Which Universe Do You Live In?

Abstract

There are a dozen such fine-tuning issues that confound cosmologists. The expansion rate of the universe, the ratio of matter to antimatter, the specific values of the weak and strong nuclear forces, the mass ratios between electrons, protons, and neutrons, the list goes on. If any of these variables were ever so slightly different, then none of the complexity we see around or inside us would be possible. In other words, life and consciousness could not have evolved. Where biologists see random drift and natural selection in the messy story of life, physicists see elegant improbabilities in the ordered and intelligible nature of the cosmos.

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POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
Science and Religion in
the Twenty-First Century
William Grassie
A Metanexus Imprint

Copyright © 2010 by William Grassie.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010901676
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4500-3849-2
Softcover 978-1-4500-3848-5
Ebook 978-1-4500-3850-8
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Contents
1. Epiphany on the New Jersey Turnpike ......................................................... 11
Religion by Other Means ...................................................................... 15
2. Ten Reasons for the Constructive Engagement of Science and Religion .... 17
3. Metanexus: The Very Idea ........................................................................... 23
4. Beyond Intelligent Design, Scientifi c Debates, and Cultural Wars ............. 32
5. Which Universe Do You Live In? ................................................................ 36
6. Toward a Constructive Theology of Evolution ............................................ 39
7. Universalism and Particularism: Judaism in an Age of Science .................. 60
8. Resources and Problems in Whitehead’s Process Metaphysics ...................72
Peace by Other Means .......................................................................... 85
9. Sleepless in Tehran ....................................................................................... 87
10. Universal Reason: Science, Religion, and the Foundations of
Civil Societies ............................................................................................ 100
11. Science, Religion, and the Bomb ............................................................... 108
12. Engaged Contemplation for a Troubled World .......................................... 117
13. Leeches on the Road to Enlightenment ..................................................... 133
14. Nationalism, Terrorism, and Religion: A Biohistorical Approach ............. 142
15. Entangled Narratives: Competing Visions of the Good Lie ...................... 158
Evolution by Other Means ................................................................. 185
16. Biocultural Evolution in the Twenty-fi rst Century ..................................... 187
17. Useless Arithmetic and Inconvenient Truths ............................................. 207
18. Rereading Economics: New Economic Metaphors for Evolution ............. 218
19. Post-Darwinism: The New Synthesis .........................................................231
20. Eating Well Together: Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto .... 245
21. In the Heavens As It Is on Earth: Astrobiology and the Human Prospect .... 259

22. A Thought Experiment: Envisioning a Civilization Recovery Plan .......... 271
23. Millennialism at the Singularity: The Limits of Ray Kurzweil’s
Exponential Logic ...................................................................................... 280
Postscript .............................................................................................. 301
24. All My Relations: The Challenge Ahead ................................................... 303
Index ................................................................................................................. 315

36
5. Which Universe Do You Live In?
This essay was originally published on Metanexus, 2005.07.30.
http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/8367/Default.aspx
The success of modern cosmology in understanding the history and structure of
the universe has led to a profound crisis in the field, which has significance for the
dialogue between science and religion. The topography of the universe discovered
by astronomers, physicists, and cosmologists is extraordinary. Our sun, at a distance
of ninety-three million miles, is but a small star in a vast galaxy of some hundred
billion stars. This galaxy is but one of a hundred billion other galaxies stretching
back some thirteen billion years at the speed of light into an infinitely dense and
infinitely hot originating mystery. One thing this New Cosmology teaches us is
that whatever humanity in the past has believed about God is way too small. Most
cosmologists, astronomers, and physicists, however, are not interested in doing
God-talk; but those of us who do talk-the-talk should certainly be paying attention
to the current cosmos conversation.
The situation is such. Imagine that you walk into a classroom and notice that
there is a pencil standing on its point on the table. In all those years in elementary
school, no matter how hard you tried, you could not make a pencil stand up on its
point. But here one day in graduate school, you walked into an empty classroom,
and there is this pencil standing on its point. So you call in the physics department
to help study this strange occurrence.
One possibility is that there is some strange, invisible force that causes this
pencil to stand on its point. Gravity aside, physicists are averse to postulating
strange, invisible forces, so perhaps this strange pencil is just a weird, fluky
event, however improbable. Physicists, however, don’t tend to go for weird, fluky
improbabilities.
Such is the case in contemporary cosmology in what is referred to as the
fine-tuning problem. There are a dozen such fine-tuning issues that confound
cosmologists. The expansion rate of the universe, the ratio of matter to antimatter,
the specific values of the weak and strong nuclear forces, the mass ratios between

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5. WHICH UNIVERSE DO YOU LIVE IN?
electrons, protons, and neutrons, the list goes on. If any of these variables were
ever so slightly different, then none of the complexity we see around or inside us
would be possible. In other words, life and consciousness could not have evolved.
Where biologists see random drift and natural selection in the messy story of life,
physicists see elegant improbabilities in the ordered and intelligible nature of the
cosmos.
Some extend the weird role of the observer in fixing the uncertainty in quantum
events to apply to the universe as a whole. Perhaps the universe as a whole is a
kind of quantum event, which requires an observer with something like human
consciousness to observe it. The distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson reflects
“The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more
evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
This interpretation is referred to as the anthropic principle. It comes in weak and
strong flavors. This interpretation implies a kind of future necessity of our just-so
universe, such that present day consciousness determines past actualities. Physicists,
however, are also averse to invisible necessities in which future possibilities
determine past realities.
At this point, the normal graduate student trying to f igure out why the pencil
is standing on its point would probably be happy to reconsider the possibility of
an invisible force. Our team of physicists and cosmologists are very clever with
mathematics, which allows them not only to discover realities, but also imagine
possibilities which may not be real at all. Such is the case with multiverse theory,
the big new fad in contemporary cosmology. The theory goes something like this:
We just happen to live in a universe in which the pencil stands on point. There are
an infinite number of parallel universes, in which the pencil realizes every other
potential state by falling down. While there are sophisticated mathematical models
that might predict the existence of multiple universes, as there have long been for
multiple dimensions, it is not clear that we could ever have empirical knowledge
of these other universes.
Far be I, uninitiated and dimly lit, to weigh in on these complex cosmological
considerations. I do not understand the math or the physics. “Since our theories
are so far ahead of experimental capabilities, we are forced to use mathematics
as our eyes,” notes Brian Greene, a Columbia University string theorist and
author of a popular text, The Elegant Universe. Greene continues “That’s why
we follow it [mathematics] where it takes us even if we can’t see where we’re
going.”
In the past, mathematics has brought us too many stunning new insights about
the universe. There may be compelling reasons to suppose our universe really is
one piece of a vast multiverse or many dimensions of “strings” (in which case,
the theists will need to infinitely revise the scale of God’s exuberant creativity).
On the other hand, multiverse theory may be the twenty-first century equivalent
of counting how many angels will fit on the head of a pin. In the latter case, all

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POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS
of these sophisticated mathematical contortions are merely a way of avoiding
postulating an invisible, intelligent, and conscious force underlying the f ine-tuned
structures of the universe.