Who would win in a fight? Science or Philosophy.

By Rich Feldenberg:

With the movie, “Superman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice” soon to hit theaters, it makes me wonder, why? Why would Superman and Batman be at odds with one another? Why would they battle when they are both supposed to be on the side of good? It may be fun to think about, who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman, Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, Indiana Jones or Han Solo? But again, why would they fight to begin with? Lately, there has been a different sort of war between good vs good, that has resurfaced. It is that of Science vs. Philosophy, and it has mainly been revived by a group of vocal physical scientists, that could be accused of extreme Scientism.

Now, Philosophy has been around for a long time. At least since the time of the ancient greeks, while the modern scientific method (and hence modern science as we would recognize it today) is generally agreed to have begun around the time of Galileo, around 400 years ago. That’s not to discount some of the ancients who made important observations of the natural world and contributions to math and logic, but the idea of hypothesis driven experimentation is a more recent phenomenon. In fact, many of the ancient “scientists” didn’t believe it was necessary to experiment at all, that pure logical reasoning should be enough to uncover the secrets of nature. Most of these armchair deductions have since been found to be false, even if based on good logical reasoning. The reason, it turns out, is that you really do have to test your basic underlying assumptions against the real world. Often the presumptions are incorrect and deviate from what seems to be common sense, or there may simply be many other factors that were unknown, but then uncovered by the experimental data.

Prior to Galileo, science and philosophy were more unified, and what we might label as science today would have been identified as natural philosophy then. Since the split, the two disciplines have diverged and become increasingly unique in their scope, like an ancient gene duplication event leading to paralogous gene families, or perhaps like the unification of universal forces right after the big bang fracturing into what appears to be completely separate forces such as the strong nuclear force and electromagnetism. If the two have a common origin can they really be so different? As noted by many philosophers, there has been a steadily increasing hostility towards philosophy by some prominent scientists, especially physicists in many cases. If hostility seems a strong word, then it at least appears justified to declare the attitude of these scientists as indifferent to philosophy – a disciple that lost its usefulness once science arrived on the scene. Those poor misguided philosophers!

I have heard statements from some top scientists reveal their dismissive attitude towards philosophy. People like Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrass Tyson, Brian Cox, Lawrence Krauss, and most recently Bill Nye, the science guy, himself! All people I have a great deal of respect for when it comes to their areas of expertise. What I think these smart individual get wrong is a misunderstanding of what philosophy really is. They certainly know what science is, but I believe that their understanding of philosophy is lacking.

Now let me be clear, I’m not a philosopher, at least not by training. I took a couple philosophy courses in college, but that was the extent of it. I consider myself much more aligned with the world of science. Perhaps a number of years ago I might have agreed with the scientists that have decided philosophy is dead, and science rules all. I don’t think I feel that way anymore, not at all. After learning more about the philosophy of science (POS) in the last few years I’m much more convinced that there is a lot there that is of benefit to scientist and non-scientist alike. I’ve come that that conclusion by listening philosophers like Massimo Piglucci and Rebecca Goldstein discuss, explain, and debate philosophical topics. I’ve read a some articles and a few books. Again, this doesn’t make me a philosopher, not by a long shot, but it does make me appreciate the relevance of the topic to our lives today, and value the skills of it’s practitioners.

We all know that science has been hugely successful. It’s method of “question everything”, “experiment to find the answer”, and “self correction” by updating with new data, is by far the best way we have to gather new knowledge. Today we understand how the world works orders of magnitude better than we did 500 years ago. Science has given us understanding, but it’s benefits don’t stop there. It has transformed everything about how humans live. So, what has philosophy done for us lately?

Philosophy is important in helping us understand whether our basic assumptions about how science works are valid, in what settings science can work, and in which other setting it may not give us meaningful answers (i.e.. Like in questions of morality and ethics, or questions of purpose, for example). Philosophy won’t be able to answer what lies beyond the standard model of physics, or if our universe is one of many in a multiverse, but it may be able to help decide if those questions are scientific ones or not. Philosophy can help us understand how to apply critical thinking and rationality to our lives. As the title of philosopher Rebecca Goldstein’s article in The Atlantic asks then answers its self, “Why study philosophy? To challenge your own point of view.” That seems to be an important aspect for any rational creature that values self growth and learning. Some scientist go so far as to claim that science can answer moral questions. While science can inform the discussion (such as answering questions like can animals feel pain) it can not answer those questions of morality on it’s own. Philosphopy is better equipped to shed light on the questions of, “what is the best way to live one’s life”, “where does one find purpose”, and “what are ethical choices”. Of course, religion also claims a monopoly on this territory, but from a purely authoritarian approach, with it’s logical underpinnings coming after the presumption of a “law giver” instead of allowing the a questioning of all basic assumptions and following the flow of logic from there. In earlier times religion was eager to claim scientific truths (facts about the physical world), as well, (for quite a long time it was pretty much the only game in town), but as science has now advanced to such a high degree there are few modern thinking theologians that would claim that scriptures are books of science. They are now only metaphor when in contradiction to established scientific consensus.

