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Post by unkleE on May 28, 2009 1:45:17 GMT
It is more or less understood, by atheist and theist alike, that any "god of the gaps" argument should be avoided, because the gaps tend to close and squeeze God out. But is this the whole story?
It seems to me there are two sorts of gaps:
1. Gaps within a science, which further discoveries may well fill. e.g. the appearance of the first life forms on earth - there may well be a case today (or yesterday, at any rate) for this requiring God's intervention, but by tomorrow there may well be a perfectly good scientific explanation (or at last one plausible enough for scientists to hold onto it).
2. Gaps at the boundaries of human knowledge. e.g. universal fine-tuning - any scientific solution (or plausible theory), such as the multiverse, seems to fill the gap only by creating a new gap "further out", or at a deeper level. We have discussed this several times here.
I think there is a fundamental difference between the two types of gaps, and will remain so unless we think that science can answer ultimate questions about causes, such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and "Is there any purpose to human life?"
If this is so, then retreating from an argument because an atheist scornfully derides it as "god of the gaps" seems to me to be conceding too much. It may be best to leave the more obviously problematic god of the gaps arguments out of our apologetics (i.e. avoid the arguments of the ID movement), but I suggest there is a case for:
1. As christians, base our understanding on whatever knowledge we currently have, and change it if our knowledge changes. Thus I might give thanks to God for my sick brother recovering, even though I don't know for certain whether God intervened, or it was medical science, or just the way things worked out. Equally, I might retain an open mind about abiogenesis or the multiverse, and may think that God still may have a role there, until and if science comes up with a believable explanation - and even then I may still think God is involved, just at a more subtle level.
2. In apologetics, surely we can take the alleged god of the gaps arguments which are strongest for our case (e.g. fine-tuning) and simply say that this is the current state of knowledge, this is what we'll base our views on, we're not going to die wondering, and if and when science fills the gap, we'll still ask the god questions of the newest theories.
What do other think? Does that seem dangerous and obscurantist?
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syzygy
Master of the Arts
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Post by syzygy on May 28, 2009 4:20:07 GMT
I have reservations about a "god of the gaps" even at the boundaries of science. I've expressed some of them elsewhere. Here are some more thoughts:
* An intelligible universe is a better witness to the kind of creator I believe in than one that doesn't make sense. Science has at least a huge part of the responsibility for making sense of the universe. It seems to me the proper attitude of the Christian is to wish science the best of luck in answering all science questions. I'm not sure this includes questions about purpose, but I think it does include fine tuning.
* If science is forced to resort to the "god hypothesis" for the beginning of the universe, the best it can come up with is a Deist god. A god who freely creates out of love and a universe totally dependent on this god for its continued existence and everything it does--in short, God, worthy of being adored--is not in this picture. (God would be more interventionist than Deist if evolution turned out to require the god hypothesis, but this god would still be far from Christianity's.) Alternatively, this hypothetical god might be, as Dawkins proposes, just an incredibly complex being, whose existence still requires an explanation.
* If I understand Aquinas right, his "proofs" for God were not based on the supposed impossibility of an infinite temporal series of causes. In fact, at one point he states that the universe could have (contrary to fact, according to his belief) always existed. The series of causes that could not go on to infinity was a series all acting at the same time, like boxes stacked on top of boxes. For an example that I imagine coming from medieval science, iron is caused by movements of the planet Mars, which is caused by an angel, which is caused by . . . . Eventually, the series has to come to an end, or rather a beginning. Notice that in this series the first cause doesn't just operate once and then its work is done. It must keep on working or all the effects collapse.
* I think the question that opens the way to God is not "How did everything begin?" or even "Why is there something rather than nothing?" but "What does it mean to be?"
I have to admit my last two points are extremely obscure.
