a cause to begin to
exist, and say that that cause in turn 1) never began to exist, and
simultaneously, 2) requires its own cause to begin to exist, and so on
ad infinitum. That person would be proposing an infinite number of
contradictions, perhaps in the hope that if a contradictory situation
is repeated in occurrence enough times, it becomes sensical. I can
offer no argument by way of reply, just as I can offer no argument in
reply to the contradictory claim that the shape of a circle can be the
shape of a square at the same time and in the same sense.

Someone might also ask whether this intelligence(s) has thoughts.
I would say yes, just as I have thoughts when dreaming up some new
invention. A follow-up question might be, What are the causes of the
intelligence's thoughts? I would say the intelligence itself is a
major factor in the beginning-to-exist of the intelligence's thoughts,
just as I (an intelligent entity) am a major factor in my thoughts'
beginning-to-exist.

13. Hume on inferring from seeming-design the attribute of
intelligence

Scottish arch-skeptic philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is
widely considered to have defeated arguments from design. We examine
now his criticisms of design arguments.

Dawkins notes that earth "is dominated by feats of engineering
and works of art" that humans have made. Humans have thereby become
entirely accustomed to the idea that complex elegance is an
indicator of premeditated, crafted design. This is probably the
most powerful reason for the belief, held by the vast majority of
people that have ever lived, in some kind of supernatural
deity.127

(Being an atheist, Dawkins naturally does not believe in any type of
supernatural deity.) Dawkins relates having dinner with a "well-known
atheist" and "distinguished modern philosopher." In response to
Dawkins's remark that he could not imagine being an atheist prior to
Darwin's 1859 propounding of the theory of natural selection, the
atheist-philosopher replied, "What about Hume?" Asked Dawkins, "How
did Hume explain the organized complexity of the living world?" The
philosopher responded with what I interpret to be a rhetorical
question: "He [Hume] didn't. .... Why does it need any
explanation?"128 Rephrasing, I get, 'Hume did not explain biology's
complexity. The complexity of biology does not need an explanation.'
Dawkins strenuously disagrees with that stance, opining that the
"amount of complex design" in biology "give[s] the appearance of
having been designed"129 and "cries out for an explanation"130:
Paley knew that it needed a special explanation; Darwin knew it
and I suspect that in his heart of hearts my philosopher
companion knew it too.131

In my opinion, it is quite possible that the philosopher _did
not_ know this to be the case owing to some degree of ignorance of
biology on his part, just as in Dawkins's opinion, "some of his
[Hume's] writings suggest that he underestimated the complexity and
beauty of biological design."132 The possibility that the modern
philosopher was ignorant in matters biological is bolstered by the
fact that, as biologist Michael Ghiselin notes,
These days only a few philosophers maintain strong links with the
empirical sciences. Much "philosophy of science" has little if
any connection with what goes on in the laboratory.133

Noddingly acquainted with philosophy, Weinberg concurs with Ghiselin's
assessment:
After a few years' infatuation with philosophy as an
undergraduate I became disenchanted. The insights of the
philosophers I studied seemed murky and inconsequential compared
with the dazzling successes of physics and mathematics. From
time to time since then I have tried to read current work on the
philosophy of science. Some of it I found to be written in a
jargon so impenetrable that I can only think that it aimed at
impressing those who confound obscurity with profundity. Some of
it was good reading and even witty, like the writings of
Wittgenstein and Paul Feyerabend. But only rarely did it seem to
me to have anything to do with the work of science as I knew
it.134

Should a modern philosopher believe that the
seeming-intelligent-design of _physics_ does not call out for an
explanation, it would be interesting to know to what degree that
philosopher is ignorant of physics. Since Hume last wrote, _much_ has
been learned about physics and biology. Claims that Hume once and for
all defeated arguments for design of biology and of physics are
predicated upon the comparatively poor state of knowledge existing
over 200 years ago.

Actually, contrary to what Dawkins's atheist-philosopher friend
suggests, Hume _did_ propose an explanation for the 1) temporal and
spatial order of physics, and 2) the seeming-intelligent-design of
biology. Hume's explanations start with the erroneous premise that
matter has always existed: "the fact is certain, that matter is, and
always has been in continual agitation," Hume later speaking of "the
eternal revolutions of unguided matter."135 In making these remarks,
Hume follows the lead of Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), who said, "the atoms
move without interruption through all time," and erroneously alleged
that their "motions had no beginning, for the atoms and the void have
always existed."136 Reasons Hume,
A finite number of particles is only susceptible of finite
transpositions: And it must happen, in an eternal duration, that
every possible order or position must be tried an infinite number
of times.137

Out of the set of all possible configurations of matter, a small
subset of configurations will display spatial and temporal order; with
an infinite amount of time for recombinations to occur, those
configurations with temporal and spatial order will make an
appearance, and will possess the appearance of having been the product
of design:
The continual motion of matter, therefore, in less than infinite
transpositions, must produce this economy or order; and, by its
very nature, that order, when once established, supports itself,
for many ages, if not to eternity. But wherever matter is so
poised, arranged, and adjusted as to continue in perpetual
motion, and yet preserve a constancy in the forms, its situation
must, of necessity, have all the same appearance of art and
contrivance which we observe at present.138

One problem with Hume's modified version of "the old Epicurean
hypothesis"139 is that spatial and temporal order arises from the
symmetries of the laws of physics, i.e. order is inherent in the
matter. It is not so much the case that the order seen is the result
of matter assuming ordered structures and orbits, but rather, the
order seen is the result of the rules that matter itself follows.
Nobody has, as far as I know, suggested with evidence that the laws of
physics are capable of being reshuffled. On the contrary, physicists'
most beautiful physics theories exhibit rigidity, i.e. are resistant
to tinkering.

A more serious problem with Hume's proposal of an
order-generating mechanism is the fact that it appears highly likely
that physical existence is not infinitely-old, but rather is only
about 12 billion years old. Hume's hypothesis of "eternal revolutions
of unguided matter" giving rise to "the appearing wisdom and
contrivance which is in the universe" goes out the window because of
this severe shortage of available time for his postulated
reshufflings.

Incidentally, Hume's acknowledgement of the "appearance of art
and contrivance which we observe at present" and "the appearing wisdom
and contrivance which is in the universe" supports the observation by
Leon Pearl (Hofstra University) that
At no point in the Dialogues does Hume challenge the premise that
the world has "the appearance of art and contrivance"; but
instead develops a number of alternative hypotheses to design in
order to account for this very appearance.140

Even the atheist biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod
floats the idea that criteria for distinguishing "artificial objects,
products of a conscious purposive activity" are a) spatial order and
b) "specimens of closely similar objects":
The suitable criteria, we see, would be two in number: (a)
regularity, and (b) repetition. By means of the first one [we]
would seek to make use of the fact that natural objects, wrought
by the play of physical forces, almost never present
geometrically simple and straightforward structures: flat
surfaces, for instance, or rectilinear edges, right angles, exact
symmetries; whereas artifacts will ordinarily show such features,
if only in an approximate or rudimentary manner.141

Monod does not actually accept these criteria, for he acknowledges the
existence of "simple and repetitive geometries" in "atomic and
molecular structures" such as the DNA helix and crystals, and "simple
and repeated geometrical structures of the [bee's] honeycombs," and
"bilateral and translational" symmetry in bees, and yet rejects the
possibility that intelligence is in any way responsible for the
spatial order and repeated spatial order of the aforementioned
things.142

As mentioned, Hume intended that besides accounting for the
existence of order, his reshufflings would also give rise to the
"parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each
other."143 Given our current awareness of the immense complexity of
even the 'simplest' living organisms, Hume's suggestion is ludicrous.
Regarding this complexity, Monod stated in 1970, "the simplest living
system known to us, the bacterial cell, [is] a tiny piece of extremely
complex and efficient machinery."144 The extent of this complexity
had begun to be grasped by at least as early as 1921; reports
origin-of-life researcher A.I. Oparin,
He [S. Kostychev in 1921] argues that even the most simply
organized living things possess a very complex, delicate and
perfect protoplasmic structure. The various vital processes are
made possible by this protoplasmic structure and perfect
functional differentiation. The metabolism of matter and energy
characteristic for living things would be entirely impossible
without a specially adapted apparatus, and it is highly
improbable that such a complex apparatus could have arisen
fortuitously. If the reader were asked to consider the
probability that in the midst of inorganic matter a large factory
with smoke stacks, pipes, boilers, machines, ventilators, etc.
suddenly sprang into existence by some natural process, let us
say a volcanic eruption, this would be taken at best for a silly
joke. Yet, even the simplest microorganism has a more complex
structure than any factory, and therefore its fortuitous creation
is very much less probable.145

More recently, biophysicist Harold Morowitz imagined taking a living
bacterium, breaking it up into individual atoms through the
application of heat, and allowing the mixture to cool slowly so as to
permit the atoms to form new bonds. Morowitz calculated that at the
end of the cooling, the chances that a living bacteria would be had is
1 in 10^100,000,000,000.146 To give you a vague idea of those odds,
there are 10^80 atoms in the visible universe, and our universe has
been in existence for 10^17 seconds. In short, it is impossible for
Hume's postulation of matter repeatedly being "thrown into any
position by a blind, unguided force" to produce even a _bacterium_ in
our 12-billion-year-old universe, much less the complexity seen in
plants and animals.

