קאווע שטיבל

Abdelkader says his main reason for believing in his inverted model is the relief it brings from the anxiety of thinking the universe is so immense that the earth fades into insignificance. Fritz Braun earlier expressed the same emotion by writing that once you accept his model "the fearful distances of billions of light years, the infinite emptiness and senselessness" of the Copernican model disappears. A Freudian would say that the inside-out universe expresses an unconscious urge to return to the warmth and security of the womb

There is an old joke about a drunk who, late one night, found himself leaning against a circular pillar. He walked around it several times, patting it, then sank to the ground. “S’no use,” he groaned. “I’m all walled in

אלוקותו של אלוקים אינה מותנית כלל בהיותו בורא העולם. הרמב"ם מבסס את המושג הצרוף של הא-ל הטרנסצנדנטי, שהקשר בינו ובין העולם איננו קשר של סיבתיות נטוראליסטית, ועוד נראה בהמשך דיוננו שהרמב"ם אינו רואה את מושג הבריאה כמהותי להכרת האלוקים. מכאן נפתח פתח להבנת נקודה שבה הרמב"ם נבדל מכל שיטה פילוסופית ומכל תיאולוגיה שהיו רווחות בימי-הביניים ביהדות וגם בנצרות: ביטול האנתרופוצנטריות, שלילה של רעיון מרכזיותו של האדם בבריאה ושל ראייתו כתכליתה. חשיבתו של הרמב"ם היא תיאוצנטרית: היא ההתכוונות לאלוקים, ולא לעולם ולאדם אשר אלוקים הוא אלוקיהם. התיאוצנטריות של חשיבתו ושל תחושת-עולמו אינה סובלת קביעת תכלית כלשהי בבריאה, קביעה העשויה להביא לידי ראיית הבורא ומעשיו כאמצעים לגישומה של תכלית זו. את הפסוק "כל פעל ה' למענהו" מפרש הרמב"ם: למענהו – לא למען האדם (יפה פירש הרב יעקב משה חרל"פ (ב"מי מרום", על שמונה פרקים): "הרמב"ם מראה שאין שום תכלית בעולם, רק רצונו של השי"ת בלבד"). כל שיטה דתית שלא יכלה להשתחרר מן האנתרופוצנטריות צריכה היתה להיפגע קשה מעמדתו של הרמב"ם השוללת מן האדם את מרכזיותו בעולם ואינה מכירה בו כתכלית הבריאה.

לא מקרה הוא שדווקא בנקודה של שלילת מקום האדם כמרכז או כתכלית של הבריאה הרמב"ם מותקף על-ידי חסידי הקבלה, שלהם היה האדם, מבחינה מסויימת, סמל האלוקות: ממושגי-היסוד בתורת הקבלה הוא "אדם הקדמון", שהוא עולם הספירות האלויות. לפיכך לא ייפלא שהרמב"ם הותקף קשה על ידי המקובלים דווקא בגלל שלילתו של מה שנראה להם כמושכל ראשון – של עולם שנברא למען האדם ושתכלית בריאתו היא היות אדם (למשל, בס' עבודת הקודש לר' מאיר גבאי). מצד שני הרמב"ם מותקף על יד אחד מגדולי הוגי-הדעות של הנצרות, תומס אקווינאס, אשר ידע את מורה- נבוכים והשתמש בו להבהרת מושגי פילוסופיה דתית גם בנצרות. אבל הוא תוקף את הרמב"ם בגלל שלילתו את רעיון מרכזיותו של האדם בבריאה; הוא רואה בזה מעין כפירה באמיתת התורה, שפרשת בראשית שבה מעידה לדעתו על היות האדם תכלית הבריאה. ואין אנו תמהים על טענה זו, שהרי למאמין הנוצרי אלוהים הוא מי שהתגלם באדם, ומזה מתחייב שהאדם הוא תכלית הבריאה: הוא אותו חלק של הבריאה שבו עשוי היה אלוהים להתגלם.

