To those who believe in cosmic intelligent design, how would a random universe differ from our own?

Great Debates
1

In one of the atheist poll threads, this was posted:

I’ve heard a similar sentiment expressed by believers in some sort of cosmic power before.

What is it that you feel about the universe that’s jaw droppingly complex? It’s actually pretty simple - there are only a few fundamental forces, matter interacts as you’d expect it to based on some simple principles of chemistry and physics, and the universe pretty much looks like what you’d expect from a random input put into a system with a basic set of rules. Matter gets scattered around, galaxies form, solar systems form, there are some rocky planets, some gaseous planets… it’s all pretty homogenous when you think about it.

Let’s assume for a moment that our universe was intelligently designed to be how it was. How would a hypothetically random universe, governered only by the fundamental laws of physics, with no designer of any sort, differ from our own? What properties would it have that our universe doesn’t? How would you tell which universe was random and which was designed?

When you say “the odds seem so small” - what odds are you referring to? That the particular state of the universe - with the particular galaxies and stars and planets exist as they do? That the laws of physics exist as they do?

If you are pre-supposing that the layout of the universe is somehow unique or special, then any universe would seem that way. In other words, it’s like a lottery with a million numbers - you could say “wow, the number 327,933 came up. There’s a million to one odds!” but there’s a million to one odds against any particular number.

If you mean that it seems that the universe is custom designed for humans to exist, you’re getting the cause and effect wrong. We came to be because we’re suitable for the universe that exists, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. If some fundamental aspect of chemistry was different that prevented self-replicating life, then we wouldn’t be here to ponder it. Or if the physics were such that a species came to be as some sort of intelligent jellyfish blobs floating through space, those jellyfish would assume the universe was custom designed for them too.

It’s like a puddle forming in a hole in the ground on the side of the road. The water says to itself “wow, this hole fits me exactly! I must be special - this hole must’ve been designed for me” when the reality is, of course, that the water simply filled the hole that was already there.

2

That’s brilliant. Did you think of it yourself? :wink:

The argument that the universe is too complex to be an “accident” is rather silly. As the turtles all the way down argument goes, how did the complex creator come into existence?

3

I didn’t come up with that myself, but I don’t remember where I got it. Did you come up with it, or is it a common argument from someone famous? Not sure what the smiley implies.

4

Puddle Thinking.

5

I think that’s a silly objection, and not just because the water in a puddle has no ability to think.

In fact, that’s part of the problem with the puddle analogy. Let’s suppose that life in the universe is akin to “living” water somehow forming within a puddle. The cosmic intelligent design argument points out – rightfully so – that certain cosmically precise conditions are required in order for life to form. To couch it within this strained puddle analogy, all puddles may be capable of holding water, just as any random universe would contain something. Not all puddles would contain living water though, just as not all universes would contain the proper conditions for the formation of life.

That’s why I think that this puddle analogy is misguided. It assumes that some form of life must surely have come about in any random universe – a claim that is unsupported and which completely misses the point of the cosmic design argument.

6

Well, then look at the floating space jellyfish analogy. Wouldn’t they also feel that the universe was designed for them?

That’s the point - if the universe formed randomly in such a way that life was able to spring up, and that life were capable of pondering its own place in the universe, then that life might assume that the universe was custom designed for it.

If the universe formed in such a way that life wasn’t possible, there’d be no life around to contemplate the design of the universe.

Both of these are consistent with a random universe. To suggest that they aren’t is to say that the fact that life exists proves the universe was custom designed for it. Are you making that argument?

7

Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t. If this were simply a matter of personal feeling, then that question would have some validity. It isn’t, though.

Rather, there is a large number of physical constants – the strong nuclear force constant, the weak nuclear force constant, the ratio of the proton and electron masses, and so forth – that must be held within certain tight parameters in order for life as we know it to form. If the strong nuclear force were too small, for example, then virtually no elements apart from hydrogen could form. If it were too large, then there would be too little hydrogen, thus making life chemistry unsustainable.

Physicists may argue about certain constants or the precise amount of fine tuning that they require, but the existence of this fine tuning is pretty widely recognized. That is why even the eminent mathematical physicist Fred Hoyle – himself an atheist – famously said, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics … The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Now, I’m not about to sit here and argue about the list of constants or possible alternative explanations. Frankly, and with no offense intended toward anyone, there are numerous more urgent matters that need my attention. For now, I simply want to emphasize that this is NOT simply a matter of vague, ephemeral feelings. This whole debate goes far beyond theists merely saying, “Oh, well, I kinda feel like this universe may have been designed, y’know?”

8

No. It simply assumes that in any random universe where a form of higher conscious and cognitive form of life appears, then it’s gonna be a pretty sure thing that that universe will have had the right set of conditions for life to appear at some point earlier.

By definition, any universe that ends up containing humans is going to feature more or less the same set of randomness, selection process, conditions and so forth that allows and led to humans in this one. Or, to put it another way, if this planet wasn’t just right for humans, we’d have died before we were even born, just as if there wasn’t a hole in the ground a puddle would not have formed.
Since all life evolves in order to best fit a mold, it’s not exactly marvellous that the end product fits the mold just right.