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Post by Al Moritz on May 28, 2009 6:30:25 GMT
It is more or less understood, by atheist and theist alike, that any "god of the gaps" argument should be avoided, because the gaps tend to close and squeeze God out. But is this the whole story? It seems to me there are two sorts of gaps: 1. Gaps within a science, which further discoveries may well fill. e.g. the appearance of the first life forms on earth - there may well be a case today (or yesterday, at any rate) for this requiring God's intervention, but by tomorrow there may well be a perfectly good scientific explanation (or at last one plausible enough for scientists to hold onto it). 2. Gaps at the boundaries of human knowledge. e.g. universal fine-tuning - any scientific solution (or plausible theory), such as the multiverse, seems to fill the gap only by creating a new gap "further out", or at a deeper level. We have discussed this several times here. I think there is a fundamental difference between the two types of gaps, and will remain so unless we think that science can answer ultimate questions about causes, such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and "Is there any purpose to human life?"I agree. However, I would call # 1 and 2: 1. Gaps relating to what science cannot yet explain vs. 2. Gaps relating to what science in principle cannot explain. Fine-tuning belongs to the latter category indeed, since the alternatives fall outside science: a) the multiverse cannot in principle be observed (due to the limits imposed by the particle horizon*) of the universe, outside which it would lie), and even if we concede the possible observational indication of the existence of some multiverse from indirect evidence (such as imprints on the cosmic microwave background map), the existence of a multiverse fulfilling the requirements needed to explain the fine-tuning, i.e. sufficient random variation of the physical parameters between the different universe domains, could only be established by, impossible, direct observation. b) even if a random multiverse generator could be proven (impossible, as pointed out), this would not explain the fine-tuning since it requires a deeper level of design indeed. Only a carefully designed generator could produce a true random distribution of parameters; its existence by chance is almost just as little explanatory as the existence of a suitable single universe "by chance". c) then there is the argument of an alleged necessity of the laws of nature given by an (extremely unlikely) unique solution to physical parameters within a unified system of general relativity and quantum mechanics -- there is no fine-tuning since the laws of nature could not have been any other way. Yet even if such a unique solution could be proven, science could never answer the question "why this system and not any other?". *) the maximum distance from which particles (i.e. also particles carrying information) could have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. It represents the portion of the universe which we could have conceivably observed at the present day. I agree. Given the promise of origin-of-life research especially since the last decade, it can be said confidently that abiogenesis will be solved, and I would even be disappointed if God had not set up the laws of nature in such a way that they would make the emergence of life unavoidable under suitable conditions (microbiological life probably in many places in the universe, intelligent life probably in very few places, since for the latter many protective conditions need to be met). Abiogenesis is, in my view, simply an off-limit topic for apologetics. Our case for fine-tuning is even stronger than that, given that science will never be able to conclusively explain it (see above). I think you are in principle on the right track. |
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Post by Al Moritz on May 28, 2009 6:40:47 GMT
I have reservations about a "god of the gaps" even at the boundaries of science. I've expressed some of them elsewhere. Here are some more thoughts: * An intelligible universe is a better witness to the kind of creator I believe in than one that doesn't make sense. Science has at least a huge part of the responsibility for making sense of the universe. It seems to me the proper attitude of the Christian is to wish science the best of luck in answering all science questions. I'm not sure this includes questions about purpose, but I think it does include fine tuning. It does not include fine-tuning, see above. Science cannot be forced to resort to the "God hypothesis", not even a deistic one, since the God question is a matter in the domain of philosophy, not science. Yes, it is important to make the distinction between a deistic God and the theistic God as sustainer of the universe (I am not quite sure about your particular explanation though). |
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syzygy
Master of the Arts
Posts: 103
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Post by syzygy on May 28, 2009 12:28:36 GMT
I don't know how to make the cute boxes but . . .
Quote: Science cannot be forced to resort to the "God hypothesis", not even a deistic one, since the God question is a matter in the domain of philosophy, not science.
I have to think about the idea that the "God hypothesis" is philosophy, not science. I'm not sure what makes it philosophy since the distinctions between the two disciplines have not been carefully drawn. I'm aware that some philosophers, notably Kant, use something like hypothesizing as a method, but I'm not sure I approve of it. It seems to lead to skepticism regarding whatever "thing-in-itself" is hypothesized.
Quote: even if a random multiverse generator could be proven (impossible, as pointed out), this would not explain the fine-tuning since it requires a deeper level of design indeed. Only a carefully designed generator could produce a true random distribution of parameters.
This one puzzles me. How do you justify this requirement for design? If there were an infinite multiverse, that is, an infinite population of universes, I can imagine that pockets of order would necessarily occur but it seems to me that the whole would still be random without some organizing principle. Traditionally infinity and intelligibility are at odds, but intelligibility is precisely what is at stake.