רק מבחינת האמונה בא-ל הטראנסצנדנטי, שאינו זקוק לעולם ואינו מתגלם בעולם, אלא הוא האלוהים מצד עצמו – רק מבחינת האמונה הזאת אפשר להגיע לשלילת האנתרופוצנטריות ולראייה תיאוצנטרית מובהקת. שוב נוכל לומר: אין הרמב"ם מגלה אלא מה שגלום באמונה היהודית מלכתחילה.

Each of us lives at the center of his or her universe, but few of us mean that literally. Not too very long ago, however, it was a given that human beings literally lived at the center of the universe, at least in Western culture. From our perspective, that universe was very small. It was a sphere that in today's terms was smaller than our own solar system. It was small in other ways as well: spiritual entities aside, all that was thought to exist (or inferred to exist) could be seen by the naked eye: there was nothing either microscopic or nothing telescopic. The world was small in another sense as well: it had no history because it was uncreated and basically unchanging (as Aristotle taught) or because since creation the natural world (miracles aside was as it was meant to be, with no evolution. In this world, populated by only a few million human beings, people's lives were often nasty, brutish, and short since so many of their fellows were often nasty and brutish (and often short as well, given available nutrition). In such a world, it made immediate intuitive sense to think that one's own group had been specially chosen by God: all other groups believed in arrant nonsense, behaved outlandishly, and were often thought to be barely human

אמר רב יהודה א"ר בשעה שבקש הקב"ה לבראות את האדם ברא כת אחת של מלאכי השרת אמר להם רצונכם נעשה אדם בצלמנו אמרו לפניו רבש"ע מה מעשיו אמר להן כך וכך מעשיו אמרו לפניו רבש"ע (תהלים ח ה) מה אנוש כי תזכרנו ובן אדם כי תפקדנו הושיט אצבעו קטנה ביניהן ושרפם

שאין לבקש תכלית למציאת המציאות אצל השם יתעלה כי היא דבר נמנע להשיגו לאדם והוא אשר רמז באמרו הושיט אצבע קטנה ביניהם ושרפם, כי החקירה במה שאי אפשר מביא לרע בנפש והוא אשר כינוי בשריפה ובגיהנם

והנה מה שתפסו את רבינו בדבר תכלית הבריאה, שהרמב"ם כתב שאין לצייר שהכל הוא רק בשביל האדם אלא שיש מגמה עליונה של ההויה כולה הידועה רק ליוצרה, הרי אנחנו צריכים להחזיק טובה לרבינו על אשר גילה את דעתו, שהיות כל ההויה כולה בכללותה רק לצורך האדם אין זה יסוד התורה עומדת עליו. כי הלא כל הכופרים שנתרבו בעולם, ביחוד מאז שנתרחבו הגבולים הקוסמיים על פי שיטתו של קופרניקוס והבאים אחריו, לא יסדו את כפירתם כי אם נגד זה היסוד, שחשבו שכל עיקר האמונה מושרש הוא רק על היות האדם מרכז היש כולו. ובעת שהציור היה שהארץ עומדת באמצע והגלגלים סובבים עליה, היה ציור זה נח להתקבל, אבל עכשיו שהציור נתרחב עד כדי התפיסה שכל הכדור הארצי כולו לא נחשב כ"א כמו גרגיר קטן בתהום אין סופי, באו מזה לכפירה מוחלטת. ועל כן צריכים אנו להתפאר בהשקפתו של רבינו שהציל את מעמד האמונה בכללותו במה שהורה שגם אם נאמר שהתכלית של כל ההויה הוא כולל יותר ממין האדם, בכל זאת יש מקום לתורה ואמונה.