A similar illustration can be provided using Paley's watch.
Suppose we took the watch apart and placed the pieces in a box.
Philosopher Nancy Cartwright describes how the experiment would
proceed:
in a controlled experiment it is possible to deliberately set
things up so that the initial arrangement of parts is unplanned.
We could, for instance, shake the parts in a box.... There is no
doubt what the outcome would be. The probability of getting a
bunch of gears shaken together in a box to come out in fine
adjustment to any end whatsoever is as near zero as it can be.
It is because of this that the argument from design is a powerful
one.147

Cartwright later expresses doubt about the validity of the thought
experiment:
We may shake the gears together a million times and never get a
watch. But what if we shook them together a million times for 12
billion years a time. How many watches would we get? It is an
experiment that we cannot perform.148

Actually, we can perform calculations just as Morowitz did, and
conclude that even 12 billion years of rapid shaking of numerous
dismembered watches will not make a dent in the odds against our
getting a functional watch. We can also sensibly conclude that the
pieces will eventually turn into dust with all that shaking.149
Moreover, suppose we did get a functional watch-- with our next shake
of the box, that watch will disappear: Hume's blind mixing force will
not know when to stop mixing, and it is not clear how the appearance
of a bacterium would prevent the mixing force from continuing to mix,
thereby destroying the very bacterium it gave rise to. I submit that
it is much more reasonable to ascribe a bacterium's complex
arrangement to the work of an intelligence(s) than to say the
bacterium fell together through the work of a blind, unguided force
constantly rearranging the arrangement of matter.

Another line of argument Hume advances against design inferences
is to liken the universe to a plant or animal, organisms we observe
presently replicating apart from the operation of intelligence:
The world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable, than
it does a watch or a knitting-loom. Its cause, therefore, it is
more probable, resembles the cause of the former. The cause of
the former is generation or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of
the world, we may infer to be something similar or analogous to
generation or vegetation.150

I will grant that lifeforms' replication presently proceeds in
non-intelligence-directed fashion. However, I do not grant that the
various types of lifeforms (which presently replicate in
non-intelligence-directed fashion) originally arose via
non-intelligence-directed processes-- an assumption Hume's analogy
requires. To illustrate, it is one thing to accept the claim that a
particular robot was put together by another not-intelligent robot,
which in turn was put together by yet another not-intelligent robot;
however, it is quite another thing to accept the wildly-improbable
claim that the first robot in this chain arose via
non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes. (The big bang
excludes the possibility that for an infinite amount of time, robots
have been making other robots.) In fact, a robot that replicates
should make one even more certain that intelligence had been afoot, as
Paley well describes:
Suppose, in the first place, that the person who found the watch,
should, after sometime, discover, that, in addition to all the
properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the
unexpected property of producing, in the course of its movement,
another watch like itself (the thing is conceivable), that it
contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts, a mould for
instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, files, and other
tools, evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let
us inquire, what effect ought such a discovery to have upon his
former conclusion [that the watch was designed]. The first
effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance,
and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver.
Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct
apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible
mechanism, by which it was carried on, he would perceive in this
new observation, nothing but an additional reason for doing what
he had already done,-- for referring the construction of the
watch to design, and to supreme art. If that construction
_without_ this property, or which is the same thing, before this
property had been noticed, proved intention and art to have been
employed about it, still more strong would the proof appear, when
he came to the knowledge of this farther property, the crown and
perfection of all the rest.151

Hume's argument assumes without basis the claim that the various types
of plants and animals arose via non-intelligence-directed processes;
Hume's proposal that blind shuffling of atoms can result in life and
biology's complexity is a joke (see above), and Darwin's theory of
natural selection has been falsified. Because of the presence of this
unfounded assumption, Hume's analogy falls apart: Hume has not
demonstrated that the very first vegetables and animals arose via
non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes (and in fact, much
evidence exists _against_ such a possibility), and so he cannot liken
the universe to plant and animal's replication and conclude thereby
that the universe could have arisen via
non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes. Pearl puts the
matter this way after presenting Hume's analogy:
But there is a significant difference between the origin of human
products as a result of design from that of vegetables and
animals by processes which Hume calls "vegetation" and
"generation." In the case of design, materials which are in a
nonorderly state are transformed into an organized system; but in
the case of vegetation or generation, this is not the case. What
we find instead is a process by which organized bodies generate
other organized bodies. There is no genesis of order here, but
rather its transmission from one body to another. Generation and
vegetation are themselves orderly processes which the argument
from design tries to account for. So that even supposing one of
these processes were the means by which the universe originated,
this would in no way constitute an alternative to the design
hypothesis. The point, I am trying to make, is that vegetation
and generation, unlike design, do not provide explanations for
the existence of orderly systems and processes but are, in fact,
themselves illustrations of that very order which requires
explanation.152

Hume characterizes the order requiring explanation and sets up
inferences to design in the following manner:
Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said Cleanthes,... I
shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round the
world: Contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will
find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an
infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of
subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties
can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even
their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an
accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever
contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends,
throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds,
the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought,
wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble
each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy,
that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of nature is
somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much
larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which
he has executed. By this argument _a posteriori_, and by this
argument alone, we do prove at once the existence of a Deity, and
his similarity to human mind and intelligence.153

For comparison, some remarks by Paley:
every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design,
which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with
the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more,
and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. ....the
contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the
complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still
more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety:
yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical,
not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated
to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most
perfect productions of human ingenuity.154

In response to such design inferences, Hume claims that we must have
"had experience of the origin of worlds" before concluding that our
universe must have "arise[n] from some thought and art."155 If such
is the case, we can never conclude that an alien spacecraft was the
product of intelligence unless and until we had observed the
construction of such a spacecraft. In Hume's viewpoint, the
observation of multiple parts working together to propel the alien
spacecraft is not a good basis for inferring that the craft was
designed. This despite the fact that Hume also remarks,
When two _species_ of objects have always been observed to be
conjoined together, I can _infer_, by custom, the existence of
one wherever I _see_ the existence of the other: And this I call
an argument from experience.156

Two things humans have learned from experience to be conjoined are
intelligence and complex arrangements of parts working together to
perform various tasks, and yet when it comes to the alien spacecraft,
Hume opposes our saying 'This craft was designed.'

While arguing against design inferences, Hume additionally claims
that only "the exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect
assurance of a similar event."157 Hume continues,
But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the
cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last
bring it to a very weak _analogy_, which is confessedly liable to
error and uncertainty.158

If what Hume alleges is correct, one can never make inferences to
design, for there are _always_ differences between what we know to
have been designed and what we must judge as being or not-being
designed. To illustrate, if we observe a house and its contents being
built, and then visit another structure and are asked 'Was this too
put together by intelligence?,' according to Hume, because of the
dissimilarity between the two structures we could not reply in the
affirmative. One structure has a one-car garage, the other, a two-car
garage; one has double-paned glass, the other, single-paned glass; one
has a Maytag dryer, and the other a GE dryer; one has a fireplace, the
other a stove; one has a 15 gallon toilet, and the other a 13 gallon
toilet.

When Hume alleges that when presented with "striking"
"dissimilitude," the "utmost you can... pretend to is a guess, a
conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause,"159 he overlooks
the primary components undergirding everyday inferences to design:
1) the judgment that certain characteristics of the entity in question
are characteristics that in the past have been known to come only
from the operation of intelligence, and
2) the judgment that not-intelligent processes are very likely not
responsible for the entity in question.

We do not carry around mental checklists for color, size, temperature,
type of finish, materials used, etc., doing comparisons to see how
many dissimilarities there are between what we know to have been
designed and entities requiring judgments as to their mode of
origination. As approvingly quoted by Pearl, John Stewart Mill puts
the matter this way:
The design argument is not drawn from mere resemblances in nature
to the works of human intelligence, but from the special
character of those resemblances. The circumstances in which it
is alleged that the world resembles the works of men are not
circumstances taken at random, but are particular instances of a
circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection
with an intelligent origin.... The argument therefore is not one
of mere analogy. As mere analogy it has its weight, but it is
more than analogy-- it is an inductive argument.160

Pearl later comments that it seems to himself that
The argument from design... [is] an "argument from experience" in
Hume's sense of the term. And the reason for this is because we
ha[ve] observed many objects possessing order originating from
design and never from any other source.161

In short, inferences to design are more than analogies: they
essentially are inductive arguments based on our past experience with
entities we know to have been designed.162 The pointing out of
numerous dissimilarities between two entities does not necessarily
involve the pointing out of dissimilarities of significance to the
validity of a design inference.

Hume also alleges that "tak[ing] the _operations_ of one part of
nature upon another for the foundation of our judgment concerning the
_origin_ of the whole... never can be admitted."163 Hume here objects
to inferences "from parts to the whole."164 Pearl points out a
counterexample to Hume's allegation that we can never make inferences
from
1) the fact that certain parts of an entity appear to very probably
have been the result of intelligent design, to
2) the conclusion that the whole entity very probably was the result
of design:
we do sometimes make proper inferences from parts to whole....
We often correctly infer from the causal interactions between the
parts of a machine to the purpose for which, and the manner by
which, the machine as a whole was constructed.165

Should Hume not wish to extrapolate from
1) the fact that the physics physicists have worked out strongly
exhibits the appearance of design, to
2) the conclusion that all of physics-- which indications suggest is
unified-- was designed
for fear of committing a logical fallacy, fine. But note that Hume's
disapproval of the extrapolation does nothing to take on the facts
that 1) the physics physicists have worked out both began to exist and
very strongly exhibits the appearance of having been designed, and 2)
in our _experience_, order only arises as the result of the operation
of intelligence.