So, who would win in a fight, Science or Philosophy? Well, they shouldn’t be fighting to begin with. They are both of use to us poor mortals as we try to make sense of the world we’ve been born into. They each bring an important skill set to the table. Is Superman like science and Batman like philosophy? Superman seems to have almost limitless power, but does have certain weaknesses as well, such as susceptibility to Kryptonite and perhaps an overly naive nature. Batman, meanwhile, possessing human frailty is immune to Kryptonite, has become who he is by dedicated work and training (he wasn’t just given magical powers), and is motivated by dark human emotions of past pain and suffering.

The issue of who would win, science or philosophy may be a bit like the joke I heard one time about who would win in a fight, a tiger or a shark? Each would win if the fight takes place in its own domain.

References:

1. “Why Study Philosophy? To Challenge your own point of view.” The Atlantic by Rebecca Goldstein. Feb. 27, 2014.

2. “Mike, don’t listen to Bill Nye about philosophy”, Plato’s footnotes blog by Massimo Piglucci. Feb. 29, 2016.

3. “A physicist flirts with philosophy and lives to tell the tale”, Scientific American. Sept. 23, 2011.
This was an interview with physicist Brian Cox, and to Professor Cox’s credit he describes his recent acknowledgment of the importance of philosophy.

4. Rationally Speaking:  Exploring the borderlines between reason and non-sense.  Podcast with host Julia Galef. 

5. “Science can answer moral questions“, Youtube link to TED talk by Sam Harris (neuroscientist, skeptic, and atheist).  I’m arguing against this point of view, but see what you think!

 

The Frequency Illusion

This week I had a good opportunity to discuss an interesting cognitive bias with one of my 4th year medical student while we were on renal rounds. The issue came up when I was examining the belly of one of my young patients, who screamed out, “your hands are cold”. One of our nurses was quick to respond, “Cold hands, warm heart”. My student looked at me then remarked that she had only recently ever heard that expression, and since then has been hearing it over and over again. This, of course, lead to a natural discussion of the cognitive bias called the Frequency Illusion, which also is known as “The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon”. I admit we had to look up the name, as neither of us could remember what it was called. As physicians and scientists, critical thinking and rational thought are vital, and one way I teach this to my students is by discussing cognitive bias and logical fallacies. These emphasize where limitations of the human mind lie, and how to avoid common pitfalls in thinking that we are all prone towards.

The frequency illusion is one we have probably all experienced from time to time. The example above, is a not unusual. My student may have heard that phrase before, but never really registered it, or perhaps really never did hear it before recently. In any case, the true frequency of the phrase is unlikely to have suddenly increased, but only my students perception of the phrase has lead her to believe that only now is she hearing, “cold hands, warm heart” all over the place. Cognitive scientists propose that when the human mind has been given new information, it creates a bias towards that information so that we are more likely to become aware of seeing or hearing that same information again the next time it is presented. This is known as a “Recency Effect”. In reality the information has always been present at the same frequency but until recently it was part of the background noise and not in the forefront of thought.

Another example of the Frequency Illusion is one that I noticed in myself this week.  This occurred after a friend of mine posted on Facebook that he and his wife were visiting the Florida Keys for vacation. Since then I have noticed several commercials on TV advertising the Florida Keys for tourism. I had never noticed those commercials before. Now, it is possible that those commercials have only just begun to be broadcast, my friend was influenced by the commercial and decided to go to the Florida Keys, and I only started noticing the commercials because they were never on TV before this week. A more likely explanation is that I have fallen victim to the Frequency Illusion.

And yes, my hands really are cold all the time, and my heart is around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit – so pretty warm. I guess my nurse was right after all!

Reference articles:
1. “The Baader-Meinhof pheonomonen”, How stuff works.

2. Structure of a logical argument. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe page.

3. “The Clumping Effect” Darwin’s Kidneys blogpost.

4. List of Logical Fallacies.  Wikipedia.

 

The Dialogs: Is there a limit to Science?

by Rich Feldenberg

In the Dialogs the Robot from Lost in Space and Speed Racer find themselves suddenly transported to a distant location to discuss a topic of philosophy of science. This has happened on many occasions. They don’t know how they come to this place or if some intelligent being is behind it. When they return to their own worlds no one else is aware that they have even been gone.
This time Speed and the Robot suddenly appear on a beach at sunset. They are on ancient earth, in the greek islands.  The sky is ablaze with deep reds and purples as the sun is sinking beneath the sea. Waves are crashing loudly on the rocky shore and a gentle breeze is blowing. There is no one else on the island, but just 30 miles south, and out of view of our heroes, a fleet of Athenians is making a crossing as they prepare for battle.

“Hello again, Speed Racer.  In principle there are no limits to science.” Says the Robot, It’s bubble encased brain blinking red and yellow lights. “It’s methodology makes it the best tool to apply in an attempt to answer any question.”

“Good to see you again Robot.  Of course there are limits to science.” Says Speed, as he removes his white helmut and takes a step closer to the robot’s hulking metal body. “There are plenty of question it can not answer. In fact, it can’t answer the most important questions, like what is the meaning of life? What is the most ethical thing to do in a particular situation? What is love, how can you prove that you’re in love or that someone loves you? Science may be a useful tool to answer certain questions, but it completely fails in the most important areas.”