Arguments from design are like arguments for skepticism or against free will or about trees falling in abandoned forests — philosophers often adopt the posture that the line of reasoning is transparently bad and trivially easy to refute, but then, once the time for refutation comes, it turns out that these confident folk do not all speak with one voice about just what is wrong with the arguments

The most famous family of arguments from design are theistic arguments, and just a bit of digging around will quickly convince one that there are some remarkably unsophisticated branches of this family. Recently, though, a rather more sophisticated branch of this family has emerged, one whose members are classified under the general heading “Fine-tuning arguments”. As a defense for theism, the Fine-tuning argument is suggestive and intriguing, but it could hardly claim to establish with any authority the existence of something divine. Instead, its proponents aim for something more modest — that whereas it does not establish the truth of theism or even the probability of theism, it does provide very significant evidence which (if left unanswered) can render theistic belief not unreasonable at the end of the day. I would like to emulate this modesty and adapt the Fine-tuning argument to my own ends. For those who do not see the argument as a likely path to God, perhaps it will instead appear to lead to hyperspace

The philosopher Thomas Nagel has argued that the ability of Darwin’s theory to fully explain the development of complex biological systems is so compromised that we might as well think of the theory as false. In addition, Nagel suggests that the reality of human consciousness continues to plague the attempt to reduce the mind to the brain. He suggests that philosophy and science must adopt some sort of teleological explanation, something like Aristotle’s telos or the traditional God (although Nagel refuses to go that far) to explain the existence of these most curious of creatures called human beings. This does not mean that scientific cosmologies and biological evolution are to be totally replaced by theism, but, as in classical metaphysics, a role for God as first cause and last telos is added to physics and chemistry to produce a comprehensive explanatory schema

Despite this cast-iron logic, some thinkers believe that the longer the universe goes on, the better it is, ethically speaking. As John Leslie, a cosmological philosopher at the University of Guelph in Canada, told me, "This is true simply on utilitarian grounds: the more intelligent happy beings in the future, the merrier." Philosophers of a more pessimistic kidney, like Schopenhauer, have taken precisely the opposite view: life is, on the whole, so miserable that a cold and dead universe is preferable to one teeming with conscious beings

In the face of these apparent fine-tunings, we have several possible options:

1. Life is extremely robust, and would be likely to arise even if the parameters were very different, whether or not we understand what form it would take
2. There is only one universe, with randomly-chosen parameters, and we just got lucky that they are among the rare values that allow for the existence of life
3. In different regions of the universe the parameters take on different values, and we are fooled by a selection effect: life will only arise in those regions compatible with the existence of life
4. The parameters are not chosen randomly, but designed that way by a deity

Generally, not nearly enough credence is given to option #1 in this list. We know very little about the conditions under which complexity, and intelligent life in particular, can possibly form. If, for example, we were handed the Standard Model of particle physics but had no actual knowledge of the real world, it would be very difficult to derive the periodic table of the elements, much less the atoms and molecules on which Earth-based life depends. Life may be very fragile, but for all we know it may be ubiquitous (in parameter space); we have a great deal of trouble even defining “life” or for that matter “complexity,” not to mention “intelligence.” At the least, the tentative nature of our current understanding of these issues should make us reluctant to draw grand conclusions about the nature of reality from the fact that our universe allows for the existence of life

Swinburne says:

To postulate a trillion trillion other universes, rather than one God in order to explain the orderliness of our universe, seems the height of irrationality

That might be true, even with the hyperbole, if what one was postulating were simply “a trillion trillion other universes.” But that is a mischaracterization of what is involved. What one postulates are not universes, but laws of physics. Given inflation and the string theory landscape (or other equivalent dynamical mechanisms), a multiverse happens, whether you like it or not

