2 Burst results for "Steven Meyer"
Cross Examined Official Podcast
"steven meyer" Discussed on Cross Examined Official Podcast
"That's suggests the activity of a mind again. Yes and you also point out that even if the science changes on this what doesn't change the fact that you can't have an infinite number of days before today you talk about that when you referenced. The column cosmological argument here again. The book is called return of the god hypothesis. And my guest. Dr steven meyer. So i think it's it's it's it's quite. Well established that the universe had a beginning. it seems therefore it must have had a beginner. But steve. let's move on to the second discovery. The three of the great discoveries the second of the three great discoveries you talk about in this book and that's the fine tuning of the universe. And i think there are at least two aspects of this in my reading of it anyway and that is there are the initial conditions of the universe. We've seen fine tuned and then there are. The current conditions are the natural laws and the constantly. Go into those natural laws. Can you start with the initial conditions. How do we know that. The universe is fine tuned from its very inception. Roger penrose whom. I mentioned just a few minutes ago. Made some very interesting calculations about the it's called the initial entropy fine-tuning and where entropy relates to the whole concept of order and disorder. So we have a highly ordered universe now and because there's been a massive amount of energy that has been released in causing universe to expand through a force called the cosmological constant if the universe is highly ordered. Now it must have been even more highly ordered at the beginning in order to get that order. It'd be like you know. Think of a toddler through a room after the toddler son. It's going to be more disorder or a tornado through junkyard. So if you if you're releasing energy to cause the engine of the universe the initial state must've been even more order than it is now to give orderly state. The make possible penrose may calculations as to just how orderly it must've been and his calculation suggests that in tuning of the initial arrangement of matter and energy is a hyper exponentially precise calculation showed that the number was one part in ten to the tenth race to the one hundred and twenty third power. Now there aren't enough elementary particles in the universe to represent all the zeroes in that number. So that that's what we're talking about fine tuning it might be helpful to especially for engineers who are wherever the concept of tolerances. We're talking about something. Just right the just right. Or goldilocks universe. Where if certain forces are too strong or too leak by even a little bit in either direction if the masses of the elementary particles are too heavy or too light if the speed of light is faster to slow with that expansion rate of the universe is to faster to slower if the force governing that expansion is too strong or too weak by even a tiny bit in each direction life we we will not conducive universe and and so Fred hoyle who discovered some of these. I fine tuning parameters the ones that are necessary to account for the abundance of carbon in our universe said that a common sense interpretation of the data suggests that a super intellect has monkey with physics and chemistry make audible and and for many physicists. The fine tuning at seemed Logically to lead to the need for a hundred for an intelligent designer. Steve tried to avert this. Or get around this fine tuning by coming up with the multiple universe theory or the fact that there are other universes out there at first of all. Let me ask you this question. Before the fine tuning of the universe was known and it started to be discovered. Say about sixty seventy years ago. Did anyone even suggests there were other universes out. There will know but there are physical. There are justification certain physical theories for the concept of a multi verse but the once once those were realized people appropriated the multi versus an explanation for the fine tuning. The problem is that the fine tuning the multiversity doesn't actually explain away. The ultimate fine tuning of the universe. Let me explain if you have all these other universes out there. The idea is well then. Therefore eventually won like ours will emerge therefore as improbable as all these parameters seem from the vantage point of just the processes at work in our universe if we have a multiple billions of other universes out there Then we can render the fine tuning parameter somewhere probable. We can say that. It's eventually the the right conditions would have to arise but if the other universes are causally disconnected from our own and indeed. That's what we mean by universities. A causley closed system everything that is but if there are other everything that is in existence universes but if they're if they're not causally connected than they don't affect anything this universe including the probabilities processes that would have set the fine tuning parameters so in order to depict our universities the winner of a cosmic lottery the the multi verse proponents have needed to formulate or propose university generating mechanisms that would function as kind of common causes for the origin of all these universes so that then could portray our universe as the lucky winner of a great cosmic lottery with lots of universities are being spit out all the time now that there are two different speculative cosmological models that generate these universe generating mechanisms what is called inflationary cosmology. The others called string theory and in both these caused logical models the universe generating mechanisms themselves require prior exquisite unexplained fine tuning. And so you don't get rid of the fine tuning you just push back. One one generation and leave it unexplained and yet there is an explanation for what we mean by fine-tuning if we talk about a french recipe or an internal combustion engine or piece of squished watt of swatch or a section of digital code. And we say that's fine systems. We mean there's a whole bunch independent parameters that are highly improbable but yet collectively the the set of those parameters achieves a discernible function or outcome and so fine tuning experiences. Always the consequence in all those other examples of intelligence of mind so the only known explanation for fine tuning is intelligence. The multi-diverse hasn't provided an ultimate explanation for fine tuning. Leaves it unexplained suggesting that even if the multi is true we still have a powerful argument for intelligent design. Yeah the agnostic paul davies. You mentioned him earlier. He's an astronomer. He calls multi versa dodge because he realizes nobody would be suggesting this unless they were trying to explain away. Fine tuning the evidence for fine tuning. I had a conversation in private with one of my Friendlier debating partner. Send a car ride back to the airport after the debate. I asked him. He was telling me about his conversion experience from christianity to To atheism and he said it was because of the success of science and i started asking him about the things that i think. Scientific discoveries materialism doesn't explain. And but there's there's there's the multi-diverse and i said yeah but do you. Do you believe in multiversity said nah. So but Yeah well there's the the The stanford physicist leonard susskind said. Well if we didn't have the multi-diverse would be hard pressed to answer the critics..