The robots accordion style arms raise into the air, claws open as its blinking red speech unit broadcasts its deep mechanical voice. “I think that if you examine both the true definition of science, as well as, the questions that you believe science can not enlighten us on you’ll find that science does, in fact, have a great deal to say and offer to us. I would also propose that if there are certain questions that science can not answer, then there is also no reason to believe that any other method of knowledge acquisition has any hope of being any more successful.”

“You’re saying that intuition, spirituality, religion, mediation, and so on, have no value? That’s ridiculous”, said Speed. Even you can’t analyze all the available data necessary for every decision you make or every insight you have. If you tried to do that you’d never even make it out the space hatch every morning. You’d be paralyzed with indecision as you scan through all the available literature, contemplate moves and counter moves, and continually update your Basyean analysis algorithm, for even the simplest choice you had to make. I dare to say that even with the processing speed of your computer brain it would take you hours to decide if you should first conduct a soil analysis, inspect the Jupiter II perimeter for danger, or see if Dr. Smith is up to no good, when you activate your circuits each morning.”

The robot rotated its torso slightly “Negative, as usual Speed Racer, you’ve made many false assumptions, which lead you to your illogical conclusions. First, science is simply the most reliable method that you humans, or machines like myself, have to answers questions. Science is not a perfect system, but has a number of qualities that make it extremely useful and unique. It is a self correcting system so that any conclusions from a particular experiment may be updated by new data from additional experiments. It uses statistical methodology to come to conclusions that may be very different than “common sense” intuitions would predict. It’s experiments or observations can be designed to minimize the potential bias that are inherent in both the human and the machine mind.”

“But that still doesn’t mean it can answer any question.” Speed looked out onto the darkening horizon. The stars were beginning to appear in the sky and it was getting a little cooler now. “It has important limits. I might not expect a machine to understand that, but most humans realize that there are other ways of knowing. Science is limited to naturalistic investigations and explanations. If there are phenomenon outside of nature then science will always be blind to it.”

“While human intuition and meditation and prayer may result in some eventual decision making process, there is no reason to believe that any special knowledge is delivered via these methods. Take intuition as an example”, said the robot as it’s high frequency sensors were rotating near the head. It’s blinking lights now seemed quite bright as the fading sun became lost below the ancient greek sea . “It’s clear that humans have intuition about certain things. It’s likely that over the course of evolution Homo sapiens has evolved the ability to have insight into certain common situations. Intuition might give a human the feeling that there is some danger in this place, and that it would be best to leave. This could easily be an evolved trait to promote survival, and those humans that didn’t feel a sense of dread or doom in a particular situation may have been less likely to pass on their genes to subsequent generations if they were eaten by saber tooth tigers or killed by neighboring tribes because they didn’t pick up on subtle unconscious clues that their immediate environment was unsafe. Those systems built into your neural networks are nothing more than survival circuits and were never evolved to produce accurate information about the world. They only have to be correct often enough to enhance survival, but in no way need to be highly accurate, and can be prone to a high false positive rate. Even the software engineers that designed my computer brain, and other AI even more sophisticated than myself recognized the importance of building in a set of heuristics to prevent a robot from harm and damage without involvement of higher brain circuits. “

Speed took a few steps toward the water. “Look Robot, I appreciate that science has taught us about black holes in the center of galaxies, and quarks in protons and neutrons, and gives us the knowledge to build interstellar ships like the Jupiter II to travel to the stars, or to design the Mach 5 to win races, but it can’t tell us about meaning or purpose or the right way to live your life. You have to find the answer to those questions through other means.”

“In many situations there may be insufficient data to draw firm conclusions”, said the robot, “and in all cases science is clear that it’s conclusions are non absolute but simply the closest approximation to truth that we can come to at the time. Asking, “what is the meaning of life”, may be an empty and futile question, since it is quite reasonable to conclude that there is no objective meaning – that the question itself is meaningless. And in this way one does reach the limit of science, in the sense that science can not answer a question that has no answer. Many philosophers would conclude that we have to create our own purpose for our life, and that this self-created purpose can be very fulfilling and give our temporary existence a great deal of meaning.”

“What about things that we know are real but can’t be studied in a lab like love?” Speed put his hand over his heart. “How can science prove that Trixie loves me? I don’t need to be put in an fMRI scanner to know. I know that she does but there is no test that can show something so important and invisible as love.”

“Love is a human emotion”, the robot said. “There is sufficient evidence to conclude that it is also present to some extent in other complex animals, especially higher mammals. While I don’t have that emotion built into my AI circuitry, there is clear scientific evidence that love does exist as a property of the central nervous system of certain animals, like humans. There is no evidence, however, that love exists outside of these systems. In other words, there is no proof that love is a force in space or would exist if there were no life or intelligent beings in the universe. Emotions, like love can be studied in the lab. Their effects on human behavior can be observed, measured, classified, and understood, in terms of underlying mechanisms. Based on that understanding, predictions can be made as to effects on future behavior or activities of those afflicted by such emotions. You can’t “know” that Trixie loves you, but you can have a high degree of confidence that she does based on experience and observation. An independent observer, such as myself, might come to a similar conclusion based on a careful inspection of facial expression, body language, speech patterns, and so on. The level of confidence might be improved further if I did indeed scan Trixie’s brain to examine blood flow patterns and oxygen consumption in specific parts of the brain while she was looking, thinking about, and interacting with you.”