Since Hume remarked on inferring from seeming-design attributes
besides intelligence, and since these types of remarks have been
construed as going against inferences to design (particularly design
by a theistic entity), we briefly examine some of those remarks.

According to Hume, inferring that human-like intelligence is
responsible for the entities studied by microscopists, botanists,
anatomists, chemists, etc. concomitantly means that the one doing the
inferring must "renounce all claim to infinity in any of the
attributes of the Deity."166 Hume reasons that a "cause ought only to
be proportioned to the effect," and since "the effect, so far as it
falls under our cognisance, is not infinite," he concludes that the
theist cannot ascribe the attribute of infinity to God.167

Regarding Hume's premise that a cause is proportional to its
effect, I would state that such is not obvious. I can craft something
that lasts five seconds (say a circle-shaped puff of cigarette smoke),
and something that will last over 500 years (say a titanium
ball-bearing). If Hume's premise were correct, both my smoke-ring and
ball-bearing would last the same amount of time-- and yet they do not.
Suppose I weigh 200 pounds, and take up 9 cubit feet of space.
According to Hume's premise, I cannot make two things that weigh 12
tons and 3 ounces, respectively, and cannot make something occupying 2
and 984 cubic feet, respectively. Since I can in fact do such things,
Hume's premise is once again seen to be erroneous.

Regarding Hume's suggestion that "the effect, so far as it falls
under our cognisance, is not infinite," this may be incorrect as it
applies to space: cosmologists say that if space has a flat curvature
(think of a plane on which parallel lines do not converge and do not
diverge) or a negative curvature (think of a saddle, on which parallel
lines diverge), then space might be infinite in extent (do not ask me
how).

Furthermore, the only "infinite" attribute this paper ascribes to
a deistic-type entity is the attribute of never-beginning-to-exist yet
existing, which amounts to being infinitely-old. Yet to propose that
the longevity-of-duration of an effect is proportional to the
longevity-of-duration of the effect's cause is an erroneous
proposition, as illustrated by the fact that I will be dead in under
100 years, my smoke-ring lasts only 5 seconds, while the ball-bearing
will last over 500 years.

Hume also states that the design hypothesis provides no grounds
"for ascribing perfection to the Deity," nor "for supposing him free
from every error, mistake, or incoherence in his undertakings."168 In
this I agree, and in fact do not argue that one can infer from physics
that the designing deistic-type entity had the attribute of
"perfection" (whatever that means).

Hume continues by alleging that "according to" the "method of
reasoning" from apparent design to the operation of a human-like
intelligence, there must also exist the possibility of inferring from
(seeming) imperfections "in the works of nature" to the designer being
imperfect.169 In reply, I first note that inferring limitations in
designers' capacities can be quite difficult. For example, suppose I
give a shirt 11 identical washings, and on the 11th washing, the shirt
begins disintegrating. Was the shirt's manufacturer unable to make a
shirt that would go the distance? Maybe. And maybe not: perhaps the
manufacturer _had_ the capability to make long-lasting shirts, but
chose instead to make substandard shirts in the hope that customers
would continually purchase replacement shirts. In short, it is
theoretically possible that a designer would intentionally make a
product _not_ as durable as the designer _could_ have made, and it is
possible that we would never know the designer's rationale for putting
out products of a quality less than what the designer was capable of
producing.

Furthermore, the claim that 'nature looks imperfect, and
therefore any designer of nature must have been imperfect' does not
even pretend to affect negatively this paper's contention that physics
was designed. Paley puts the matter well:
When we are inquiring simply after the existence of an
intelligent Creator, imperfection, inaccuracy, liability to
disorder, occasional irregularities, may subsist in a
considerable degree, without inducing any doubt into the
question; just as a watch may frequently go wrong, seldom perhaps
exactly right, may be faulty in some parts, defective in some,
without the smallest ground of suspicion from thence arising that
it was not a watch; [or] not made [by a watchmaker]....170

Hume can prate on as much as he likes about how the universe appears
faulty, or might appear faulty were we to compare it to a possible or
even real other universe,171 but he would not in the least be engaging
inferences to design.

Hume draws a parallel between 1) the possibility that "a stupid
mechanic" put together a ship using a design plan that had been the
end result of predecessors' "multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections,
deliberations, and controversies," and 2) the putting together of the
universe:
Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an
eternity, ere this system was struck out: Much labour lost:
Many fruitless trials made: And a slow, but continued
improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of
world-making. In such subjects, who can determine, where the
truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability, lies;
amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a
still greater number which may be imagined?172

Hume also argues that if the universe was designed, then it could have
been designed by more than one entity:
A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in
rearing a city...; Why may not several Deities combine in
contriving and framing a world?173

Hume bolsters his point with another illustration:
Where we see a body raised in a scale, we are sure that there is
in the opposite scale, however concealed from sight, some
counterposing weight equal to it: But it is still allowed to
doubt, whether that weight be an aggregate of several distinct
bodies, or one uniform united mass.174

In reply to Hume's remarks regarding the impossibility of "prov[ing]
the unity of the Deity,"175 I concede that this paper leaves alone the
possibilities that a) the design plan for physics was the end product
of numerous design attempts by numerous individual intelligences, and
b) the world of physics, i.e. our universe, was brought into existence
by one or more entities that simply copied the design plans of their
predecessors (with the proviso that if more than one, they
collaborated in some sense in the implementation-- otherwise physics
would probably be disunified, which it is not). Hume also states that
perhaps these entities were given to reproduction:
men are mortal, and renew their species by generation; and this
is common to all living creatures. .... Why must this
circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those
numerous and limited Deities?176

I am unaware of any data from physics or arguments appealing to
physics that would say either way whether or not the entity/ entities
reproduced. Accordingly, I will not here attempt to defeat the
possibility that the designer(s) were capable of reproduction.

14. Three pragmatists' attempted rebuttals to the inference that
physics was designed

American pragmatist philosopher Charles Peirce (1839-1914)
sensibly opines that
To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended
by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but
standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable
position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need
to be accounted for. That a pitched coin should sometimes turn
up heads and sometimes tails calls for no particular explanation;
but if it shows heads every time, we wish to know how this result
has been brought about. Law is _par excellence_ the thing that
wants a reason.177

Strangely, Peirce alleges that "the only possible way of accounting
for the laws of nature and for uniformity in general is to suppose
them results of evolution," the "principal of evolution requir[ing] no
extraneous cause."178 I interpret Peirce to be saying that the only
possible explanation for the laws of nature is the explanation that
they arose via non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes. As
far as I can tell, Peirce advances no arguments on behalf of this
allegation. In the chapter in which Peirce's remark came, there is
not even a hint of an acknowledgement that one alternative explanation
of the laws is that _intelligence_ is responsible for them. At least
John Dewey and William James noted the existence of such a
possibility.

From his un-argued-for belief that the laws are the result of
evolution, Peirce supposes that in the universe, there exists "a
certain swerving of the facts from any definite formula," even going
so far as to allege that "arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of
the universe the most manifest and characteristic," the latter
allegation explicitly contradicting his earlier acknowledgement of the
existence of "universal laws of nature.... and... uniformity in
general."179 (Unsurprisingly, utterly no data is presented on behalf
of the allegation that "arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of the
universe the most manifest and characteristic.")

As if granting the existence of uniformity and then saying
uniformity is explained by evolution, which is said to entail
_non_-uniformity were not enough, Peirce also baldly proclaims that
"law ought more than anything else to be supposed a result of
evolution."180 More than even the classic slight changes in finch
beak shape from year to year, laws of nature ought be supposed the
result of evolution?? No data and no arguments are presented on
behalf of Peirce's allegation.

There is, though, the curious remark that "philosophy requires
thoroughgoing evolutionism or none."181 It is possible that Peirce
starts with the preceding proposition, rejects the no-evolutionism
possibility, concludes that philosophy requires thoroughgoing
evolutionism, and then on the basis of this pure thought alone,
proclaims the laws of nature to be the result of evolution. Should
Peirce have followed such a line of thought, I for one would be most
unimpressed. Most physicists would be similarly unimpressed by
Peirce's blanket allegation that "when we attempt to verify any
physical law, we find our observations cannot be precisely satisfied
by it."182 For instance, when we test GTR, we find that its
predictions are precisely satisfied by observation to as well as we
can measure.183

The idea of attributing spatial and temporal regularity, i.e.
"uniformities," to use Peirce's word, to intelligent design is quite
ancient. Wrote Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (ca. 500 - ca. 428 B.C.),
....Mind is infinite and self-ruling, and is mixed with no Thing,
but is alone by itself. ....it is the finest of all Things, and
the purest, and has complete understanding of everything, and has
the greatest power. All things which have life... are ruled by
Mind. ....whatever things were then [i.e. were previously] in
existence that are not now, and all things that now exist and
whatever shall exist-- all were arranged by Mind, as also the
revolution now followed by the stars, the sun and moon....184