This is an important point that bears emphasizing. All else being equal, a simpler scientific theory is preferred over a more complicated one. But how do we judge simplicity? It certainly doesn’t mean “the sets involved in the mathematical description of the theory contain the smallest possible number of elements.” In the Newtonian clockwork universe, every cubic centimeter contains an infinite number of points, and space contains an infinite number of cubic centimeters, all of which persist for an infinite number of separate moments each second, over an infinite number of seconds. Nobody ever claimed that all these infinities were a strike against the theory. Indeed, in an open universe described by general relativity, space extends infinitely far, and lasts infinitely long into the future; again, these features are not typically seen as fatal flaws. It is only when space extends without limit and conditions change from place to place, representing separate “universes,” that people grow uncomfortable. In quantum mechanics, any particular system is potentially described by an infinite number of distinct wave functions; again, it is only when different branches of such a wave function are labeled as “universes” that one starts to hear objections, even if the mathematical description of the wave function itself hasn’t grown any more complicated

A scientific theory consists of some formal structure, as well as an “interpretation” that matches that structure onto the world we observe. The structure is a statement about patterns that are exhibited among the various objects in the theory. The simplicity of a theory is a statement about how compactly we can describe the formal structure (the Kolmogorov complexity), not how many elements it contains. The set of real numbers consisting of “eleven, and thirteen times the square root of two, and pi to the twenty-eighth power, and all prime numbers between 4,982 and 34,950” is a more complicated set than “the integers,” even though the latter set contains an infinitely larger number of elements. The physics of a universe containing 1088 particles that all belong to just a handful of types, each particle behaving precisely according to the characteristics of its type, is much simpler than that of a universe containing only a thousand particles, each behaving completely differently

Likewise, a multiverse that arises due to the natural dynamical consequences of a relatively simple set of physical laws should not be discounted because there are a lot of universes out there. Multiverse theories certainly pose formidable problems, especially when it comes to making predictions and comparing them with data; for that reason, most scientists would doubtless prefer a theory that directly predicted the parameters we observe in nature over a multiverse ensemble in which our local environment was explained anthropically. But most scientists (for similar reasons) would prefer a theory that was completely free of appeals to supernatural agents

The multiverse is not a theory; it is a prediction of a theory, namely the combination of inflationary cosmology and a landscape of vacuum states. Both of these ideas came about for other reasons, having nothing to do with the multiverse. If they are right, they predict the existence of a multiverse in a wide variety of circumstances. It’s our job to take the predictions of our theories seriously, not to discount them because we end up with an uncomfortably large number of universes

Also, at first glance, the God hypothesis does seem simple and precise – an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being. (There are other definitions, but they are usually comparably terse.) The apparent simplicity is somewhat misleading, however. In comparison to a purely naturalistic model, we’re not simply adding a new element to an existing ontology (like a new field or particle), or even replacing one ontology with a more effective one at a similar level of complexity (like general relativity replacing Newtonian spacetime, or quantum mechanics replacing classical mechanics). We’re adding an entirely new metaphysical category, whose relation to the observable world is unclear. This doesn’t automatically disqualify God from consideration as a scientific theory, but it implies that, all else being equal, a purely naturalistic model will be preferred on the grounds of simplicity

שעפטאל האט געשריבן: ↑דאנערשטאג מאי 09, 2024 12:18 amווי סאך כ'פיהל פארן שווער, מיין איך אז ער איז למעשה אנגעפיהלט מיטן הרגשה ווי וויכטיג אונז זענען..

When the existence of life elsewhere is established, and especially if some contact is made with intelligent beings elsewhere, we will be confronted by as much of a challenge to our established way of thought as when the Copernican revolution displaced the earth from the center of the universe and set in motion a religious and philosophical upheaval that has but recently run its course

So pronounced are MaImonides' anti-anthropocentric views, that one modern commentator on the Guide believes that Maimonides considers anthropocentrism as one of three fundamental errors that prevent man from arriving at true conceptions, and that Maimonides geared the whole of the Guide, directly and indirectly, to a refutation of these errors

Maimonides deflates man's extravagant notions of his own importance, and urges us to abandon these illusions. Two centuries later, Hasdai Crescas
was to go one step further
and refute the whole Aristotelian notion that the universe is composed of only one system of concentric spheres. With Crescas' idea of a large number of systems - according to Prof. Wolfson, an infinity of worlds - the whole anthropocentric argument proceeding from the structure of the universe collapses completely

