In his popular books, the physicist Paul Davies uses various rhetorical and/or vague words and phrases in philosophically-important contexts. This essay argues that such words and phrases actually help generate and publicise his own theory of cosmic “purpose”. They also help generate the scientific and philosophical problems Davies believes both he and his opponents must tackle.
In basic terms, the main problem with Paul Davies’s claims and positions (or, more particularly, his belief in a cosmic “purpose”) is that he uses various words and phrases loosely, vaguely and/or rhetorically in philosophically-important contexts. These are words and phrases he’d never use in his technical physics papers.
Perhaps Davies would freely admit this. After all, he knows that he’s writing what’s called “popular science”.
In any case, in the books in which Davies discusses (cosmic) “purpose”, it can be assumed that he’d never claim to be doing actual physics. Instead, he may claim to be doing two things:
(1) Writing about physics and cosmology.
(2) Philosophising about physics and cosmology.
To spell things out.
Writing about physics isn’t physics. And philosophising about physics isn’t physics either. (Again, there’s a good chance that Davies would accept these statements — at least to some degree.)
So there’s no problem at all with Davies philosophising about physics and cosmology. That’s what (obviously) philosophers also do. Indeed, there’s no problem with scientists themselves doing philosophy either. (The problem often works in the opposite direction when scientists claim — if sometimes implicitly — that there aren’t any philosophical components to their scientific theories and statements at all.)
One other problem is that because Davies is a physicist, then that may mean that many of his readers (especially those who’re sympathetic to his views) will take all the words in his popular books to be actual physics. Yet, again, his books are mainly about physics and physical cosmology. And they also include a certain amount of philosophising about physics and physical cosmology.
So it must be said here that this essay isn’t an attempt to go through Davies’s books looking for rhetoric, vagueness, etc. (I use rhetoric myself.) Instead, the argument here is that such rhetorical, vague and loose words and phrases are vital to Davies’s overall philosophical position.
Pedantry?
It can be freely admitted that there is a problem with focussing too much on the actual (or precise) words Paul Davies uses. Specifically, there’s a danger of being “pedantic”. Worse, there’s a danger of being like those “boring” Oxbridge linguistic philosophers of the 1950s. [See here.]
It also needs to be said that many of those scientists who take diametrically opposed views to Davies’s own also use rhetorical and vague terms and phrases in their popular books. (Again, terms they’d never use in their physics papers.)
Take, for example, the following passage from the American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg (1933–2021):
“It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning [].”
[These words can be found in Weinberg’s book The First Three Minutes. See also my ‘Life and the Universe are Neither Meaningless nor Meaningful’.]
Without spoon-feeding the reader, the relevant words above are “farcical outcome”. Indeed, Weinberg then goes on to state that the universe is “hostile”.
Interestingly enough, the passage above comes immediately before Weinberg expressed his very-often-quoted view that
“[t]he more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”.
Here the relevant word is “pointless”.
So isn’t Weinberg himself falling into the same trap as those religious people he’s arguing against? That is, why accept the binary opposition set up between the universe being “comprehensible” and the universe being “pointless” at all?
Actually, Weinberg inverts the religious argument here.
In other words, the religious argument has it that because the Universe is comprehensible, then surely that must be because God has made it so. More correctly, God is responsible for the (human) minds that do the comprehending.
Alternatively, Paul Davies himself believes that the Universe is comprehensible primarily because it has a “purpose”.
Weinberg, on the other hand, believes that the Universe's comprehensibility makes it (only seem?) pointless…
It’s worth saying here that Weinberg explained (in the book Dreams of a Final Theory) his earlier controversial statement in the following way:
“As we have discovered more and more fundamental physical principles, they seem to have less and less to do with us.”
Yet Davies (despite him playing down his own anthropocentrism) wants cosmology to have more and more “to do with us”.
Weinberg, on the other hand, seems to be arguing that physics — even theoretical physics — should do the job of making things less profound and mysterious, not more so.
Weinberg also wrote the following:
“As long as we don’t know the fundamental rules, we can hope that we’ll find something like a concern for human beings, say, or some guiding divine plan built into the fundamental rules.”
However:
“[W]hen we find out that the fundamental rules of quantum mechanics and some symmetry principles are very impersonal and cold, then it’ll have a very demystifying effect.”
Ironically, Weinberg referred to the time when Davies received a million-dollar prize for “advancing the public understanding of God and spirituality” from the John Templeton Foundation. [See my ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Contributions to the Advancement of Religion, As Seen By Father Mariano Artigas Weinberg’.] Weinberg said:
“I was thinking of cabling [Paul] Davies and saying, ‘Do you know of any organization that is willing to offer a million-dollar prize for work showing that there is no divine plan?’”
Anyway, to get back on the track of those loose, vague and/or rhetorical words and phrases.
Examples of Paul Davies’s Rhetoric, Etc.
Surely Paul Davies stating that “the existence of this particular universe is either a mystery, or it is absurd” is a silly binary opposition. That said, if readers do accept this opposition in the first place, then much else of what Davies states may well follow.