In my medieval fantasy on a series of causes -- iron, movement of Mars, angel . . . God -- I forgot to mention that there is no conservation of momentum. I've tried to imagine how contemporary science could come up with a similar series of simultaneously operating causes. All I've managed is something like this:
- ordinary world of houses and mountains, caused by
- systems of electrons, protons, and neutrons, caused by
- quarks . . . strings . . . quantum fluctuations . . .
-
Even if this isn't a completely illegitimate use of the word "cause," I think that today we're still missing the medieval conviction of the contingency of all phenomena.
I suggested that what it means to be might be the key question. It's a philosophical, not a scientific question. However, the scientific pursuit, especially in light of its seemingly endless character, is may be a possible motive (among others) for raising the question. If existence means nothing more than hanging out in space and time, then the existence of something like the Christian God is ruled out, but so is modern cosmology, for which space and time are dimensions that have to be uncurled for anything to exist in them. It may be that science points out a way to speculations about a concept of being that can apply to creatures and God. Lots of philosophical problems "hang out" here, like: Are we speaking univocally, equivocally, or analogically when we make words, even a word like "being" apply "transcendentally"?
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Post by unkleE on May 28, 2009 22:11:02 GMT
Syzygy,
Thanks for replies.
Two ways. (1) Press the quote button above the post you want to quote, and the whole post will open in a new box with quote tags around it. If you don't want to quote the whole text, cut out the bits you don't need. (2) Enclose the text you have cut and pasted as a quote, press the second last button above, and it will magically appear within quote tags. Who says there's no God? : ) Only problem is that it adds too many line spaces around the quoted text, so yu have to eliminate some of them.
I'm not sure I agree with this totally. I agree that science cannot answer questions about ultimate purpose (though it can answer many immediate questions of purpose, such as "why does this ant behave in this way?"). But science explains everything in terms of causes and processes, hence in terms of something else. So unless it can find a circular explanation or we accept an infinite regress, no matter how much science explains, there must always be some basic cause unexplained. e.g. In conventional cosmology the big bang is the start and explanation of everything else, and therefore cannot be explained itself. If the multiverse is used to explain the big bang, then it becomes the unexplained basis, and so on.
So it seems to me that there will always be a "gap" at the start of the scientific explanation which is not only a why "gap" but also a cause "gap".
I don't have a problem with this. There are many evidences for God, and the cosmological arguments don't have to carry the whole burden. If they establish a God exists, then that is enough. The moral argument, the arguments from reason and experience and the historical evidence for Jesus can take us the next steps.
Yes, Aquinas's five ways are very different to some arguments used today, such as the Kalam. I think we should use both.
It's a good question, but I think many people need a little more assurance from evidence that God might really exist before embarking on it and before trusting the answers they get.
I think science (or, more likely, people who talk about science) needs to recognise this limitation. A philosopher can talk about the difference between a scientific (causal) explanation and a personal explanation, and historians can try to determine not just what happened, but why it happened. But modern internet atheists try to argue that "Goddidit" is meaningless because it doesn't tell us anything new scientifically (ignoring that it tells us other things).
Thanks and best wishes.