However, Man's non-singularity does not imply his insignificance. Metaphysical dignity is not part of a numbers game; there is nothing in logic or philosophy that insists upon it being in inverse proportion to the number of beings who participate in it. Judaism, therefore, can very well accept a scientific finding that man is not the only intelligent and bio-spiritual resident in God’s world

There is a wide gap between Maimonides' rejection of an anthropocentric teleology and the facile assumption by certain contemporary agnostics that man is utterly purposeless. The smug assertion that from the cosmic point of view - as one scientist put it - life is a very unimportant affair, is absurd for (as Barzun has pointed out) it presupposes a cosmic point of view which by definition does not exist. The scientist may exclude purpose from the a priori categories with which he operates, but he can make no positive assertions about its absence; he may bracket teleology but he may not deny it. As Whitehead once said, "Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." To declare life and man purposeless is to presume a knowledge and a superiority to which one who is but a man may not legitimately lay claim. For Maimonides - and this is certainly a viable and reasonable position for contemporary theists - Man may not be the purpose of the universe, yet he may have a purpose in the universe

Honesty, however, compels us to recall that Maimonides was almost alone in advocating his particular conception of the position of man in the universe. Most other thinkers, led by Saadia, declared man the purpose of the creation and, hence, apparently consider that God is "primarily concerned with human events." If, then, there will emerge reasonable grounds for accepting the existence of extraterrestrial rational races, such attitudes will have to be revised. But the revision wil be centered upon the word "primarily." Judaism will then accept the view of one of its most distinguished exponents, Maimonides, over that of the majority with whom he disagreed

According to the Kabbalah, the denial of the unity of these two aspects of God, His transcendence and immanence, the divorce or rupture between them, is the primal sin of man. Now, when the immanence-transcendence equilibrium is denied, and God is conceived of as either totally immanent [pantheistic] or totally transcendent [deistic], we have in effect repudiated the personal nature of God. We have, then, a Deity who is absolute, infinite, and totally unconcerned and hence irrelevant to man. This, however, signifies "the death of God," and is not at all the "living God" of theistic religion. Judaism is, thus, renounced when the personality of God is negated by a denial either of His transcendence or His immanence. Only the affrmation of both leaves us with a God who is related, concerned, and relevant to man (as well as absolute and transpersonal)

The anticipated shock from the possible discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligent life has thus served, even before such discovery has yet been made, to enlarge the gap btween man and God. It may take one of two forms: an exaggerated transcendence, or an extravagant immanence, either a God who is only "far out" or One who is not "out there" at all. But by whatever route one travels, he reaches the same theological dead-end: a God who really doesn't matter. Immanence and transcendence, divorced from each other and taken to an extreme, ultimately meet in a God without personality; and a God without personality inevitably must lead to a humanity without character

A God who can exercise providence over one billon earhmen can do so for ten bilon times that number of creatures thoughout the universe. He is not troubled, one ought grant, by problems in communications, engineering, or the complexities of cosmic cybernetics

Another, equally fantastic notion advanced by J. B. S. Haldane in 1954, is based on the "steady-state" theory of the universe. Since the world, according to this theory, had no beginning, then life maybe co-eternal with the universe, i.e., life always existed and also had no beginning

The relatively new theological talk of a "developing" and an "evolving" God, are not only not a solution, but the core of the problem. They are a deception, nothig more. A deity subsumed under the Theory of Evolution is no more than an abstract animal. A God who is not supernatural is not Holy. The metaphysical becomes, in such a context, an illusion, and man a spiritual blank. In fact, this conception of an emerging, imperfect, totally immanent God striving for self-realization is, for all its alleged sophistication, strangely primitive, especially when compared to the supposedly naive idea of the God of the theists. Biblical man, fully conscious of his own limitations and frailties, conceived of a God who was perfect, omnipotent, supernatural. No one could, indeed, accuse him of creating a God in his own image. But some contemporary men, themselves imperfect, well-intentioned but flawed in practice, see manind as a link in the evolutionary chain, a species whose origins were exceedingly lowly but who strives for advancement in the same chain; and they posit a deity who fits this very description. It is nothg more and nothing less than a modern version of a graven image