Speed circled around the robot as the robot rotated its body without moving its legs. “Well, lets say that for the sake of argument “, continued Speed, “there are ghosts. You know, some kind of spirit with an intelligence of some kind that can haunt a house or drive an invisible ghost race car. Science could never find that because it is only designed to look for natural causes, and the scientists themselves would never believe in ghosts so wouldn’t design an experiment to test for it. You have to admit that is true.”

The robot answered. “Speed Racer, if there is another type of reality that exists, that has some form of interaction with the natural world then that is a scientific claim. Whether that claim involves ghosts, spirits, ESP, angels, miracles, or so on. If it affects this world it can be studied in some way by the scientific method. While extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, to quote Carl Sagan, scientists follow the data. If there was sufficient and reproducible effects that could best be explained by ghosts, then that hypothesis would have to be seriously considered. So far, that type of evidence has never been reliably demonstrated which leads scientists to conclude that any supernatural phenomenon seems highly unlikely. It can never be fully ruled out since additional evidence might surface at anytime and in science one is always open to new evidence.”

“So you are saying that science has no limits?” Speed said, squinting into the robots bubble head.

“Not necessarily”, replied the robot. “There may be physical limits that science will never be able to penetrate. If quantum uncertainty is built into the very fabric of space-time we will never have a full understanding of the quantum state of an object. In other words we can’t know both an electron’s position and momentum with full certainty. We may never be able to probe matter at the smallest Planck scales since that may take more energy than is available in the entire observable universe. It is also possible that our minds might have a certain limit in which we simply can not understand anymore beyond a particular point. Some of those limits could also be imposed by physical limits so that even the best designed computer brain might never be made intelligent enough to grasp the most fundamental truths of the universe. Your pet chimp Chim Chim can never be taught to understand calculus because it’s brain is just too simple, but there may be no plausible brain that could fully comprehend all aspects of nature.”

Speed looked down at his feet. “Even I had trouble with calculus. Trixie had to tutor me through it. I see what you’re saying Robot. I’ll consider your points. I feel like we’re being pulled back to our worlds again. I’m in the middle of a big race and the Car Acrobatic Team was trying to finish me off. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

“Good luck in your race Speed Racer”, said the machine. “I was in the middle of searching for Penny Robinson who is lost on the planet we are stranded on. I must help find her. Until we meet next time, Speed Racer.”

If Block Time is True then Heaven and Hell are both real, and you’re in both of them right now!

By Rich Feldenberg

For what is perhaps the most familiar and everyday of the physical properties, time has remained a highly perplexing mystery to physicists. Our minds evolved to have a sense of the passage of time. Perhaps the only other physical property so intuitively familiar to us is that of matter itself. Having a mental construct of the world where there is a passage of time, and where things have shape and solidity, had it’s obvious survival advantages to a clever young primate species first becoming self aware on the African savannah. There was no selective pressure for us to have any intuitive sense about quantum mechanics or general relativity since these phenomena could not be sensed by our evolving minds.

This makes it seem to us, as though we are born with an intuitive knowledge of what time and matter really are. We have a common sense about them, but our innate understanding of such things doesn’t necessarily correlate with a true understanding. Our sense of physical law evolved to be useful, but there was no reason it needed to evolve to be accurate. In fact, we know that modern science tells us that solid matter is anything but solid. It is composed of tiny atoms that are themselves made of nearly entirely empty space. Electromagnetic forces of repulsion between electrons in the atoms of a wall, and those of your body, give to us the illusion of solidity, and make any attempt to walk through the wall very painful.

The same is likely to be true about time. Despite how many times we look at our watches each day, we really don’t get it. At the subatomic scale time doesn’t seem to have much meaning. If you observe two elementary particles interacting, you wouldn’t be able to tell if you were being shown the interaction in forward or reverse. The laws of physics do not differentiate a forward or backward flow of time at this tiny scale. It is only when we start to observe very large collections of particles on the macroscopic scale that there appears to be an arrow of time – a particular direction to flow. You could tell the direction of a movie if it showed an egg breaking on the floor. We know broken eggs don’t just fly together and become unbroken.

This is due to the effect of entropy, which is simply a measure of the statistical likelihood of how a system will change. While there can be local decreased in entropy, the overall net effect is one of increasing entropy, and this leads to our conception of an arrow to the direction of time. One way of looking at it is by considering a large collection of gas atoms. Lets say helium atoms confined to a gas cylinder. There are very few ways that the helium atoms can be arranged in an orderly way. If they are all packed together down at the bottom of the cylinder, or they are all forming a sphere in the middle, or arranged into the letters “He” (for helium), towards the top of the cylinder, and so on. There is nothing saying they can’t do that, but it is statistically very unlikely. It is much more likely that the helium atoms are arranged basically randomly throughout the cylinder. That is because there are so many more ways the atoms can be arranged in a disorderly random state, than in one of the few orderly states. From the macroscopic view, the many states where the gas in the cylinder appears disorderly all look the same. They actually aren’t the same, all the atoms could have been in the exact opposite site of the cylinder from where they actually were, but to us it would still look the same. It is this movement towards a more disorderly state, the increase in entropy, that seems to suggest an arrow of time at larger scales.