Greek philosopher Plato (428/7 - 348/7 B.C.) was of a similar opinion,
writing that "the gods' existence is an easy truth to explain [i.e. to
demonstrate]":
just look at the earth and the sun and the stars and the universe
in general; look at the wonderful procession of the seasons and
its articulation into years and months! ....among the arguments
we've already discussed, there are two in particular which
encourage belief in the gods.... argument [number 2] was based
on the systematic motion of the heavenly bodies and the other
objects under the control of reason, which is responsible for the
order in the universe.185

Hailed by atheist philosopher Paul Kurtz as "America's foremost
naturalistic humanist,"186 pragmatist philosopher John Dewey alleges
that the order ancient Greeks thought they saw in nature is not
inherent in nature. Dewey writes that ancient Greek "craftsmen,
architects, [and] sculptors... had taken raw material and converted it
into finished forms marked by symmetry and proportion." Dewey alleges
that in like manner, Greek thinkers took their ideas of harmony,
proportion, and symmetry and "aimed at constructing out of nature, as
observed, an artistic whole... to behold." In other words, in Dewey's
opinion, the Greeks took their ideas of symmetry etc. and
"superimposed upon phenomena" those properties, thereby deluding
themselves into thinking that the properties were "elicited from"
phenomena. In short, the Greeks thought symmetry etc. "was the form
and pattern intrinsically characteristic of things," while Dewey
thinks the Greeks "first formed in" their "designing mind[s]" the
ideas of symmetry etc., "and then imposed from without" those ideas on
the natural world.187 (Incidentally, Dewey's mention of the Greeks'
"designing mind[s]" and his later railing against regarding "the
properties of nature... as a work of divine art"188 suggest that his
'symmetry is imposed, not inherent' claim is an attempt to thwart
design inferences.)

Dewey's allegation is incorrect. Imagine, if you would, some
snowflakes.189 I ask you, the reader, is symmetry inherently present
in the snowflakes? Or are you, as Dewey alleges, imposing the
property of symmetry upon the flakes, much like a sculptor might take
an ordinary rock and sculpt a symmetrical 6-sided star shape? Imagine
now a time-lapse photograph of stars as they seem to travel around the
North Star.190 I ask, is symmetry inherently present in the
concentric circles traced out? Or are we, as Dewey alleges, imposing
the idea of symmetrical circles upon the paths?

The concentric circles traced out are a consequence of the
earth's rotation on its axis. The continual passage of the seasons
spring, summer, winter, and fall is a consequence of the earth's being
tilted on its axis of rotation, and the earth's continually going
around the sun. I ask you, is the continual procession of the four
seasons something inherently present in nature? Or are humans merely
taking the idea of spring summer winter fall spring summer winter
fall.... and imposing that idea upon nature?

Consider the passage of days, a consequence of different parts of
the earth facing the sun as the earth rotates on its axis. In most
parts of the earth, a period of sunlight is shortly followed by a
period of night. Is the continual procession of night day night day
night day.... something inherently present in nature? Or are we
humans merely taking the idea of alternating periods of light and dark
and imposing that idea upon nature? To ask such questions is to
answer them. Dewey's allegation that the ancient Greeks imposed
spatial and temporal order on nature is erroneous.

Dewey's analogy to sculptures can also be done with maps.
Philosopher Stephen Toulmin wrote in 1953 that
A child who had read that the equator was 'an imaginary line
drawn round the centre of the earth' might be struck by the
contours, parallels of latitude and the rest, which appear on
maps along with towns, mountains and rivers, and asked of them
whether _they_ existed.191

Toulmin reconstructed the child's question as the following:
...."Is there anything to show for contours-- anything visible on
the terrain, like the white lines on a tennis court? Or are they
only cartographical devices, having no geographical
counterparts?"192

Regarding "atoms,... electrons, fields and other theoretical entities
in the physical sciences," "the question 'Do they exist?' has in
practice the force of 'Is there anything to show for them, or are they
only theoretical fictions?'"193 One should add GTR and physicists'
other apparently-accurate theories generally to Toulmin's list. So,
is GTR a concoction of physicists bearing no correspondence to what is
observed to occur/ happen in the world, just as contours of latitude
and longitude are concoctions cartographers bearing no correspondence
to what is seen in world? Or does GTR accurately characterize events/
occurrences/ states of affairs seen in world? An answer to this
question will be explored as we discuss James's anti-realism.

Pragmatist philosopher William James (1842-1910) does as poor a
job as Peirce and Dewey in arguing against the reality of laws of
nature. As a prelude to his attack, James recounts how discoveries of
laws of nature used to be interpreted:
When the first mathematical, logical, and natural uniformities,
the first _laws_, were discovered, men were so carried away by
the clearness, beauty and simplification that resulted, that they
believed themselves to have deciphered authentically the eternal
thoughts of the Almighty. .... He... thought in conic sections,
squares and roots and ratios, and geometrized like Euclid. He
made Kepler's laws for the planets to follow; he made velocity
increase proportionally to the time in falling bodies; he made
the law of the sines for light to obey when refracted;.... He
thought the archetypes of all things, and devised their
variations; and when we rediscover any one of his wondrous
institutions, we seize his mind in its very literal intention.194

Following his sketch of the prior interpretation, James goes on the
attack:
But as the sciences have developed further, the notion has gained
ground that most, perhaps all, of our laws are only
approximations. The laws themselves, moreover, have grown so
numerous that there is no counting them; and so many rival
formulations are proposed in all the branches of science that
investigators have become accustomed to the notion that no theory
is absolutely a transcript of reality, but that any one of them
may from some point of view be useful. Their great use is to
summarize old facts and to lead to new ones. They are only a
man-made language, a conceptual shorthand, as some one calls
them, in which we write our reports of nature; and languages, as
is well known, tolerate much choice of expression and many
dialects. Thus human arbitrariness has driven divine necessity
from scientific logic.195

We critically look now at James's above attack, and his later remarks
about elegance.

Regarding James's statement that "as the sciences have developed
further, the notion has gained ground that most, perhaps all, of our
laws are only approximations," we might ask, 'Approximations to what?'
The answer: reality. I and most physicists would, I think, agree.
Erhard Scheibe puts it this way:
_This_ is something almost taken for granted: In spite of the
tremendous success of modern physics, it is safe to say... that
all our physical laws are, strictly speaking, false, i.e. their
truth is only approximate. .... Laws... are false in the sense
that they are capable of an _internal improvement_. .... The
ideal gas law, for instance, was replaced and improved by the van
der Waals equation, geometrical optics was improved and refined
by wave optics etc. ....fundamental theories can be corrected in
this sense, e.g. in the case of gravitation where Kepler's laws
were replaced by Newton's and these in turn were superseded by
Einstein's. And Einstein himself made desperate attempts to get
beyond his own theory.196

As noted by others, the "realist" view is that "truth is some sort of
correspondence to, or accurate representation of, reality,"197 and
that as physicists go about correcting old theories by replacing them
with theories that better describe the physical world, physicists get
closer and closer to a true description of the world, i.e. get better
and better "approximations to an ultimate reality."198 The
expectation is that one day physicists will "expose the _correct_
laws, to which our present textbook laws are a creditable but flawed
facsimile."199

So in reply to James, I would say yes, the laws that physicists
have formulated and accepted are only approximations, but as the
research continues, the fit between physicists' formulations and
reality gets better and better. Scheibe's mention of Kepler's laws
being replaced by Newton's laws which were in turn replaced by
Einstein's GTR (which is in turn expected to be replaced by a
unification of GTR and QM) is a perfect example of physicists'
discovery of successive formulations that successively describe
reality better and better. As the transition from the laws of Kepler
to those of Newton to those of Einstein has occurred, the formulations
have become more and more beautiful. The fact that the formulations
physicists currently have are only approximations of reality does
nothing to lessen the facts that they are beautiful, and that the
motions and structures they well-describe are themselves temporally
and spatially ordered, both the formulations and the world described
being shot-through with the appearance of having been intelligently
designed.

Regarding James's allegation that "the laws... have grown so
numerous that there is no counting them," if I recall reading
correctly, physicists' equations describing a very broad range of
phenomena could easily be placed together on a single sheet of paper.
Also, since James died in 1910, much progress has been made in finding
simpler and in unifying formulations of laws. So much for the
non-countable number of laws James believed to have equal
consideration in vying for being representative of reality.

We turn now to James's related belief that "so many rival
formulations are proposed in all the branches of science that
investigators have become accustomed to the notion that no theory is
absolutely a transcript of reality." James seems to forget that
physicists' proposed formulations can usually be _tested_ to see how
well they match up with reality. Physicists test rival proposed
formulations, and if they all conflict with observation, it is back to
the drawing board. If any formulations agree with observation, that
is great, and physicists think that they have discovered another piece
of the final puzzle, or at least a close approximation of a piece in
the puzzle of description of reality. It is not the case that
physicists say, 'Look at all these proposed formulations, we cannot
determine which if any correspond with reality, and so, we do not
think that any one of them accurately or approximately-accurately
describes reality.'