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Post by unkleE on May 29, 2009 0:17:03 GMT
Al, I think we are mostly in agreement, but I want to question two matters. This sounds like it is an improvement on my suggestion, because it seems more objective and defined. But on further thought, I'm not so sure. You seem to be more confident than I am about the definition of "what science in principle cannot explain". I understand what you say about "the limits imposed by the particle horizon" and current understanding is probably correct. But science has a way of progressing, and showing things we thought we knew are not so clear after all - Einstein's correction of Newtonian mechanics is an obvious example - and quantum physics and cosmology may yet have many strange surprises for us. So I feel wary of being certain about this distinction. Therefore, I can't help feeling that neither formulation totally avoids "god of the gaps". Gaps and trying to close them are an essential part of science, and all science is to a degree provisional (although known with a higher degree of precision than we can know most other things). So if we can live with our science being uncertain in some ways, then I can live with my beliefs being a little uncertain also. As a side issue, I think that the quest for "certainty" and systematic knowledge is one of the errors theology and faith tend to fall into. We define theological positions - Calvinism, Arminianism, evangelicalism, premillenialism, etc - and somehow pretend we understand God and can correct other people, even condemn them. I think a little more humility, flexibility and circumspection might be better. We can know enough without thinking we know things which are often just speculation. I agree with you. Even if you were not right about the science, it is more expedient not to argue this point. But while I agree with you about apologetics, I don't see why I have to be as rigorous personally. I am by nature a little rebellious and anarchic, and a little sceptical of the claims of scientists just as much as theologians. And I am specially sceptical of evolutionary scientists when they have such strong metaphysical axes to grind. Obviously I trust you, and people like Frances Collins and John Polkinghorne, so I accept what you tell me about science. But I also can't help feeling that naturalistic scientists will be inclined to go just a little bit further than might be justified on the basis of pure science. For example (and I think I have said this before), some evolutionary explanations of some human of animal behaviours do not seem to me to be proven, or perhaps even provable. Rather, if one assumes natural selection is the only or main operating principle, then one might develop an explanation which fits, but that is not the same as proving it is true. And if, as I understand, many details of evolution are mainly established through feasibility studies, it is quite possible that new feasibility studies might establish an alternative explanation, and even possible that the thing "established" is feasible, though not actually true. Alvin Plantinga analysed this in an interesting manner (as you'd expect), and suggested five different claims of evolution: First, there is the claim that the earth is very old, perhaps some 4.5 billion years old.
Second, there is the claim that life has progressed from relatively simple to relatively complex forms of life.
Third, there is the Common Ancestry Thesis: that life originated at only one place on earth, all subsequent life being related by descent to those original living creatures-the claim that, as Stephen Gould puts it, there is a "tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy."
Fourth, there is the claim that there is a (naturalistic) explanation of this development of life from simple to complex forms .... the evolutionary mechanism would be natural selection operating on random genetic mutation.
Finally, there is the claim that life itself developed from non-living matter without any special creative activity of God but just by virtue of the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry.
Now Plantinga argued that the earlier claims can be regarded as established, but questioned some of the latter claims. You would argue that all are, or soon will be, established. But the main value of Plantinga's analysis (which is now almost 2 decades old) is that it points out that we can have different degrees of commitment to different aspects of evolution. We could even add some further claims, eventually getting to some philosophical claims, and somewhere along the way even you would part company with the claims of naturalistic scientists. You would say that it was when science ended and metaphysics starts, but I am suggesting (tentatively) that that point is blurred and not easily distinguished. I hope that doesn't sound too "Luddite" for you, but I am a questioning and doubting kind of person. But both my points are possibly quite minor, and as I said at the start, we are probably agreed about the main points. Thanks again, I always appreciate your input. |
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Post by knowingthomas on May 29, 2009 1:17:20 GMT
I think science (or, more likely, people who talk about science) needs to recognise this limitation. A philosopher can talk about the difference between a scientific (causal) explanation and a personal explanation, and historians can try to determine not just what happened, but why it happened. But modern internet atheists try to argue that "Goddidit" is meaningless because it doesn't tell us anything new scientifically (ignoring that it tells us other things). But arguments regarding fine tuning and the Kalam argument are still really good arguments, right? Reminds me of a negative review of Stenger's book I looked at recently: What I get out of this is this: Essentially, science cannot be used to find out things about God. Furthermore, since God must live outside of time, space and logic, we can't come to any conclusions about His nature supposedly. |
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Post by humphreyclarke on May 29, 2009 8:05:35 GMT