Well, some physicists now feel that the passage of time is an illusion altogether, and that instead the universe exists in something called block time. In a block time kind of universe the entire universe, from beginning to end, is always in existence. Everything in the past is just as real as everything happening right now in the present. Even more incredible, everything in the future is just as real as this moment you are experiencing right now. There is no difference between past, present, and future, if block time is correct. This view is also called untensed and, as such there is no privileged point of view in time.

This is obviously counter to our common sense view where the present has the only privileged status and is constantly flowing. Now is real, but wait, that point in time is now gone and we can never get it back. Now is dead, long live the now! This kind of view, the way our natural intuition feels most comfortable is called Presentism. But as I’ve said, common sense isn’t necessary leading us to truth. The Caltech theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, who has written several popular physics books including, “From Eternity to Here” and “The Particle at the End of the Universe”, says that he finds the block time concept, “perfectly acceptable”. It is far from settled whether this is the best description of the universe and is still being debated in theoretical physics circles, but if true would seem to have some amazing philosophical implications.

For one, this would seem to imply a kind of immortality. Our life is just a tiny line in the cosmic loaf of block time (I like to picture it like a loaf of bread with a thin slice as being everything we think of as the present moment). Of course, the whole idea of block time is that the entire loaf of bread (past, present, and future universe) is all right there, so our tiny time line always exists. Maybe that would explain why you and I feel alive at this very moment even though our lives are likely to be only a century or so out of the hundreds of trillions of years that the universe is likely to exist. It would seem very unlikely that the universe should be in that very special time right now when we are alive. I mean shouldn’t it be much more likely that the universe should be somewhere in the next trillion years than in here at 13.7 billion years since the big bang? The usual answer would probably be to simply invoke the fact that if the universe wasn’t at this point then we just simply wouldn’t be here to wonder about it. That might be just fine, but it is still statistically an astronomically unlikely coincidence.

Ok well, lets just run with the block time thing for a second here. Every moment in time is just as real as every other. What ever is going to happen in 100 trillion years from now is just as real as what is happening now as I type this sentence. Oh, and by the way, you and I are long dead and forgotten in that slice of the bread 100 trillion years down the road. But we will continue to live in our limited slices of the loaf forever. I’m always experiencing this very moment, and the moment that I was born, and the moment I died, and every other moment of my life. In that sense we are immortal in the block time universe.

If so, then that makes heaven and hell completely real too, in that you and I are in them both, always and forever. I don’t mean that heaven and hell exist in another dimension or have a supernatural existence. All I mean to say is that we all have moments in our lives where we feel great joy and happiness, even if it is very momentary. And likewise there are moments where we are deeply hurting and in pain -again they may be very short periods, but yeah, they can be pretty bad. That “us” that is experiencing the moment of joy, happiness, or pleasure is basically always in a kind of heaven. Unfortunately, that “us” in those moments of pain, hurt, depression, worry, fear, or despair is also always in a kind of hell. The majority of our lives are somewhere between the peaks and troughs, in the just “business as usual” sort of mundane life events. Forever in front of the TV, climbing the stairs, brushing our teeth, looking for something to eat in the fridge, and of course sleeping in non-dream sleep.

Block time also challenges our ideas about free will. In a block time universe, everything is already destined to happen in a certain way. The future is just as unchangeable as is the past. We simply have the illusion of free will, but there is zero chance that we are going to do anything other than what is already engrained into the block time universe. The question of free will is one that philosophers have been discussing for centuries, long before the concept of block time entered the theoretical physics arena. Philosophers might use the word volition instead of free will. Can we have volition and still have a deterministic universe? We may have the illusion of making choice, but the outcome has always been in existence in block time. It would seem a bit like watching an old familiar movie. The characters seem convincing in their parts, their emotion, reactions to events, and so on, but you already know everything that is going to happen and nothing will change the course of events in the film.

It’s unclear if the block time concept of the universe can be proven, or if it is even falsifiable, but certainly the philosophical implications of such an existence seem fascinating. Perhaps our lives really are both eternal and finite. In any case, making the most of this existence would seem to be important. Maximizing the ups and minimizing the downs, and doing so for others as well would seem important if we, and they, are always alive in the moment. Perhaps our fates are already decided, but who’s to say that our intentions are not what sealed those fates to begin with. I’m suddenly reminded by a scene in “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”, where a bowl of petunias is suddenly called in to existence miles above the legendary planet of Magrathia. And as it is falling towards the ground, about to be smashed to bits, the thought, “Oh no not again” runs through its mind. The narrator says, “Many people believe that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias thought that, we would know a lot more about the universe than we do today”.

Does carbon production in stars reveal design in nature?

Does carbon production in stars reveal design in nature?