James continues his attack by saying scientists are used to the
idea that "any one of them [i.e. of the 'many rival formulations'] may
from some point of view be useful. Their great use is to summarize
old facts and to lead to new ones." James here, and in the preceding
remark about no theory being a transcript of reality, advocates a
position called "instrumentalism"200/"positivism." Davies relates
that under the instrumentalist view, "it is not possible to pronounce
a particular theory 'right' or 'wrong', merely that it is [more]
useful or less useful, a useful theory being one which connects a wide
range of phenomena in a single descriptive scheme to high
accuracy."201 The only physicist I have read saying he holds to
instrumentalism is Hawking, who often speaks as if he is actually a
realist. For instance, as Craig notes, "it is evident that he
[Hawking] construes his [NBP] theory to be, not merely an engaging
mathematical model, but a realistic description of the universe."202
Weinberg relates that most physicists are realists:
Physicists do of course carry around with them a working
philosophy. For most of us, it is a rough-and-ready realism, a
belief in the objective reality of the ingredients of our
scientific theories. But this has been learned through the
experience of scientific research and rarely from the teachings
of philosophers.203

Polkinghorne concurs with Weinberg, writing,
realism is a philosophical position based on the actual
experience of the scientific community, rather than on a claimed
abstract necessity that things had to be this way. This basis in
experience is why it is the position adopted, consciously or
unconsciously, by the overwhelming majority of working
scientists, despite the criticisms leveled at it by some of their
philosophical colleagues.204

Returning to James, he continues to advance the instrumentalist
position when alleging that "They [the 'many rival formulations'] are
only a man-made language, a conceptual shorthand,... in which we write
our reports of nature; and languages, as is well-known, tolerate much
choice of expression and many dialects." The vast majority of
physicists would vociferously disagree with these allegations. To
cite one physicist, Feynman (a poor speller) once stated that the
spelling of words "is just a human convention-- it has nothing to do
with anything _real,_ anything from nature. A word can be spelled
just as well a different way."205

While granting that "social factors can affect the rate of
scientific discovery," Polkinghorne disagrees with the claim that "the
form of... discovery, when it comes, is socially moulded," explaining,
"Once people got round to doing the experiments, the answer was
unambiguous." Polkinghorne proceeds to sketch the opposing view
before explaining the basis for most scientists' rejection of that
opposing view:
It is suggested that the invisible college of scientists reaches
certain conclusions, less because nature actually takes this
particular form, but because the college has unconsciously
decided to describe nature in this way. Most scientists reject
such a strong role for social forces in their discipline. The
physical world does not seem to them to be so plastic in their
encounter with it that they can twist its patterns into shapes
that please their intellectual fancy. On the contrary, nature
often resists our prior expectations and the eventual discovery,
when it comes, is frequently very surprising, beyond our powers
to have anticipated beforehand. (The discovery of quantum theory
was an extreme example of this kind.)206

Because scientific research "is full of surprises as physical reality
resists our prior expectations," the feel of research is "the feel of
discovery."207 In short, it is physicists' _experience_ with the
world they study that leads them to conclude that they are making
discoveries about the way things are, and are not imposing
preconceptions of the way things ought to be on a malleable physical
world.

In addition to the attack discussed above, James later seems to
suggest that physicists accept certain theories because physicists are
partial to elegance:
sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible
with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for
subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are
already partial; we follow "elegance" or "economy."208

While it is true that physicists are partial toward theories having
elegance, that partiality has as its basis the fact that elegant
theories often turn out to match up with observation. Beauty in
physicists' formulations indicates, _as judged by physicists'
experience_, the strong possibility of corresponding to what is
observed.209 Polkinghorne puts the matter this way:
Non-empirical criteria, such as economy and naturalness [i.e.,
and a lack of ad hoc additions], are important discriminators
between competing suggestions and in practice they a[r]e found to
lead to unique proposals. The satisfaction of these criteria
involves personal judgment but the choice is not a mere matter of
whimsical taste, for the experience of scientists is that the
theories selected in this way prove themselves by their long-term
fertility, their power to explain phenomena going way beyond the
scope of those whose consideration gave rise to the idea in the
first place.210

Polkinghorne proceeds to provide an example of the guiding light of
beauty:
the physicist Paul Dirac formulated an equation which succeeded
in combining quantum theory with special relativity in a
consistent fashion. An immediate, but unanticipated, bonus from
the discovery of this equation was that it was found to imply
that the magnetic interactions of electrons were twice what one
would naively have expected them to be. This was already known
to be the case but no one previously had been able to understand
why it was so. A few years later, more thinking about the same
equation led Dirac to the fundamental discovery of the existence
of antimatter. Such continuing and uncovenanted fruitfulness is
very persuasive that one is on to something of real
significance.211

Feynman emphasizes that even if a formulation is beautiful, should it
not check out with observation, it is not accepted:
In general, we look for a new law by the following process.
First, we guess.... No! Don't laugh-- it's really true. Then
we compute the consequences of the guess to see if this law that
we guessed is right-- what it would imply. Then we compare those
computation results to nature-- or, we say, to experiment, or
experience-- we compare it directly with observation to see if it
works. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that
simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make any
difference how beautiful the guess is, it doesn't make any
difference how smart you are-- who made the guess, or what his
name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's
all there is to it.212

In short, when James seems to suggest that acceptance of certain
formulations has been based solely on the degree of beauty present, he
neglects the facts that
1) given past experience, beauty has proven to be a dependable
indicator of proposed formulations' verisimilitude to what is observed
in the world, and
2) even if a theory seems beautiful, if it is found to not check out
with observation, it is not accepted.

So much for James's conclusion that "human arbitrariness"
regarding the so-called laws of nature "has driven divine necessity
from scientific logic."213 To illustrate just how wrong James is,
compare his remark
When the first mathematical, logical, and natural uniformities,
the first _laws,_ were discovered, men were so carried away by
the clearness, beauty and simplification that resulted, that they
believed themselves to have deciphered authentically the eternal
thoughts of the Almighty.

and this remark by Feynman, a strong atheist throughout his life:
I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to
myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of
the world. It's difficult to describe because it's an emotion.
It's analogous to the feeling one has in religion that has to do
with a god that controls everything in the whole universe:
there's a generality aspect that you feel when you think about
how things that appear so different and behave so differently are
all run "behind the scenes" by the same organization, the same
physical laws. It's an appreciation of the mathematical beauty
of nature, of how she works inside; a realization that the
phenomena we see result from the complexity of the inner workings
between atoms; a feeling of how dramatic and wonderful it is.
It's a feeling of awe-- of scientific awe-- which I felt could be
communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had this
emotion. It could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling
about the glories of the universe.214

While Feynman has awe for a physical world that began to exist, the
deist has awe for the creator(s) of the physical world. While Feynman
says "the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the
imagination of man,"215 deists say the imagination of the creator(s)
of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of all
twentieth-century physicists combined.

15. Cartwright's anti-realism regarding the laws of physics

Philosophy professor at the University of California at San Diego
and Director of the LSE Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social
Science, Nancy Cartwright characterizes herself as a "positivist...,
opposed... to metaphysics."216 Positivism disparages metaphysics and
insists on a "scientific approach" to the world.217 Weinberg notes
that positivism "demands not only that science must ultimately test
its theories against observation"-- which Weinberg has no problem
with-- "but [also] that every aspect of our theories must at some
point refer to observable quantities."218 In short, the key aspect of
positivism is its allegation that it is "inadmissible for our theories
to deal with elements that could not in principle ever be
observed."219

To illustrate, positivism wants only talk of observables, yet as
noted by philosopher George Gale, theoretical physicists employ
"purely mathematical concepts [that] have no observable referents; for
example, 'plus', 'sum' and 'differential' are not the proper names of
any empirically observable physical object or event."220 It is no
wonder that Einstein told Werner Heisenberg, "Perhaps I did use such
[a] philosophy [of using only observable quantities] earlier, and also
wrote it, but it is nonsense all the same."221 Since in the early
1900s atoms could not be observed with any then-imaginable technique,
positivists opposed atomic theory.222 Today's theory of quarks
opposes positivism, for as Weinberg observes,
The idea that quarks and gluons can in principle never be
observed in isolation has become part of the accepted wisdom of
modern elementary particle physics, but it does not stop us from
describing neutrons and protons and mesons as composed of quarks.
I cannot imagine anything that Ernst Mach [an early positivist]
would like less.223

In short, positivism's observation requirement goes directly against
the work product of theoretical physicists.

Oddly enough, though a positivist when it comes to the laws of
nature, Cartwright has no problem with unobservable entities whose
existence is predicted or required by theory (examples of which are
electrons, positrons, ions, and quarks), writing, "I have no quarrel
with theoretical entities."224 And yet she does simultaneously have a
problem with theoretical laws:
Although I claim that a successful causal explanation gives good
reason to believe in the theoretical entities and theoretical
properties it postulates, I have repeatedly said that I do not
believe in theoretical laws.225

Thus, Cartwright is a positivist, i.e. instrumentalist, i.e.
anti-realist when it comes to physicists' proposed laws of nature, and
a realist when it comes to physicists' proposed theories' predicted or
required theoretical entities.

In a _Synthese_ article, Paul Needham "suggest[s]" that
Cartwright's thesis "that the laws of physics 'lie'.... does not sit
happily with" "her realistic thesis about the existence of theoretical
entities."226 High energy physicist P.P. Allport spends some time
arguing against Cartwright's part-realist, part-positivist dichotomy.
After quoting Cartwright saying "I believe in theoretical entities.
But not in theoretical laws," Allport rhetorically asks, "But is the
entity/law distinction really so clear?"227 Mentioning several
possible choices for examination in support of an answer of 'no,'
Allport settles upon something called "virtual particles": "But
probably the reader feels virtual particles are a paradigm case of
theoretical fictions."228 He proceeds to explain with some technical
remarks "why to me this does not seem obvious,"229 concluding,
The above [technical discussion] illustrates the difficulties
involved in distinguishing theoretical fictions from objects
possibly worthy of ontological commitment and... the difficulties
in cleanly separating features of a theory which are to be
designated laws from those which seem to postulates entities.
....it seems, then, that the brand of scientific realism that
supports theoretical entities but rejects theoretical laws faces
difficulties not only in clearly establishing that the postulated
entities necessarily have greater plausibility but even in
clearly distinguishing the aspects of the theory which can be
taken as postulating entities from those postulating laws.230

In short, Cartwright's half-realist, half-positivist viewpoint appears
to be internally at odds with itself.

