Examining Mr. R. Carrier's use of Bayesianism. Part II

 

Christian Theology according to Mr.R. Carrier

This is Part II of a series where I am going through Mr. Richard Carrier's critique of the fine-tuning argument for theistic creationism.  His post can be found here:

Why the Fine Tuning Argument Proves God Does Not Exist • Richard Carrier Blogs

Part I of this series can be found here. 

The signs are that Richard Carrier is a fairly abrasive character and would likely be a very snappy customer to anyone who has an inclination toward theism and that would include, of course, a Christian like myself. But having said that it is also likely that I would find common ground with him on the subject of the recent bullying excesses of Trumpite, Alex Jonesian and far-right Christianity. See for example the two posts below on Richard's blog where he criticizes the extreme rhetoric of the far right. This rhetoric is so extreme that it seems democratic compromise is out of the question for them, and they would only be satisfied with the complete destruction of all who democratically oppose them, not only of atheists but also what they would unthinkingly identify as "woke" Christians like myself.

Behold Babylon USA! • Richard Carrier Blogs

Debunking John Davidson's "Pagan" America • Richard Carrier Blogs

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Much of the following content has its roots in my understanding of randomness and probability. 

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As I said in the first part of this series, I've never liked the fine-tuning argument myself; it suggests that the mystery of creation is confined to the boundaries of the cosmos. It is in fact a big step toward deism as it draws attention away from the truism that the mysterious organised contingency of the cosmos is everywhere and everywhen. It is therefore no surprise that just as the fine-tuning argument is not the best of arguments for theism, conversely it doesn't work well when Richard Carrier tries to turn fine-tuning around as evidence of atheism. 

At the heart of Richard's argument is his theology: OK he's an atheist and I don't blame him for that; but like many an atheist he has proprietary and a-priori theological conceptions; that is, knowledge about the notion of God. That's no surprise to me: I doubt that the resources of human cognition which deal with the divine are a complete blank slate. In fact, it is apparent that Richard knows (whether true or false knowledge) quite a bit about God, whether he believes in God or not. Although I'm Christian myself I'm easy on at least some atheists and have no a-priori antipathy towards them. I have sympathy with many of them, especially for example a nice guy like Brian Cox with whom I feel I have a lot in common. Brian Cox has honest doubts about God's existence given the cosmic perspective. Richard Carrier also has trouble squaring the cosmic perspective with the Christian concept of God, but in his keenness to promote his evangelical atheism he vigorously deploys his key theological notion of what the universe should look like if created by the God of Christian belief.  Take a look at this (My emphases).....

RICHARD: But here I want to bring into focus the way Fine Tuning itself turns into a proof of atheism. This will in turn serve as a tutorial on some of the ways Bayes’ Theorem reveals how to employ the logic of probability correctly....

The conclusion is clearest, of course, with traditional definitions of God (the only kind of God anyone on Earth actually believes in), whereby God is someone who intends to create a universe for life and for that life to know They exist. But one could instead posit a Bizarro God, an all-powerful intelligence who deliberately decided to make the universe look exactly like a universe with no God in it, thereby deceiving us into the conclusion that God does not exist; or who had some other bizarre reasons (compulsory or voluntary) to do essentially that same thing—such as lacking any interest whatever in life and only, let’s say, wanting to make a universe that would generate black holes, and who is actually annoyed or indifferent to the mere accidental byproduct of that effort being life.

MY COMMENT: Richard's key concept here is that there is such a thing as a universe that looks exactly like a universe with no God in it, In Richard's theology there are universes which we would not expect God, God as most people understand the term, to create.  Yes, I can give qualified agreement to that; there are universes that Christian theism would fail to make sense of; for example, as I said in part I:

A completely random universe is not the kind of universe a divine intelligence would have anything to do with.... at a very deep gut level I personally find the postulation of an infinite randomness hopelessly absurd, implausible and above all meaningless.

But what about our universe? Can it be a purely chance outcome in an immense sea of randomness? Well, it's just conceivable that the context beyond the observable cosmos is so absolutely huge that rare tracts of it, very, very, very rare tracts indeed, display enough organisation for a temporary manifestation of the laws of physics to simply be a sheer chance occurrence!  If that was the case the obvious question arises: When faced with an observable cosmos such as ours, a cosmos very strictly controlled and ordered by universal physical principles, what is the probability we are actually observing either an intrinsically organizing dynamic or simply a small domain that is purely a chance event in an all but infinite sea of randomness? Clearly this sea of randomness would have to be much, much larger in time and space than our tiny observable universe whose dimensions are expressible using numbers which only run into a hundred digits or so. For such a "chance event" to occur with a realistic probability the "containing" cosmos would have to have dimensional magnitudes expressible in billions upon billions of digits. 