9

The universe did not create life, it was just a proper environment for it to develop in a physical form. So if this universe was not life compatible we would simple not have developed here, much like a baron womb or planet, it’s really all the same thing, just on different levels.

A random universe would have a heck of impossible odds of what a living universe, in which we live, would naturally create and maintain.

It is the living qualities that can only come from God that keeps this universe able to support life.

10

Define “random”. Drawn from what distribution, in what space? I mean, you could say something like “Take two universes, one just like this one, and the other with everyone evil and wearing goatees. Flip a coin to choose one of them.”. That’d be a random universe, but the randomness isn’t very interesting.

11

First of all, no it doesn’t. It points out that those conditions are required for life as we know it. Life as we know it on a ridiculously insignificant portion of the actual universe. Second of all, look up the anthropic principal. Even if any life can only exist in our exact universe, then it is not in any way surprising for it to exist that way, no matter how “unlikely” it may be. If it wasn’t that way, nobody would be here to ponder how likely it is.

12

What? Your whole point is that if conditions are right for life, then it’s strongly hinted that it’s not a coincidence. Why would you suggest that we should feel special, but that the hypothetical space jellyfish may or not may?

Well, again, “life as we know it” is fairly biased. You’re right that the universe could be too radically different and just a big glob of hydrogen. But there are a lot of other states that could result in some sort of life - not necesarily life as we know it - and they would interpret the universe as being custom designed for them.

The life fits the circumstances, rather than vice versa. Giraffes couldn’t reasonably say “huh, all these tall trees around here… earth must’ve been custom designed for me!”, as it was the conditions that led to the evolution of giraffes.

You’re essentially saying there are extreme changes in physics in which it seems unlikely any sort of life could form, therefore universes in which life could form seem to be special and custom-designed. But that ignores that there could be billions of universe configurations that could support life one way or another, and any intelligent life in any of those billion universes could say that it must’ve been custom designed for them.

The other possibility is that there are multiple universes and that in all of the ones where physics are too wonky for life, there is none - and all the ones that are suitable for some sort of intelligent life all have species thinking everything was designed for them.

By random I mean the result of natural factors. There was a big bang, there are laws of physics, and everything shakes out from there. No intelligent figure hand-placing stars and planets, or customizing the laws of physics to suit us.

Essentially, if we had two universes that were fairly similar - say our own, and one where gravity is a little different, and the planets and stars and galaxies are in somewhat different places, but roughly similar - how would you figure out which one was the divinely created universe, and which was caused by natural phoenomina? What is it about our universe that rules out the possibility of natural processes because divine intervention is required?

Some people clearly think they’ve found the criteria that you can evaluate to figure out whether the universe was intelligently designed or not. I’m asking what precisely are these criteria, and why are they necesarily the result of intelligent design and not naturalistic causes?

13

To argue that the universe is rigged because life as we know it exists despite the odds, is like arguing that the lottery is rigged because the person who won it did so by beating extreme odds.

Would you prosecute lottery winners, because there’s only a 1 in 30,000,000 chance that they actually won it, so therefore they must have cheated?

14

But surely there are sets of physical laws which would not lead to anything resembling intelligent life. How does one properly weigh one set of physical laws against another?

15

We don’t know even that. Sure there may be combinations of natural constants which preclude life, but there might also be an underlying unity if natural constants which make chemistry, physics, and thus life, always possible. We just don’t understand the fundamentals well enough. All we know is that the probability is non-zero.
I’m still interested in an answer to the OP, especially around why there are so many gas giants and if the universe is designed for something why there is so much of it, and why it is expanding.

16

How would a random universe differ?

Randomly, of course.

17

I think the more interesting question is, what would an intelligently designed universe look like?

As is, we may be the only intelligent life in the universe. If there is other life, we’re likely to be so distant from one another as to make the point irrelevant.

Why create a universe that is 99.999999% vacuum, and where the prospects for anything interesting – like sentient beings – are unlikely to form on any majority of astral bodies?

18

A random universe would not exist. The first odd thing of existence is that it is, when the first assumption should be that nothing exists. This of course is a difficult assumption to make from our privileged position, but always creation in any form begs a question that non-creation does not.

19

Seconded.
I’m sick of hearing how our universe is “astonishingly” fit for life, even from the non-religious.
Most of it is (basically) vacuum, most of the rest is stars or black holes, and we don’t know yet how many planets life can form on…we may be on the only one.

Of course they mean something like “If you changed the values of certain fundamental constants, life would not be possible”.
So really what we’re saying is “It’s surprising this universe is not entirely sterile, assuming the laws of physics are fixed, but the constants are really free parameters”.

And this latter statement still doesn’t help religious arguments because why should god limit himself to turning a couple of dials? Why not just fabricate a universe rich in life?

20

I basically agree with you that there is a philosophical conundrum associated with existence itself, but I dispute that the problem would not exist if there were no universe.

We might see “nothing” as the default or ground state, but in the absence of all laws, why is that so?
IMO saying there “just is” nothing is vulnerable to all the same philosophical problems as there “just is” a universe.