Cartwright alleges that in applying laws to reality, we are
forced to employ a series of approximations; thus, we started with
falsehood and got closer and closer to reality; thus, the laws are
lies.231 Application of laws to reality is typically held by
Cartwright to be application to production of technological
devices.232 In speaking of Cartwright's arguing from technology,
Allport notes,
Cartwright has concentrated much on fields where failure to fit
the experimental findings with theory does not reflect on the
theory because the situation is too complex to allow unambiguous
predictions to be drawn and approximation techniques of unknown
accuracy and assumptions of dubious validity must be employed.
These are just not the conditions in which to challenge the
empirical adequacy of the theory.233

Allport concludes that he
cannot accept Cartwright's insistence on proof by technology.
The truth or falsity of physical laws is best investigated
through the careful design of experiments aimed specifically at
addressing the issue. With such experiments the... laws can
indeed be evaluated empirically.234

Cartwright's allegation that physicists' formulations are
falsehoods might have an exception, judging by the following remark:
I think we should believe only in laws for which we have
evidence. Maxwell _showed_ that electromagnetism and light could
be treated together under the same theoretical umbrella by
producing Maxwell's theory, which gives marvelously successful
accounts of both.235

If Cartwright is willing to "believe... in laws for which we have
evidence," e.g. apparently Maxwell's theory, perhaps she will believe
in other laws for which we have evidence, including Einstein's theory
of general relativity.

A possible obstacle to her acceptance of the view that certain
theories do in fact correspond to reality may perhaps be found in this
comment:
I think that in the concept of law there is a little too much of
God. ....in the end the concept of a law does not make sense
without the supposition of a law-giver.236

Since Cartwright is "opposed... to metaphysics," and since she thinks
the idea of a law implies the idea of a law-giver, specifically God--
an entity considered 'metaphysical' if there ever was one-- perhaps
Cartwright was driven to being an anti-realist when it comes to the
laws of physics. This speculative scenario could perhaps make sense
of the fact that Cartwright is an anti-realist regarding laws, while a
realist regarding theories' theoretical entities: to Cartwright, the
concept of laws implies a metaphysical law-giver, while the
theoretical entities make no such (distasteful? threatening?
irritating?) implication.

Cartwright draws a distinction between "natural religion," which
attempts "to establish the properties of the deity... from the
phenomena of the natural world," and revealed religion,237 which
appeals not to the world as it source, but holy books. She then draws
a parallel between the natural versus revealed theology distinction
and a natural versus revealed _science_ distinction, and "urge[s] the
project of _natural_ science: guarantee nothing _a priori_, and
gather our beliefs about laws, if we must have them at all, from the
appearance of things."238 As seen above, according to Weinberg and
Polkinghorne, physicists are realists not because philosophers
provided "revealed science" in telling physicists realism is the best
or proper way to approach the world, but rather, physicists are
realists because of natural science, i.e. because of their encounters/
experience with the world they study. Perhaps it is the case that
philosopher Cartwright would become a realist regarding the laws of
nature were she to take up for several years experimental physics.

Cartwright states that were she to "gathe[r] my beliefs from the
world as I experience it," she would conclude _not_ that "nature [is]
governed by a few simple, all-embracing laws,"239 but rather that
we live in a dappled world, a world rich in different things,
with different natures, behaving in different ways. The laws
that describe this world are a patchwork, not a pyramid. They do
not take after the simple, elegant and abstract structure of a
system of axioms and theorems. Rather they look like-- and
steadfastly stick to looking like-- science as we know it:
apportioned into disciplines, apparently arbitrarily grown up;
governing different sets of properties at different levels of
abstraction; pockets of great precision, large parcels of
qualitative maxims resisting precise formulation; erratic
overlaps; here and there, once in a while, corners that line up,
but mostly ragged edges; and always the cover of law nowhere
firmly attached to the jumbled world of material things.240

On another occasion, Cartwright put the matter this way:
A... reason why I do not believe in these unified laws [i.e. in
unified laws' alleged existence] is methodological. .... We
best see what nature is like when we look at our knowledge of it.
.... How unified is our knowledge? Look at any catalogue for a
science or engineering school. The curriculum is divided into
tiny, separate subjects that irk the interdisciplinist. Our
knowledge of nature, nature as we best see it, is highly
compartmentalized. Why think nature itself is unified?241

Philosopher Cartwright is of course entitled to form her own opinion
about whether or not there is such a thing as unified laws of physics
on the basis of her experience with the world and appeals to
engineering catalogues. A dissenting opinion comes from another
philosopher, Manfred Stockler (University of Bremen), who writes,
Mainly by considering the structure of the theories (and not only
the applications in special models) people like me are
strengthened in their belief in the... unity of physics.242

16. Conclusion

In the face of astronomer Edwin Hubble's discovery that the
universe is expanding, Einstein rejected belief in an infinitely old,
static universe, and embraced his general relativity equations'
prediction of a not-static universe. Extrapolating the universe's
current expansion backward in time, the universe must have had some
sort of a beginning. GTR predicts that looking back in time, the
universe gets smaller and smaller, eventually going to the big bang
singularity. If GTR's prediction is correct, then spacetime and
matter-energy began to exist out of absolutely nothing in the big
bang.

Advanced as alternatives to the big bang model, the steady state
and oscillating universe models fell dead years ago, in part because
of the 1965-70 singularity theorems. Efforts at avoiding the big bang
singularity then shifted to the early universe in the hope that a
quantum-mechanical formulation of gravity would be found that would
abolish the singularity. Whether quantum cosmologists eventually
produce a quantum-mechanical formulation of gravity, only time will
tell. Whether that formulation will abolish the singularity, only
time will tell, but as things stand, there are _no_ real-time
solutions to GTR that avoid a big bang singularity. In the meantime,
many quantum cosmology proposals have been made that purport to
abolish the big bang singularity, yet all these proposals abolish
_time_ in the drive to avoid the singularity. In their final
equations, "t" has been replaced with "(-1)^(1/2)t," thereby turning
the dimension of time into a spatial dimension, which is nonsensical
and without justification. The Hartle-Hawking NBP constitutes a prime
example of these time-becomes-space proposals.

If, as appears likely, there was a big bang singularity, then the
matter-energy and spacetime of which we are aware began to exist in an
origination out of nothing. Given such an origination out of nothing,
it is likely that the causal chain(s) precipitating the big bang was
(were) not-material in nature. The appearance to theoretical
physicists of and the beginning-to-exist of physics' laws strongly
suggests that an intelligent entity or entities, working alone or as
some sort of committee, designed the laws of physics. This
intelligence(s) could conceivably have been eternal-to-its-past, and
so need not have had a beginning to its (their) existence. Hume's
objections to design inferences miss their mark, and the anti-realism
regarding the laws of physics of Peirce, Dewey, James, and Cartwright
is inconsistent with the experience of theoretical and experimental
physicists. In short, if there was a big bang singularity, then it is
likely that an at-least deistic-type of entity (or entities) designed
and brought into existence the physical world.

17. Appendix on oscillatory model

Following the death of the steady state model, those wishing to
avoid, as Hawking put it, "the idea that time has a beginning,
probably because it smacks of divine intervention,"243 turned to the
notion of an oscillating universe, even though it went against the
second law. Said science writer John Gribbin,
The biggest problem with the big bang theory of the origin of the
universe is philosophical-- perhaps even theological-- what was
there before the bang? This problem alone was sufficient to give
a great initial impetus to the Steady State theory; but with that
theory now sadly in conflict with the observations, the best way
round this initial difficulty is provided by a model in which the
universe expands..., collapses back again, and repeats the cycle
indefinitely.244

Where the ellipsis is, Gribbin says "from a singularity." Properly
stated, the oscillatory model does not envision going to a universal
singularity. In fact, there has not been discovered a rebound
mechanism that must exist if the material is to avoid going to a
singularity from which it would never reemerge, just as matter does
not reemerge out of a black hole, the center of which is a
singularity.245 At this point one can almost hear Gribbin saying
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." It must be admitted
that the failure to find a rebound mechanism does not mean that such
does not exist. However, by the same token, just because a real
gremlin has not yet been discovered does not prove that such a gremlin
does not exist; also, just because a cow that can jump over the moon
has not yet been discovered, that does not prove that such a cow does
not exist. The point, of course, is that if one were to take "Absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence" regarding the absence of a
bouncing mechanism and generalize it, one entertains acceptance of all
manner of claims regardless of their supporting evidence or lack
thereof.