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But before we consider the plausibility of a universe of random configurations so immense that everything happens somewhere or other we first need to look at a concept that Richard himself introduces: This is what he calls the bizarro god. The meaning of this concept is best appreciated if we consider the "bizarro" equivalent in the world of science which I will do in my next comment.

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RICHARD: Basically, any theory can be “gerrymandered” with multiple (usually bizarre) theoretical ad-ons so that it exactly predicts any evidence.....

Because all theories can be gerrymandered, the ability to gerrymander a theory cannot render it any more likely. And indeed, that is exactly what happens in the probability logic: all gerrymandering logically does is move an improbability in our equation from the evidence column to the prior probability column, producing no net gain in the probability of the theory—and often a serious net reduction in its probability. This is why all Cartesian Demon arguments fail to gain any credibility. And “Bizarro God” is just another Cartesian Demon. We can therefore simply dismiss this God out of hand. Lacking any evidence for it, it is simply always too improbable to credit. You can only change this assessment if you find specific evidence for that gerrymandered God—meaning evidence independent of what that gerrymander was created to explain, as for any other Cartesian Demon.

MY COMMENT: What Richard refers to as "gerrymandering" doesn't just include Cartesian Demons and a "bizzaro god" it also embraces any kind of theorizing which is willing to multiply entities willy-nilly in order to get a theory to fit the facts. In general, it is possible to fit a mathematical curve to any sample of data points if one is prepared to throw Occam's Razor out of the window and multiply entities and hidden variables at will. But this procedure of multiplying entities does actually have a very useful and moreover a very instructive application; namely, that of compressing data. For example, jpeg image compression tries to reduce the size of an image's data by creatively fitting the data points to Fourier curves. For natural pictures jpeg compression works well. The general idea behind all data compression is to allow the multiplication of entities in order to fit the data points but to minimize this multiplication as far as possible so that the multiplied entities constitute less data than the original data set. 

But even though a method of compression may be very successful in compressing data this is not to say that the compression method constitutes some kind of mathematical law intrinsic to the data compressed. The mathematical "curves" of compression are added retrospectively to the data with the aim of fitting the target data to "curves" which can be expressed as a reduced or compressed data set. What is very unlikely however is that the compression method can be used to predict further data points should there be further data to compress. Data compression methods are not meant to be predictive of further data but to merely compress data already at hand. If a data compression method does succeed in predicting further data, it then suggests that a known law has been anticipated in advance and this law is embodied in the algorithm of the data compression method.  See here where I wrote a short paper showing that if predictions have been correctly made it is evidence that the predicting agent has very probably become aware that there is an underlying law governing all the incoming data and has embedded this law in his/her compression algorithm. 

What is the relevance of the foregoing comments?  What these comments tell us is that there is a close relationship between post-facto data compression and the genuine laws we use to predict the cosmic dynamic. Both methods are descriptive of the data the world throws at us and both, very importantly, are means of compressing a complex profusion of data into more succinct theoretical structures. This compression, particularly in the case of genuinely predictive laws, is possible because cosmic data is not randomly distributed but is highly organized. The crucial point we need to take away with us here is that the observable cosmos is highly organized. Further; the low statistical weight of organized configurations means that the high order of the cosmos has a very, very tiny unconditional probability.

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At the start of a section entitled: The Odds on God Given the Observed Facts of Fine Tuning. Richard in passing mentions what I believe to be a valid criticism of the fine-tuning argument: 

RICHARD: The standard trick pulled by all Christian apologetics is to make an argument by leaving out all the evidence that would, if restored, entirely reverse that argument’s conclusion. I gave ten examples of this in Bayesian Counter-Apologetics. The Fine Tuning Argument does this by only looking at the arrangement of what are, actually, bizarre and logically unnecessary physical constants (everything from the relative strength of gravity and electromagnetism to the relative mass of the quark and electron), and noting that almost any other configuration of them would have prevented any life from arising in the universe (which is then argued to require intelligent design).......One can challenge that claim;

MY COMMENT: Apparently, Richard has challenged this claim elsewhere but doesn't take it up in his post. However, his point is valid; we don't know for a fact that other values of the fine-tuning constants can't also lead to life - all we know is that a slight displacement from the current values makes life, as we understand it impossible. However, without further proof it is just conceivable that a particular configuration of constants with large displacements away from the current values could also allow life of some form to exist. But because life is such a highly organized phenomenon and dependent on the cosmos sticking to those organizing principles we call the laws of physics, then it follows that in the immense space of what is logically possible the class of universes which bear life has an extremely low statistical weight compared to the overwhelming statistical weight of sheer randomness. It follows then that configurations of fine-tuning constants which favour life must themselves be few and far between and the chance of choosing them at random will be extraordinarily low. 