Finally, there is the claim that life itself developed from non-living matter without any special creative activity of God but just by virtue of the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry. You can rephrase this pretty nicely as: Finally, there is the claim that life itself developed from non-living matter by virtue of the extraordinary laws of physics and chemistry which are a special creative act of God. the evolutionary mechanism would be natural selection operating on random genetic mutation. Natural selection is part of the picture, but I think we increasingly have to take into account things like symbiogenesis, Kauffman's self organisation, relational laws and developmental constraints. |
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Post by unkleE on May 29, 2009 11:00:07 GMT
But arguments regarding fine tuning and the Kalam argument are still really good arguments, right? I think traditional christianity has always said that our own brains, whether through philosophy, science or experience, are insufficient to know God unaided. Revelation and the operation of God's Spirit are also needed. Some arguments (if successful) establish the existence of a God with certain characteristics, some others. Together they establish quite a lot. Look at the way William Lane Craig uses a suite of arguments in his public debates to build a strong case. So I think the Kalam and fine-tuning achieve a lot, because I find them very persuasive in demonstrating that a God almost certainly exists, even if that God "only" has a small subset of characteristics of the christian God. Other proofs establish other characteristics, though possibly none of them have the power of these two. So all play their part. I don't see the logic here. (1) Who says God lives outside logic? (2) A God outside space and time may nevertheless act within space and time, and even create space and time in the first place. All the arguments simply claim that certain effects within space-time are best explained by the working of God. The limitation of science to this space-time is a self imposed one - a useful boundary provided we don't think science is the only way to know things, but a significant disadvantage if we do think that. |
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Post by Al Moritz on May 30, 2009 10:29:05 GMT
I have to think about the idea that the "God hypothesis" is philosophy, not science. I'm not sure what makes it philosophy since the distinctions between the two disciplines have not been carefully drawn. I'm aware that some philosophers, notably Kant, use something like hypothesizing as a method, but I'm not sure I approve of it. It seems to lead to skepticism regarding whatever "thing-in-itself" is hypothesized. The natural sciences, that which we usually mean when we use the term "science" and to which also cosmology belongs, are bound by methodological naturalism. This means that science always looks for natural causes, period, but it does not make an a priori claim that the supernatural does not exist (i.e. philosophical naturalism). In a 1998 statement titled Teaching about Evolution and Science, www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309063647&page=58the American National Academy of Sciences said: "At the root of the apparent conflict between some religions and evolution is a misunderstanding of the critical difference between religious and scientific ways of knowing. Religions and science answer different questions about the world…Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral." There are two multiverse scenarios, the “many domain universe” and the "many-universes multiverse". A multiverse that is taken seriously by physicists is typically not really “many universes”, but a single “many domain universe”, in which all the domains are governed, deep down, by a single set of fundamental laws (what we call our universe would be just one of those domains). If this universe could be such that the laws of physics would be able to vary almost continuously from one domain to another, this in itself would make this universe a very special place. Stephen Barr concludes in his book Modern Physics and Acient Faith that “having laws that lead to the existence of domains of a sufficiently rich variety to make life inevitable would _itself_ qualify as an anthropic coincidence. There seems to be no escape. Every way of explaining anthropic coincidences scientifically involves assuming the universe has some sort of very special characteristics that can be thought of as constituting in themselves another set of anthropic coincidences” (p. 154). Robin Collins makes similar points in, for example: home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/muv2.htm(Scroll down about 2/5 to the heading "The Many-Universe Generator Needs Design".) With the mutiverse you mentioned you appear to mean the "many-universes multiverse", where all the universes are really completely disconnected and there is no overarching generating and organizing principle; the infinity of universes just is. Yet this "many-universes multiverse", which seems to be popular in certain philosophies (but again is not taken seriously by physicists), is hardly tenable without the idea that everything that might be possible is, in fact, actual. However, if that were the case, then there would also be a universe where fairies, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny actually do exist! This makes this kind of multiverse philosophically absurd, in my view. |
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Post by Al Moritz on May 30, 2009 11:36:07 GMT