Moreover, according to the singularity theorems, the universe's
present expansion _could not_ have been the result of a bounce of a
preceding collapsing phase. In the words of Penrose, "the singularity
theorems really showed that that [a reversal from collapse to the
present expansion] could not happen unless one had a gross violation
of energy conditions."246 Of course, if one really wanted to, one
could choose to believe in the possibility of there occurring that
gross violation. Hawking recalls that the singularity theorems'
prediction of the big bang singularity "led to the abandonment of
attempts (mainly by the Russians) to argue that there was a previous
contracting phase and a nonsingular bounce into expansion."247 Should
one doubt GTR's validity near predicted singularities, quantum
cosmology offers little hope for the validity of the oscillatory
model, for according to Isham, "This view [of 'an endless series of
big bangs and big crunches'] seems to be incompatible with the
spacetime pictures of all existing theories of the quantum origination
of the universe."248

Besides a mechanism that would cause a crunching universe to
bounce to expansion, the oscillatory model also needs a mechanism for
periodically bringing about massive reductions in entropy. Without
such reductions, the oscillatory model's postulation of an infinite
number of bounces in the past is prohibited by the second law of
thermodynamics, which says that over time, closed systems go to
increasing levels of entropy, i.e. disorder, i.e., ordered forms of
energy will over time become increasingly disordered. I.D. Novikov of
Moscow's Space Research Institute writes that provided we make the
"assumption that the [universe's] entropy does not decrease when the
Universe" approaches near big crunch singularities, then "in every
cycle" of expansion and contraction, "the entropy increases by some
finite amount. .... After an infinite number of cycles the entropy
would become infinitely large."249 Novikov continues, "The
observational data, however, are not compatible with such a
conclusion. Therefore, an everlasting oscillating Universe is not
possible under the assumptions made [only one assumption was
mentioned]."250 In short, "the second law of thermodynamics...
forbids the oscillatory model."251 Contrary to the expectations of
the model, there has not been an infinite number of preceding cycles
of expansion and contraction.

A possible escape route from this conclusion is to follow Thomas
Gold of steady-state fame in speculating that reversals in entropy
commence at the end of expansion phases.252 Hawking briefly flirted
with such an idea before rejecting it:
At first, I believed that disorder would decrease when the
[NBP's] universe recollapsed. .... This would mean that the
contracting phase would be like the time reverse of the expanding
phase. People in the contracting phase would live their lives
backward: they would die before they were born and get younger
as the universe contracted. .... I had made a mistake:...
disorder would in fact continue to increase during the
contraction.253

Another possible escape route from entropy's denial of life to
the oscillatory model is to speculate that the universe's entropy
tremendously decreases during the periods of intense crunching.254
Writing in the 1984 "Thermodynamics and the end of a closed Universe"
_Nature_ 308: 319-22, S.A. Bludman has this to say about the
possibility of a bounce during a future extreme crunching:
Some authors speculate about new gravitational effects in the
Planck era allowing a closed [here meaning ultimately-reversing]
universe to bounce repeatedly. We [Bludman] would argue that in
any reasonable gravitational theory incorporating the equivalence
and Birkhoff principles, the dynamical contraction of a
homogeneous isotropic universe will still be governed by an
equation like equation (1) so that our Universe cannot bounce in
the future.

(Equation 1 was a certain "Friedman equation... for the rate of
expansion or contraction of a homogeneous isotropic
universe."[Bludman, 319] A universe possessing isotropy appears the
same in whichever direction one looks. Hubble once noted that
supposing "spatial isotropy and spatial homogeneity" is the
cosmologist's "way of saying that the universe must be pretty much
alike everywhere and in all directions."255) If, as Bludman suggests,
a future bounce during a period of intense crunching is prohibited,
then it is probable that a bounce in the past during a Planck-type era
would similarly be prohibited.

Bludman continues his remarks by observing that
ultimately-reversing Friedman universes "were once called oscillatory
universes. We now appreciate that, because of the huge entropy
generated in our Universe, far from oscillating, a closed [i.e.,
ultimately-reversing] universe can only go through one cycle of
expansion and contraction. Whether [spatially] closed or [spatially]
open [i.e., Whether space has a positive curvature (think of a globe's
curvature, where parallel lines converge), or has negative curvature
(think of a saddle's curvature, where parallel lines diverge)],
[whether the universe is ultimately] reversing or [is] monotonically
expanding, the severely irreversible phase transitions transpiring
give the Universe a definite beginning, middle and end."256

I do not know what to make of the later article section in which
Bludman concludes that "if the universe is closed and (as seems
reasonable) began with low entropy, it started non-singularly."257
For one thing, it is unclear whether this "closed" means
having-a-positive-spatial-curvature or ultimately-reversing:
Bludman's first version of this remark defined "closed" in the
positive-spatial-curvature sense, yet he later said whether the
universe is ever-expanding or ultimately-reversing determines whether
the singular or non-singular version is correct.258 Furthermore,
Bludman said that given a "closed" (whatever that is) and
low-entropy-initially Universe, "we might envisage" that this universe
bounces, which seems to go against his earlier remark, "Whether
[spatially] closed or [spatially] open, [ultimately] reversing or
monotonically expanding, the severely irreversible phase transitions
transpiring give the Universe a definite beginning, middle and end."
Incidentally, it would be interesting to hear Bludman's explanation
for how the universe came to have such an ordered initial state, for
as Davies notes, "The mystery of how the universe got into its
low-entropy [initial] state has exercised the imagination of several
generations of physicists and cosmologists, many of whom have been
reluctant to appeal to divine selection."259

Even supposing bounces can occur, as a result of entropic
processes the oscillating system would grow larger and larger during
each successive phase of expansion, to the point at which its
expanding phase is so very long that it ends in "heat death," with
everywhere being the same extremely cold temperature.260 Looking into
the past, the cycles become smaller and smaller, pointing toward some
sort of beginning for the system: since "successive cycles expand to
bigger and bigger radii," Gribbin concedes that "running the
calculation backwards would suggest that the bounce itself started in
some infinitesimal hiccup some large number of cycles ago, so we still
have an origin problem but in a different form."261 He hoped that a
"more sophisticated version" of the oscillatory model would eventually
"tackle" this problem.262 Along similar lines, Morris notes that
because of the limited number of past bounces, "the universe must have
had a beginning at a finite time in the past. We are thus led back to
the 'problem' of creation out of nothing that the oscillating universe
was designed to avoid in the first place."263 It may be replied that
the cycles _forever_ grow smaller and smaller, but it strains
believability to say that a mechanism would catch the universe in time
and rebound it once the universe became exceedingly tiny as we look
into the system's past.

18. Acknowledgements

I thank Roye Templeton, philosophy instructor at the University
of Maryland Baltimore County, for directing me to look at matters such
as those covered in the above essay, and thank John Titchener and
Stephen Braude, philosophy professors at UMBC, for comments on earlier
versions of the essay. I also thank everybody in the newsgroups,
particularly talk.origins, whose criticisms resulted in changes to
portions of the essay.

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20. Notes

Emphasis is theirs.