But leaving this issue behind Richard goes on to frame the question he wants to address as follows.....

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RICHARD: One can challenge that claim; [Already considered in my last comment] but it isn’t necessary to. Because, as we’ll see, it doesn’t matter. So it won’t be challenged here. For the sake of argument, let’s just take it as if it were proved that “almost any other configuration of fundamental physical constants would have prevented any life from arising in the universe.” The real problem here is that this leaves out pertinent evidence. Because we are here testing two competing hypotheses to explain observations: either (A) chance accident produced that alignment of constants or (B) someone or something intelligently selected them......

So we have two hypotheses, and each makes a number of predictions (not just the one), and therefore to compare them requires looking at all those predictions, not just “cherry picking” the one single prediction we like and ignoring all the others that didn’t go the way we want.

MY COMMENT: Well, straight away there's an issue with competing hypothesis (A). Viz: The fine-tuning constants are inextricably bound up with the organizing physical principles they are part and parcel with; they are meaningless numbers without those principles/laws. Therefore, the two competing hypotheses should be framed as follows (A) Is our highly organized physical regime an unconditional chance accident or (B) Someone or something intelligently selected that regime....

Richard goes onto to consider those predictions he speaks of...

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RICHARD: So what different predictions do our two hypotheses make? Theory A predicts the following:

[T]he only way we could [observe ourselves existing] without a God is by an extremely improbable chemical accident, and the only way an extremely improbable chemical accident is likely to occur is in a universe that’s vastly old and vastly large; so atheism predicts a vastly old and large universe; theism does not (without fabricating excuses—a bankrupt procedure, as I already explained … ).

Similarly, the only way we could [observe ourselves existing] without a God is by an extremely long process of evolution by natural selection, beginning from a single molecule, through hundreds of millions of years of single cells, through hundreds of millions of years of cooperating cells, to hundreds of millions of years of multicellular organisms; so atheism predicts essentially that; theism does not …

Likewise, … we should expect [the universe we observe] to be only barely conducive to life, indeed almost entirely lethal to it (as in fact it is), since there are vastly more ways to get those universes by chance selection, than to get a universe perfectly suited to life throughout (indeed … by countlessly many trillions to one). Design predicts exactly the opposite (again, without a parade of convenient excuses).

MY COMMENT: I wonder if Richard is really aware just how improbable that extremely improbable chemical accident is if we are thinking of its unconditional probability? Moreover, is he really aware of just how vastly old and vastly large a universe has to be in order to raise unconditional probabilities to realistic levels? For example, if set within the context of absolute randomness that so called "chemical accident" (which is in fact a sequence of "chemical accidents" and conditioned on the validity of those highly contingent organizing principles we call laws) has an unconditional probability measured with a value which has billions of zeros after the decimal point. If life is to have a realistic chance of emerging in the relatively tiny cosmos available to our observation it must be conditioned on the highly contingent particulars of our physical regime and that doesn't just include those "fine-tuning" constants but also those organizing physical principles which hold everywhere and everywhen and of which the fine-tuning constants are a mere part. Let me repeat: Whilst the conditional probability of those sequences of chemical accidents leading to life is relatively large, in comparison their unconditional probability in the context of absolute randomness is a value so tiny that it would require a number consisting of billions of digits after the decimal point to express it. In fact, even without the emergence of life just the fact that the universe is governed by those elegant organizing principles called the laws of physics is a fantastic improbability. But that those organizing principles have provided conditions where the probability of life emerging is enhanced beyond belief, means that I draw the very opposite conclusion to Richard: Namely, that the universe we observe is highly conducive to life. See for example this post where I drew the conclusion that if evolution of some kind is the process behind the emergence of life, then it is so remarkable and miraculous that its creation on steroids!

But does atheism really predict a vastly old and large universe, and theism does not?, and does atheism predict the only way we could [observe ourselves existing] without a God is by an extremely long process of evolution by natural selection, beginning from a single molecule.......  Does atheism predict this long process and theism does not? Well, let's see....