Cross Examined Official Podcast
"steven meyer" Discussed on Cross Examined Official Podcast
"Christian because of this very idea that they believed in an order in nature because they believed god is orderly and we're thinking gods thoughts after him or we're discovering woke from f- actually so why i can hear the atheist saying well you know that was all pre darwin. Nobody thinks that way anymore. How would you respond to that. Well i think we're now post are one is the short answer but and the story telling the book as as you know. There's a lot in the book about newt. Who's an extraordinary figure. He had a deep theology of nature. In other words he brought these biblical presuppositions about the nature of god and about nature to his study of nature but he also upon observation of of systems in the natural world made. It made the elegant design arguments. He had to design argument in the optics is study of light which was at the time the by far and away the most advanced study of optical phenomenon that had ever been undertaken and he made this argument for does the design of the i not just because of the structure of the eye but also because of the way that i anticipated the properties of light and he said that suggested a foresight that that was a very hard to explain otherwise he had a beautiful argument in the general skull liam to the principia the epilogue to his great work in which he provided the the kind of theological significance explained the theological significance of the work. And there he made a beautiful initial condition. Fine tuning argument about the origin of the solar system so Newton made these wonderful design arguments but it is true in the late nineteenth century. Darwin came along and and argued that we don't have any evidence of actual design only the appearance of designed because there's an unguided undirected process namely natural selection acting on random variations That can explain the appearance of design without itself being guided directed in any way in other words. His natural selection idea was designer substitute. It was It was a process which he thought could mimic the powers of a designing intelligence without any design or guidance involved. And that did. I think for For in very large measure Produce an intellectual shift within the scientific community after darwin for quite a long time. The scientific materials worldview has dominated. It's still dominates as a default way of thinking in many of our research universities especially in western countries. But i think that's beginning to change. And i think the science the evidence of the last one hundred years I in cosmology then in physics but also in biology have shown that we have evidence of actual design not just the appearance of design. And of course. I in my first two books and a bit in this one as well. I talk about the And discuss the evidence for design that we find the very foundation of life in the digital code. That's present in the dna and in the complex information Processing system at work at every living cell. This is evidence that has not been explained. The darwinian mechanism has done a very poor job of explaining. The origin of information is random mutations degrade information they don't generate it and therefore we need a different type of explanation to explain the origin of the information that we now know is necessary to build every living organism on the planet. I know we're going to get into that in more detail later in this show or next week. Steve but i wanna pause here a second and ask this question. This morning i was reading again. The book is called the return of the god hypothesis. By stephen c meyer. You need to get this book. trust me. i was reading this morning. You were talking about a strong carol. He's by my name. Just the name just went out of my head for second. And he was saying he's materialised. He thinks everything happens by natural laws right natural forces. 'cause everything of course he never stops to think that if natural forces 'cause everything goes natural natural forces caused his thought that natural forces caused everything so why should he believe it but let me leave that aside for a second my question is do do do people like sean carroll or any other naturalists any other atheist out there ever trying to explain where the laws of nature come from and why they are so precise and accurate and so consistent where do the laws come from well. This is a very deep question. In the philosophy of science very few scientists actually engage. I appreciate sean. Carroll among the scientific naturalist for several reasons one Carol aknowledges that that naturalism or scientific naturalism is a worldview and it is his worldview and that there are other world views and so he takes the time to defend it and to argue for it. Many scientists that you encounter today simply Assume a kind of scientific naturalistic or materialistic world. You without even being aware that they're bringing a set of worldview assumptions to their claims about science. They they make science and their worldview Equivalent gerald carol doesn't do that. He actually says his worldview. And here's why i hold it. He makes the argument As to the laws of nature. There's a very deep question as to what they are are. They mere descriptions of regularities. That happen we know not. Why are they entities within nature or are they human descriptions that correspond to the way god has chosen to order. Nature in other words is there. Is there a cause behind the laws of nature that explains their universality their regularity their mathematical precision. That third view is the view of isaac newton or was the view of isaac newton and it was the view of the early founders of modern science after all the idea of the laws of nature is a metaphor and it turns out the metaphor. It's a dirigible metaphor theological origin. I'm quoting one of the leading historians of science on this. It came literally the concept you find in the book of job and and it's appropriated by scientists during this period of late medieval catholic theology and in the early period of the reformation and so I had a memorable tutorial with my cambridge Supervisor my first year on exactly this topic and he said your view of the laws of nature sets and my view makes sense. His view was they were just human descriptions but the one view. That doesn't make sense the few that most physicists. Hold which is they are somehow. Laws are entities. That caused things to happen. we see the laws of nature. Yeah only gonna come right back because we're coming up against a hard break listening. To the faith of agius frankfort i guess in stockton stephen. C meyer the new book to return dot hypothesis. Get it back to return of the god hypothesis. With dr steven meyer. He's my guest today. Actually the actual title of the book is returning the god hypothesis. Don't put the in front of it. Not the article. We're talking about this fabulous new book that looks at three major discoveries over the past century or.