1. Stafford, 18. Griffiths is a winner of the Heinemann Prize for
his mathematical physics work.
2. In a science fiction magazine, cited in Thorpe, 638.
3. David Ford, "The Discovery That the Universe Is Expanding:
Developments in Theoretical and Observational Cosmology,
1915-1930" <http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=383405627>.
4. Butterfield and Isham, 1-2.
5. Butterfield and Isham, 54.
6. Salmon, 176.
7. Monod, xiii.
8. Davies (1992), 48.
9. Barrow (1994), 38-9; Davies (1992), 48-9.
10. Ross (1993), 67; Davies (1992), 49.
11. Thorne (1994), 462-3; Hawking (1988), 49-50.
12. Davies (1992), 49.
13. Hawking affirms that time had a beginning, as shown by the
singularity theorems: Hawking (1988), pages 9 & 34 & 46 & 50 &
115 & 122 & 139 & 173; Hawking (1993), pages 46 & 75 & 89 & 91 &
167 & 172.
14. 4 May 1994 interview in Heeren, 130.
15. Barrow, 113.
16. Davies (1984), chapter 12.
17. Barrow and Tipler (1986), 442.
18. Byline of Maddox, 425; Boslough (1992), 56, 223.
19. Weinberg (1977), 154.
20. Flew, 241.
21. Smith (1991), 48.
22. Heeren, 90-4.
23. Morris (1982), 135-6.
24. Earman (1995), 56.
25. Earman, 56.
26. Earman, 56.
27. Earman, 223.
28. Earman, 224.
29. Earman, 223.
30. Thorne, 453.
31. Earman, 223.
32. Earman, 224.
33. Hawking (1988), 133.
34. Davies (1992), 50.
35. Earman, 223.
36. Narliker (19 June 1993), 28.
37. Narliker, The Structure of the Universe (1977), 136-7. Cited in
his "The Concepts of 'Beginning' and 'Creation' in Cosmology"
Philosophy of Science 59: 361-71 (1992).
38. Barrow & Tipler, 443.
39. Hawking (1988), 133.
40. Hawking (1988), 61.
41. Earman, 224.
42. Earman, 224.
43. Earman, 224.
44. Earman, 57, 28.
45. Hawking (1989), 67.
46. Earman, 28.
47. Earman, 28.
48. Earman, 57.
49. Barrow, 113.
50. Hawking (1989), 67; Butterfield and Isham, 52.
51. Butterfield and Isham, 52-3.
52. Earman, 57. See also Bekenstein 970-1.
53. Bekenstein, 971.
54. Barrow & Silk (1983), 38.
55. Davies (1992), 49; Hawking (1988), 50; Ross (1993), 67-9; Ross
(1991), 110.
56. Hawking (1988), 136.
57. Hawking (1988), 133.
58. Hawking (1988), 134; Herbert (1985), 115.
59. Dyson (1979), 56.
60. Hawking (1988), 134.
61. Hawking (1988), 135.
62. Halliwell, 82.
63. Isham (1996), 56.
64. Hawking (1988), 135.
65. Hawking (1988), 139.
66. Hawking (1988), 134.
67. Hawking (1989), 68.
68. Hawking (1987), 639; Deltete and Guy, 189-90.
69. Hawking (1988), 139.
70. Hawking and Penrose, 86.
71. Smolin (1997), 82.
72. Smolin, 82.
73. Thorne, 476.
74. Deltete & Guy, 191-2.
75. Davies (1995), 191.
76. Davies (1995), 191.
77. Butterfield & Isham, 25.
78. Butterfield & Isham, 25.
79. Davies (1995), 191.
80. Davies (1995), 191.
81. Baggott (1992), 32.
82. Baggott, 33.
83. Baggott, 33.
84. Baggott, 106.
85. Goldstein, 42.
86. Davies (1995), 191.
87. Davies (1995), 191.
88. Davies (1995), 192.
89. Isham (1996), 74.
90. Isham (1988), 378.
91. Ross (1993), 14, with the account of Ross's replacing deism with
Christianity in the chapter "My Skeptical Inquiry."
92. Cited in Craig (1994), 80.
93. Craig (1994), 80-1.
94. Craig (1994), 92.
95. The second law of thermodynamics supports the position that the
universe is not infinitely old: If the universe were infinitely
old, it would have been running down in accordance with the
second law for an infinite amount of time and thus would have run
down by now. Since it has not yet suffered heat death, meaning
that everywhere is the same cold temperature, a fraction of a
degree above absolute 0, it is not infinitely old. (Should the
universe have enough mass to reverse the current expansion, it
will not suffer heat death, but collapse to die a fiery death.)
To summarize this modus tollens argument form, if infinitely old,
then rundown; not rundown; thus, not infinitely old. At this
time I hesitate, however, to offer this reasoning in support of
the argument's requirement that expanding spacetime began to
exist out of nothing. Speaking of the second law, I do not know
what to make of Bekenstein's paper with its claimed demonstration
that extrapolating all the way to the big bang singularity is
"thermodynamically unacceptable," and have not seen this claim
presented anywhere else.
96. Hume, Part V, paragraph 11.
97. Weinberg (1993), 149.
98. Heeren, 266-7.
99. Davies (1984), 223.
100. Einstein, 39.
101. Einstein, 40.
102. Einstein, 49.
103. Cited in Dukas and Hoffman, 66.
104. Davies (2 June 1983), 638.
105. Davies (1986), 167.
106. Davies (1986), 167.
107. Davies (1984), 224.
108. Davies (1984), 236.
109. Davies (1984), 236.
110. Davies (1984), 236.
111. Davies (1984), 237.
112. Davies (1984), 237.
113. Davies (2 June 1983), 638.
114. Polkinghorne, 25.
115. Polkinghorne, 26.
116. Polkinghorne, 25.
117. Behe, 212, 214.
118. David Ford, "Problems with the Theory of Natural Selection"
<http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=373057131>; "Cancer and
Mutation" <http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=359381287>,
<http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=360056263>,
<http://www.deja.com/=yahoo/getdoc.xp?AN=359381286>.
119. Dawkins, 141.
120. The Judeo-Christian God doing things before the beginning of
time: Psalm 90:2, John 17:5 and 17:24, Ephesians 1:4-5, 2
Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2, 1 Peter 1:20. Only 2 Timothy 1:9 and
Titus 1:2 say explicitly that time had a beginning. The other
verses only speak of a "before" to the existence of the "world,"
which, assuming "world" equals our "the whole shebang," merely
imply that time had a beginning. The Judeo-Christian God did
things "before" the beginning of time, and "doing things" means
causes and effects are said to be occurring.
121. Ross (1993), 70.
122. Hawking (1988), 147.
123. Ross (1993), 75. Even if oscillation does occur, the number of
bounces is finite, so the dimension of time "before" the first
bounce then constitutes the second time dimension.
124. Sagan, 287.
125. Smith (spring 1998), 36.
126. Hume, Part VIII, 8.
127. Dawkins, xii.
128. Dawkins, 5.
129. Dawkins, 1.
130. Dawkins, ix.
131. Dawkins, 6.
132. Dawkins, 6.
133. Ghiselin, 120.
134. Weinberg (1993), 168.
135. Hume, Part VIII, 5 and 8.
136. In Baird, 456.
137. Hume, Part VIII, 2.
138. Hume, Part VIII, 6.
139. Hume, Part VIII, 2.
140. Pearl, 277.
141. Monod, 5, 4.
142. Monod, 5, 106, 6, 7.
143. Hume, Part VIII, 9.
144. Monod, 142.
145. Oparin, 59-60.
146. Shapiro, 128.
147. Cartwright (1978), 182.
148. Cartwright (1978), 183.
149. Ross (1993).
150. Hume, Part VII, 3.
151. Paley, 421.
152. Pearl, 282.
153. Hume, Part II, 5.
154. Paley, 425.
155. Hume, Part II, 24.
156. Hume, Part II, 24.
157. Hume, Part II, 7.
158. Hume, Part II, 7.
159. Hume, Part II, 8.
160. John Stewart Mill, Theism (NY, 1957), 29, cited in Pearl, 271.
161. Pearl, 276.
162. Pearl, 276.
163. Hume, Part II, 19.
164. Hume, Part II, 18.
165. Pearl, 274.
166. Hume, Part V, 5.
167. Hume, Part V, 5.
168. Hume, Part V, 6.
169. Hume, Part V, 6.
170. Paley, 428.
171. Hume, Part V, 12.
172. Hume, Part V, 7.
173. Hume, Part V, 8.
174. Hume, Part V, 9.
175. Hume, Part V, 8.
176. Hume, Part V, 10.
177. Peirce, 148.
178. Peirce, 148.
179. Peirce, 148.
180. Peirce, 148.
181. Peirce, 148.
182. Peirce, 148.
183. Hugh Ross, "Observational Verifications of General Relativity"
<http://www.reasons.org/resources/papers/relativityobs.html>.
184. in Baird, ed., 39.
185. Plate, The Laws, around 10.886, and shortly before 12.967.
186. Kurtz, 18.
187. Dewey, 90-1.
188. Dewey, 100.
189. Two links to colorized snowflake pictures are at
<http://www.clis.com/savvynews/snow/default5.htm>.
190. Star trails in northern skies
<http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980912.html>.
191. Toulmin, 135.
192. Toulmin, 135.
193. Toulmin, 136.
194. James, 146-7.
195. James, 147.
196. Scheibe, 44.
197. Rorty, 281.
198. Davies (1983), 219.
199. Davies (1983), 219.
200. Bothamley.
201. Davies 1983), 219.
202. Craig (1990), 480.
203. Weinberg (1993), 167.
204. Polkinghorne (1998), 17.
205. Feynman (1988), 30.
206. Polkinghorne (1998), 12-13.
207. Polkinghorne (1998), 13.
208. James, 168.
209. Polkinghorne (1998), 72-3.
210. Polkinghorne (1998), 16.
211. Polkinghorne (1998), 16-17.
212. in Sykes, 143.
213. James, 147.
214. Feynman (1985), 237-8.
215. Feynman (1988), 242, 243.
216. Cartwright (1997), 161;
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/staff/Cartwright.htm>.
217. Bothamley.
218. Weinberg (1993), 174-5.
219. Weinberg (1993), 175.
220. Gale, 492, 493.
221. Weinberg (1993), 180, citing a 1974 Heisenberg lecture, who
quotes Einstein from a 1926 conversation with him.
222. Weinberg (1993), 176.
223. Weinberg (1993), 184.
224. Cartwright (1980), 76.
225. Cartwright (1983), 8.
226. Needham, 96.
227. Allport, 269; Allport cites from Cartwright (1983), 99.
228. Allport, 270.
229. Allport, 270.
230. Allport, 271, 272.
231. Cartwright (1983), 14-15; Cartwright & Nordby, 274.
232. Allport, 285.
233. Allport, 261.
234. Allport, 262-3.
235. Cartwright (1983), 12.
236. Cartwright (1993), 299.
237. Cartwright (1993), 291.
238. Cartwright (1993), 292, 293.
239. Cartwright (1993), 292.
240. Cartwright (1998), 23.
241. Cartwright (1983), 13.
242. Stockler, 36;
<http://alf.zfn.uni-bremen.de/~modus/stoeckler.html>.
243. Hawking (1988), 46.
244. Gribbin, 15.
245. Davies (1994), 142-3; Heeren, 88; Thorne, 465.
246. Penrose's interview in Lightman & Brawer (1990), 424.
247. Hawking and Penrose, 19-20.
248. Isham (1996), 80.
249. Novikov (1983), 160.
250. Novikov, 160.
251. Novikov, 159.
252. Morris, 137.
253. Hawking (1988), 150.
254. Novikov, 160.
255. Cited in Clark, 213.
256. Bludman, 322.
257. Bludman, 322.
258. See "(2) If the Universe" and "practically impossible to"
sentences.
259. Davies (1983), 168.
260. Davies (1994), 145.
261. Gribbin (1976), 16.
262. Gribbin (1976), 16.
263. Morris, 136-7.