(The binary opposition is elsewhere spelled out as the claim that the universe is either “absurd” or it has a “purpose”.)
When talking about the Universe, Davies also says that it is (or it at least it may be) “self-explaining” and a “self-creating system”. Clearly (at least to me), these words don’t belong to physics or to physical cosmology. Indeed, even if one accepts the arguments that Davies has offered his readers, then many of his statements and words still wouldn’t belong to physics and physical cosmology.
Another example from Davies is the statement that “perhaps existence doesn’t get bestowed from the outside”.
This is a very odd reference to existence.
Existence and the nature of existence are usually deemed to be ontological issues. More particularly, you certainly won’t find the word “existence” used in physics papers — at least not in Davies’s philosophically heavy sense.
Here’s another rhetorical statement.
Davies tells us that “some minds are capable of understanding the universe”. He then adds that other people (i.e., his “atheists”) take this understanding to be “yet another fluke”…
Well, that depends.
If the word “fluke” means not by God’s arrangement, then “some minds” understanding the universe surely must be a “fluke”. (That’s the outright monotheistic position.)
However, Davies’s doesn’t believe in what he calls the “Abrahamic God”. So, on his own terms, if such an understanding isn’t the result of some (non-monotheistic) cosmic purpose, then, again, it must be a fluke.
Yet the word “fluke” is very much like Davies’ other rhetorical word (which he uses a lot) “absurd”. (This word has already been mentioned.)
So do the words “fluke” and “absurd” mean “not necessary” in Davies’s eyes?
If that’s the case, then what would it be for “life and mind” to be necessary?
Is it that we have flukes and absurdities by virtue of the fact that there is no God? Alternatively, do we have flukes and absurdities if we don’t accept Davies’s cosmic purpose?
Of course, some physicists have noted the possibility (or reality) that the laws, constants, etc. we have are the only ones that could bring bring about our Universe. [See here.] Indeed, Davies himself speaks about the Universe’s “self-explanation” and “self-creation”. So perhaps it is in these places where we can find the necessity that Davies is looking (or yearning) for.
Let’s go into a little detail here.
Our Universe Must Produce Life and Mind?
Paul Davies states the following words:
“In this theory [actually, Davies accepts this theory], the bio-friendliness of the universe arises from an overarching law or principle that constrains the universe/multiverse to evolve towards life and mind. It has the advantage of ‘taking life seriously’ [].”
There’s a problem with knowing what the words “an overarching law or principle that constrains the universe/multiverse to evolve towards life and mind” mean. Some readers may believe that Davies has gone into detail elsewhere. However, that’s not really the case. (Not that I’ve read everything Davies has written.)
Grammatically, the words “constrains the universe to evolve towards” are problematic or at least vague.
Does they mean that the universe must evolve toward “life and mind”?
Alternatively, could these words mean that the universe is (as it were) free not to evolve toward life and mind? That is, even though the Universe has all the ingredients required to evolve toward life and mind, then it still might not have done so.
Anthropically, the Universe obviously must have all the ingredients required to evolve toward life and mind!
More particularly, even if the Universe does have all these necessary(?) ingredients, then it still needn’t have led to the minds of, specifically(!), Homo sapiens — or even to the minds of any species (or beings) around today.
Similarly with life.
Even if the Universe has always had all the ingredients required to bring about life (which, by definition or anthropically, it must have!), then the life it could have evolved to might have been very different to life as it is.
To repeat. Wasn’t it possible that even if the Universe has always had all the ingredients needed to move toward life and mind, then it still might not have done so?
After all, for over 3 billion years, the Universe hadn’t evolved toward life. As for mind, it took billions of years longer (i.e., at least if life and mind on earth are taken to be unique).
Consequently, doesn’t this (seemingly?) extreme contingency work against any religious interpretation of these facts?
What’s more, these possibilities seem to make Davies’s ideas less highfalutin and grand. And, indeed, surely they should make Davies’s views less appealing to those people who have religious views and proclivities.
To sum up.
If we accept the extreme contingency of life and mind (alongside happily accepting that the Universe must still have had all the ingredients needed for life and mind from the very beginning), then is there still something more to all this? More relevantly, is there still something genuinely purposeful in the Universe or nature?
Note
(1) Paul Davies is not a Christian. He’s not a follower of any other (to use his own words) “conventional religion” either. Indeed, Davies even says that his belief in a “directional principle” is a “far cry from the God of traditional monotheism”. However, Davies is still religious. Thus, Davies’s cosmic purpose may well be a far cry from the Abrahamic God, but it’s not a far cry from other notions of God, or from the beliefs of other religions dating back well over two thousand years. All this must mean that Davies is still betting on a non-Abrahamic horse in the very same religious race. [See my ‘Physicist Paul Davies’s Contributions to the Advancement of Religion, As Seen By Father Mariano Artigas’.]
No comments:
Post a Comment