 

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RICHARD: Almost the entirety of our universe is a lethal radiation-filled vacuum, almost the entirety of its contents are lethal stars and black holes, and almost the entirety of what isn’t stars and black holes is a lifeless wasteland of rocks and dust on which nothing can naturally live. The universe is also billions (not mere thousands) of years old; and billions (not a mere handful) of light-years across; and life only slowly arose over billions of years of meandering, unguided natural selection from an initial, single, self-replicating molecule, which evolved into single cells, then into rudimentary colonies of cells, then into the advanced colonies of cells that we now call bodies; and exists now only as, indeed, a scaffolding of cooperating colonies of single-celled organisms (which we know as cells), an outcome only predicted by atheism—as that is the only way for intelligent life to arise without a God; whereas a God has no need of any such bizarre construction procedure, much less the billions of years of time it took.

MY COMMENT:  "Billions of years", in terms of what is configurationally possible is in fact a tiny number; I can commit a number in the order of tens of digits to memory whereas I can't commit to memory the numbers that enumerate the logically possible configurations available to something with the size of our observable cosmos. Moreover, as I've already said in my last comment, if those billions of years and billions of light years display some remarkable and highly contingent organizing principles favouring the emergence of life even on just a single planet, I'm talking miracles (at least in the colloquial sense). Is this really "an outcome only predicted by atheism" and that it "is the only way for intelligent life to arise without a God"?  Show me how atheism predicts this miraculous process of life emergence? It is clearly a miraculously low probability event, and therefore I can't see what atheism has to do with it, accept perhaps on the following grounds:

a) Atheists like Galen Strawson and Bertrand Russell who simply tell us that the universe with all its contingent principles "just is" and that's the end of the matter, so shut up.

b) The bizarre notion that the highly organized universe of our observation is just an absolutely minuscule part of an unimaginably immense context of an all but infinite sea of randomness and it's just an observational perspective effect of beings such as ourselves who necessarily observe a small but anthropically favorable part of that super-random cosmos. 

I'd agree that the super-random cosmos is not the sort of cosmos I'd expect a Christian God to create and if there was evidence of such (in fact there isn't) I'd doubt the existence of a creator God; maybe that's why evangelical atheists are so keen on infinite multiverse ideas.

But there is no evidence for super-randomness; in a super-random universe we'd expect more anomalies, exceptions and erratics than we see in our small slice of the super-universe. In a super-random cosmos our piece of apparently stable improbability would forever be trying to dissolve back into the utter randomness of that background of super-randomness; in fact, the overwhelming number of chance patches of life-hosting sub-universes would be doing just that. But the laws of physics we observe have next to no exceptions and are emaculate. So, in the absence of evidence for super-randomness I can say that our universe isn't the one Richard is looking for to back up his case for atheism; in his vision of an atheist universe the physical regime would have to show evidence of being much closer to the high disorder of randomness and it is simply not vast enough nor random enough to satisfy his atheistic predictions. 

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On the subject of evolution, it is clear that Richard holds a similar notion of evolution to the North American Intelligent Design (NAID) community who caricature evolution as an "unguided natural process", or as Richard puts it:

Life only slowly arose over billions of years of meandering, unguided natural selection

See here where I've critiqued the NAID community on their "blind natural forces vs Intelligent Design" dichotomy.  This isn't to say that I'm an evolution supporter: It's just that in my opinion NAID anti-evolution concepts are naive and they argue against evolution with a conceptually flawed toolkit they share with atheism.  They only get away with it because they have become an embattled academic community who bond and console one another via a lot of mutual back-slapping and congratulation. They despise the mainstream academic community who, to be honest, have abused them in turn. No surprise then that the NAID community have pundits in their midst who look to be on the far-right and very probably will be voting Trump. 

One final breath-taking irony:  As I've said, I'd likely agree with atheists that a super-random universe is not the sort of creation I'd expect God as conventionally understood would create. But as it stands speculations which use a posited super-random universe to explain away the amazing, ordered contingency of our cosmic slice is the most extreme case of gerrymandering one can think of. It has next to no evidence going for it and through the most extravagant multiplication of entities in contravention of Occam's Razor it can be used to fit anything one observes. Thus, using Richard's own terminology against him one might accuse him of believing in a Bizzaro Universe!

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In Part III of this series, I will be looking at some of Richard's theological concepts. These play an important part in his rejection of creative theism.