Al, I think we are mostly in agreement, but I want to question two matters. This sounds like it is an improvement on my suggestion, because it seems more objective and defined. But on further thought, I'm not so sure. You seem to be more confident than I am about the definition of "what science in principle cannot explain". I understand what you say about "the limits imposed by the particle horizon" and current understanding is probably correct. But science has a way of progressing, and showing things we thought we knew are not so clear after all - Einstein's correction of Newtonian mechanics is an obvious example - and quantum physics and cosmology may yet have many strange surprises for us. So I feel wary of being certain about this distinction. Well, if a surprise would be that we can, in the future, narrow the particle horizon by causing particles to travel to us at a speed much greater than the speed of light -- in a sort of forced acceleration towards us by "fishing net" as it were -- then you would have a point. But I firmly would put such a scenario in the science fiction category. Science simply cannot overcome physical limits. Just like it has not been able to build a perpetuum mobile (impossible due to the second law of thermodynamics), it can also not transcend physical laws in matters of observation. So yes, science has a way of progressing in ways that are totally unexpected, but in the entire history of science no physical laws have ever been transcended. I think this is crucial in the argument to what science can and cannot do. |
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syzygy
Master of the Arts
Posts: 103
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Post by syzygy on May 31, 2009 13:18:29 GMT
Thanks, unklee and Al, for your replies. There are many evidences for God, and the cosmological arguments don't have to carry the whole burden. If they establish a God exists, then that is enough. The moral argument, the arguments from reason and experience and the historical evidence for Jesus can take us the next steps. I agree. I guess I’m just emphasizing the size of the gap between the cosmological god and the God of a religious tradition. In my mind it’s the difference between a being alongside others and Being itself. I have trouble arguing against the cogency of the cosmological arguments, esp. in the Collins article. If they are successful, perhaps it’s in pointing to mystery rather than to some particular being. Perhaps science also gives us a good reason to believe that the mystery is not absurdity. With the mutiverse you mentioned you appear to mean the "many-universes multiverse", where all the universes are really completely disconnected and there is no overarching generating and organizing principle; the infinity of universes just is. Yet this "many-universes multiverse", which seems to be popular in certain philosophies (but again is not taken seriously by physicists), is hardly tenable without the idea that everything that might be possible is, in fact, actual. However, if that were the case, then there would also be a universe where fairies, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny actually do exist! This makes this kind of multiverse philosophically absurd, in my view. You’re right. I was thinking of the many-universes multiverse. I have more trouble making the same argument with the many-regions multiverse. And thanks for the reference to the Collins article. I don’t see the problem, though with Santa Claus and Easter Bunny. Here’s a quote from Collins and my response: “According to Lewis (1986), every possible world actually exists parallel to our own. Thus, for instance, there exists a reality parallel to our own in which I am president of the United States and a reality in which objects can travel faster than the speed of light. Dream up a possible scenario, and it exists in some parallel reality, according to Lewis.” Comment: “I” has no univocal meaning across universes, anymore than from one person to another. If a being with my exact genetic make-up were president in another universe, that still wouldn’t be me. The same goes for proper names, including names of imaginary beings like Santa Claus. There could be a universe where there existed an extremely generous gentleman who once a year flew through the sky with a sleighful of toys pulled by animals that looked a lot like reindeer. But it wouldn’t be our Santa Claus (even if he went by the name of “Santa Claus”). It wouldn’t be Christmas, either. |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jun 1, 2009 9:21:53 GMT
Comment: “I” has no univocal meaning across universes, anymore than from one person to another. If a being with my exact genetic make-up were president in another universe, that still wouldn’t be me. The same goes for proper names, including names of imaginary beings like Santa Claus. There could be a universe where there existed an extremely generous gentleman who once a year flew through the sky with a sleighful of toys pulled by animals that looked a lot like reindeer. But it wouldn’t be our Santa Claus (even if he went by the name of “Santa Claus”). It wouldn’t be Christmas, either. Well, I think that's the least of our worries; after all, given the size of this universe and the power of evolution it isn't totally inconceivable that fairies exist in this universe somewhere. The main problem is that, as Paul Davies points out in 'The Goldilocks Enigma' (Cosmic Jackpot in the U.S), in a multiverse that is infinite, or close to infinite, a large proportion of universes are going to be simulated; in fact the simulated universes are going to begin to outnumber the naturally occurring simulated ones. Mathematicians have proved that a universal computing machine can create an artificial world that is itself capable of simulating its own world, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, simulations nest inside simulations inside simulations ... Because fake worlds can outnumber real ones without restriction, the "real" multiverse would inevitably spawn a vastly greater number of virtual multiverses. Indeed, there would be a limitless tower of virtual multiverses, leaving the "real" one swamped in a sea of fakes.
So the bottom line is this. Once we go far enough down the multiverse route, all bets are off. Reality goes into the melting pot, and there is no reason to believe we are living in anything but a Matrix-style simulation. Science is then reduced to a charade, because the simulators of our world - whoever or whatever they are - can create any pseudo-laws they please, and keep changing them. There will also be Gods in the multiverse, and I suppose if these Gods combined into one entity there could be one single omnipotent, omniscient ruler of the multiverse which could have emerged by natural causes. Basically pretty much anything is possible and thus metaphysical naturalism needs the silliest idea ever conceived in order to get around the fine tuning problem. |
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