Why the triple alpha process appears so unlikely, but is absolutely vital to our existence.

By Rich Feldenberg

In Douglas Adam’s remarkably clever and entertaining sci-fi-philosophical comedy, The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy, the solution to the most profound and vexing of problems, the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything turns out to be “42”.  Unfortunately, that answer didn’t seem to really satisfy any of the characters in the story, and simply brought increased puzzlement and confusion.  Does that mean that there is no answer, or that we aren’t intelligent enough to understand the answer, or as Deep Thought, the super computer in the Hitchhiker’s guide points out, that we haven’t really figured out how to ask the question in the right way, so the answer churned out will be obviously incoherent?

I think that almost all of us have a deep desire to understand something a bit more about Life, the Universe, and Everything, than we know right now, but just like Douglas Adam’s hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, we don’t really know where to even start asking the question in a formally logical and structurally coherent way.  If a hyper-intelligent species can’t even figure out how to do it what chance do we have to get it right?  One thing that seems clear is that humans have been trying to figure out their place in the cosmos for a very long time.  Even in prehistoric times there is evidence for a developing concept of the supernatural, suggested in artifacts and signs of ritual.  It is easy to to imagine early humans during the last ice age feeling tiny and afraid in a big world of danger and death, wanting desperately to gain an edge by understanding the world just a little better.  And thanks to human intellect, our early ancestors did learn important facts about the world that helped them to survive, such as learning about the seasons, migration patterns of large herd animals, how to identify stones that can be crafted into technology, and so on.  Some things remained a mystery, such as where all the humans originally came from, how the world was created, and why everyone eventually dies, so myths were invented to answer these important questions.

Jump forward 50,000 years, and we humans managed to survive against odds, not due to strength, but due to intellect and the fierce instinct to reproduce.  Today we know a lot more about the universe, thanks to the development of science over the last 400 years, but as the frontiers of science are pushed ever outward, we still stumble against the age old questions of Life, the Universe, and Everything.  How did we get here and what is it all for?  To illustrate why it may look like the universe was specially made for us, I want to describe the triple alpha process, which is really a cool thing to know about in its own right, but also because it is a feature of our universe that theists commonly use to justify the concept that the universe has to have been fine tuned in order for us to be here.

The triple alpha process (also known as the Hoyle resonance) is the mechanism by which carbon is produced in the universe.  Carbon is pretty important for us earthlings since all earth life is carbon based.  From the carbon in our DNA, to the that in our proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, carbon is our most important building block for making a living thing.  Based on the chemical properties of carbon, it seems to be the most likely element to play the staring role featured in the movie of life across the universe.  Any other potential candidate atoms (such as silicon – see my blog post from June 18th, 2015 on the implausibility of silicon based life forms) don’t appear to have the versatility necessary for the complexity of chemical reactions we call life.

The carbon in our bodies, in all living things, and in the environment in the form of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or carbonates dissolved in the oceans, was not produced in the big bang.  The big bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago, and in the intense temperature and density all the primordial hydrogen and helium was created, with a trace amount of lithium and a few other elements.  Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the cosmos today, so it had to be produced through another route.  That route involves its synthesis inside of hot dense stars.

Main sequence stars like the sun are busy fusing hydrogen into helium.  This process ultimately takes four hydrogen nuclei (protons) and with the temperatures and densities achieved in the core of stars fuses them into a helium nucleus (two protons and two neutrons represented as He-4).  During that process energy was released in the form of gamma rays as two of the protons were transformed into neutrons, with the small mass difference (protons have slightly more mass than neutrons) being converted to energy.  The gamma rays continue to be absorbed and reemitted at slightly lower energy by other atomic nuclei until they have lost so much energy they are eventually released at the stars surface as visible light.  This is why the sun and other stars shine.  As you might have noticed, this process did not generate any carbon.  That’s because the sun will not produce carbon until it runs out of its hydrogen fuel and falls off the main sequence.

When a star like the sun runs out of hydrogen fuel, the radiation pressure that was holding it up against the intense gravitational force weakens, so that gravity collapses the core.  This collapse has the effect of heating up the core further, and causing helium nuclei to fuse.  The outer layer of the star get pushed outward, and the star will become a Red Giant, swelling many times its original size.  This where the triple alpha process comes in.  Each helium nucleus – composed of two protons and two neutrons – is called an alpha particle.  The carbon-12 (C12) has 6 protons and 6 neutrons, and its production is a two step process in the heart of Red Giant stars.  In the first step two alpha particles fuse to produce beryllium-8 (an atomic nuclei with 8 protons and 8 neutrons represented as Be-8).   Beryllium-8 will have a tendency to almost immediately break apart into two alpha particles, but in the collapsed core of the Red Giant star, the production of beryllium-8 is even faster than it has a chance to fall to pieces.  This allows another alpha particle to fuse with a beryllium-8 nucleus and thus creates our beloved carbon-12 atomic nuclei.

This seems all well and good except that the energy of the beryllium-8 nuclei plus the alpha particle is higher in energy than the carbon-12 nuclei produced.  In order for the nuclear reaction to proceed the reactants and the products need to have fairly close energy levels.  This means that the odds of this ever actually happening is so small as to be insignificant, and so “no carbon for you”, to paraphrase the Soup Nazi from Sienfield!

Around 1953, the British Astronomer Fred Hoyle realized that for carbon to be produced by the triple alpha process, the carbon nucleus had to have an excited state that was somewhere in energy near the combination Be-8 + He-2 + plus a little extra energy to account of the kinetic energy of the two reactants.  Hoyle then went on and calculated the energy that this theoretical excited carbon state should have in order to explain the carbon that is obviously very abundant in the universe, and necessary for us to exist at all.  His calculation was that the excited carbon state was at 7.69 MeV (MeV = mega electron volts), and he went to his nuclear physics colleagues to try to get them to look for this carbon state.  He didn’t have much luck initially convincing the physics community to look for this state, but several years later an excited state of carbon with an energy of 7.656 MeV was found that verified Hoyle’s prediction.  The remarkable thing is that Hoyle predicted this state of matter based only on the anthropic principle – that it had to exist in order for us to be here to wonder about it.

This excited carbon-12 state, now known as the Hoyle state or Hoyle resonance, makes carbon production in our universe possible.  Because the energy of the excited carbon state is close to the energy of the Be-8 + He-2, the reaction can proceed, then lose energy settling down into the lower and more stable C-12 state.  Recent studies have shown that the carbon nuclei can be thought of as clusters of three alpha particles in the way they are arranged and interact.  In the stable ground state of carbon-12 (remember we are talking about the energy states of the nuclei themselves and not the energy levels of the electrons around the nuclei, as we would be if talking about chemistry) the three alpha particles can be thought of as forming an equilateral triangle with an alpha particle at each vertex.  In the Hoyle state carbon nucleus the three alpha particles form an obtuse triangle, or what has been called a “bent-arm” configuration.  Almost no carbon formed this way in the Big Bang because the temperature and density of the universe dropped too quickly for anything but a trace amount, at best, of carbon to be made.  It had to be in the hearts of these dying stars that the process would have millions of years to accumulate the universal carbon content.

The triple alpha process is one of several arguments theists have used for the, so called, fine tuning problem.  By fine tuning they mean that the physical constants and other parameters of the universe are so exquisitely tuned that any adjustment in their values would have produced a universe devoid of life.  In our example above, if there was no excited carbon state at the Hoyle resonance then there would be a universe with stars and galaxies, hydrogen and helium, but no carbon or higher elements, and therefore no planets, living creatures, or people.  Seems like a pretty lucky coincidence – right?

First, I would have to say that in my opinion, in a reasoned scientific debate, the fine tuning problem is the most sophisticated argument for the existence of a cosmic intelligence or creator being.   There is already so much overwhelming evidence for evolution that the illusion of design in the living world is no longer a valid argument, and hasn’t been so for at least a hundred years.  Almost all scientifically educated people will accept evolution as fact if they have not already been intellectually blinded by dogma.  That still leaves apparent design in the physical world to be  adequately explained.

Secondly, I would conclude that the fine tuning arguments do not apply to those who hold to a literal interpretation of scripture, whether that individual adheres to the Christian bible, Jewish torah, or Islamic koran.  To hold a literal interpretation would mean that fine tuning argument is completely irrelevant, as the universe, in this view, was created in a short period of time – just 6 days!, and has existed for only a short time period – less than 10,000 years.  Therefore, there is no need to worry about the unlikely Hoyle resonance associated with the triple alpha process, as it didn’t take hundreds of millions of years for stars to form the carbon for us to have available for life, since everything necessary was just created when animals and humans were suddenly brought into existence.  The same logic would apply to many of the other examples of fine tuning arguments, such as the strength of the gravitational constant, for instance.  Again, it doesn’t matter too much if the constant is just right to account for the longevity of stars or the expansion rate of the universe, or so on.  Stars were just created in the beginning, and there was never any concern that they would all collapse into black holes too soon, or not have enough gravitational force to collapse from interstellar clouds of gas and dust to begin fusion in their core.

So where does this leave us then?  Well, the fine tuning argument might be of use to the theist that believes the creator of the universe works through physical laws, and sets things into motion at the earliest stages of the universe.  This would be most consistent with the deist, who might interpret god as the initiation force of the universe or the laws of nature itself.  Once the universe is wound up it is released to progress based on the laws put in place, like a computer program being executed after the user presses “start”.  Does that fit at all with an interpretation of a personal god?  Again, it doesn’t seem to fit well with a young earth creationists world view.  For those who can accept an old universe that operates by physical law it may be compatible, but there is nothing about the fine tuning argument that requires a personal god.  

If we look more closely at the fine tuning arguments we find that even there, the assumptions may be over emphasized.  Again, it is claimed that if even one physical parameter, such as the gravitational constant, or the strength of the electromagnetic force, are varied even slightly the universe could not have evolved in a way that life as we know it would ever be produced.  Several theoretical physicists, including the late Victor Stenger had shown that if you alter a particular physical parameter, but also allow other physical parameter to vary at the same time, then there can be many balances that essentially cancel themselves out.  In other words, there are many more “sweet spots” that are possible for a habitable universe than the one we find ourselves living in.  That means the universe is not as fine tuned as sometimes claimed.  As far as the wild coincidence of the Hoyle resonance state, Stenger too showed that the excited state of carbon could vary by a lot more and still produce as much, and in some cases even more carbon than our universe is able to produce.  He calculated that the excited state of carbon could have a wide range of values – from 7.596 MeV up to 7.716 MeV- to produce the same amount of carbon that we see in our universe.  It didn’t have to be precisely the 7.656 MeV that we observe for our universe.  In addition, enough carbon could still be formed if the energy value were up 7.933 MeV, and even more carbon may form at a range below the 7.596 almost down to the ground state of the carbon-12 nucleus.

This suggests the Hoyle resonance was not terribly finely tuned after all, and therefore life’s dependance on this unusual state is not as unlikely as initially thought – a rather poorly tuned cosmic dial could still have resulted in the same conditions.  Not only that, but some values of the excited carbon state may actually have made life potentially more common throughout the cosmos.  If it had only happened to have a slightly lower value it would have resulted in more carbon production in stars.  In that sense, our current universe is not very well suited for life.  Life just barely makes it out here!   It might have been better for evolving life if made by design.

Can science do any better at providing an explanation for a universe containing physical constants consistent with life?  In recent years serious consideration has been given in scientific circles to the possibility that we live in a multiverse of universes.  In the multiverse model our universe is just one of many, possibly an infinite number, of universes.  Each universe could, in turn, have their physical constants randomly set to a particular value.  This would mean that there are many universes that exist in the multiverse where the physical laws do not allow life to develop.  These universes may be interesting in certain ways, but would be completely devoid of any life forms.  Other universes in the multiverse, would be like ours, and happen to have their physical parameters randomly set in a way that makes the development and evolution of life possible or even inevitable.  Because every variation of combinations of physical parameters are manifest in some universe somewhere it shouldn’t be surprising that we wake up in a universe that is suitable for us.  Even if a universe exactly like our own had only a 1 in 10500 change of occurring, it would be inevitable to occur an infinite number of times in an infinite multiverse.

The truth is that no one knows for sure if we live in a multiverse.  It is very important to point out the multiverse idea wasn’t invented to solve the fine-tuning problem, it was a natural consequence of existing scientific theory.  Certain serious scientific theories, such as inflation theory, which describes the very early stages of our universe following the Big Bang seem to demand a multiverse as part of their mathematical structure.  Inflation hasn’t been satisfactorily verified as of yet, and no other evidence has provided strong enough proof of a multiverse at this stage in our cosmic understanding.  Still, continuing down the path of naturalistic explanation still seems the most prudent path to take since this approach has taken us so far in such a short amount of time.  To the deist, there is nothing disproving that a supernatural force set the laws of physics in motion some 13.7 billion years ago, but as has been pointed out by others, this does not seem to be the most parsimonious explanation, since this merely pushes back the question by one step, and we are still left with the question where did such a complex and intelligent being come from.  For those who demand that the creator being was always there, then the same argument can be used for the universe itself.  Even if science can never answer this question – a distinct possibility – this does not mean that therefore god did it.  If one theory is proven wrong that does not mean the rival theory is therefore the correct explanation.  It simply means one theory was proved wrong.  The rival theory may be right or wrong, but still needs evidence to stand on its own.  Unfortunately, if science can never satisfy our curiosity by getting to the bottom of our ultimate origins there is no reason to think that religion can do any better.  There is also every reason to feel hopeful that the discoveries of science will continue to shed some light on the origins of the universe – that we are not at the end of scientific discovery.

The triple alpha process is a fascinating mechanism by which the carbon so vital for life as we know it is produced in our universe.  Perhaps it doesn’t answer the ultimate question of, Life, the Universe, and Everything, but appreciating its complexity certainly adds to the beauty of trying to understand our place in the cosmos.  If we did learn someday that the multiverse exists, and we are here because it is inevitable that some universes in the multiverse would be just like our own for no good reason but by a statistical roll of the dice, I’m sure that many would still feel that the ultimate question was still not satisfactorily answered.  Is that because we don’t know what the question really is?  Is it that we don’t know how to formulate the question so that it brings in the whole cosmic perspective plus our own personal one?    In the mean time, for those of us who value evidence, logic, and reason, while we continue to look for the answers to the deep questions, all I can offer is the advice of the HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Don’t Panic!

References:

1. “Is Carbon Production in Stars Fine-Tuned for Life”?, Victor Stenger, Center for Inquiry,  Volume  20.1, March 2010.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/is_carbon_production_in_stars_fine-tuned_for_life

2. “The Hoyle State: A Primordial Nucleus behind the Elements  of Life”, Natalie Wolchover and Quanta Magazine.  Scientific  American,  December 6, 2012.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hoyle-state-primordial-nucleus-behind-elements-life/

3. Wikipedia:  “The triple-alpha process”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process

4. “Carbon’s Hoyle state calculated at last”,  Edwin Cartlidge, Physics World,  January 3, 2013.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/jan/03/carbons-hoyle-state-calculated-at-long-last