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑דינסטאג אקטאבער 19, 2021 5:26 pm ומענין לענין באותו ענין אז מ׳האט דערמאנט קשיות אויפ׳ן מולטיווערס היפאטעזיע בתוך די געדאנק פון פּראבּעבּיליטי איז ווי באקאנט דא די בּייעס וואס רופט זיך דעם געמבּלער׳ס פאָלאָסיִ. דאס איז ווען מען רעכענט און צומישט אן אינדעפּענדענט זאך׳ס פּראבּעבּיליטי מיט די פּראבּעבּיליטי דערפון על הכלל כולו. למשל, ווען א געמבּלער ווארפט א מטבע פאר העדס אדער טעילס וואס יעדעס ווארף האט א שאנס פון 50/50 פאר העדס אדער טעילס. ער ווארפט דאס פיר מאל און עס געלונגט אויף העדס אלע פיר מאל, קלערט ער אז די פיפטע מאל ווארפן איז מער מצוי אז עס זאל פאלן אויף טעילס ווארום די שאנס, על הכלל כולו, פון ווארפן פינעף מאל א מטבע און עס זאל אלעמאל געלונגען אויף העדס איז 1/32 [האלב צו די פּאַוּער ער פון 5]. אבער עס איז נישט אזוי: די יעצטיגע ווארף פאר זיך איז פונקט אזוי 50/50 און די שאנס פון פינעף מאל העדס איז די זעלבע ווי זאגן אז עס זאל פונקט זיין די ערשטע פיר מאל העדס און דערנאך דייקא טעילס. די זעלבע זאך איז ווען ס׳געלונגט אים נישט די ערשטע פאר מאל און דערנאך קלערט ער, ״יעצט מוז עס שוין געלונגען. ווארום וואס זענען די שאנסן אז עס זאל האלטן אין איין נישט געלונגען.״

דר. איִען העקינג טענה׳ט אז בנוגע די מולטיווערס היפאטעזיע (בעיקר קעגן דר. דזשאן וויִלער׳ס מהלך פונעם מולטיווערס וואס איז סיקווענשאל - איינע נאך די אנדערע ועיין ערך סייקליק מאדעלס וואו די פונדאמענטאלע געזעצן פון זייערע פיזיקס וכו׳ טוישן זיך יעדעס מאל) איז דא אן אינווערס געמבּלער׳ס פאָלאָסיִ. דאס הייסט אז מ׳זעהט אן עווענט פאסירן וואס האט גאר א קליינע שאנס פון פאסירן נעמט מען אָן אז בע״כ האט געמוזט קודם געשעהן גאר אסאך פאסירונגען מיט א נארמאלע שאנס. עס מוז אבער נישט זיין אזוי. עס איז אזוי ווי א געמבּלער קומט אריין אין א קעסינאָ, זעהט אז מ׳האט געווארפן צוויי דייס און ביידע זענען געלונגען אויף 6, און נעמט דעריבער אָן על סמך זה גרידא אז דאס איז נישט די ערשטע ווארף פון דייס פונעם נאכט.

דר.פּעטריק מקרעט טענה׳ט אבער אז עס איז נישט דומה. עס איז מער דומה צו דעם וואו דער געמבּלער רמוז ווארטן אינדרויסן און מען רופט אים אריין נאר טאמער עס פאסירט אן אויסערגעווענטליכן ווארף; אזוי ווי די מענטשהייט וואס קען נאר עקזיסטירן אין אונזער סארט יוּניווערס. אין אזא פאל מאכט יא סענס און עס איז יא ראציאנאל אז ווען מען רופט אים אריין ווייל עס האט פאסירט חשבונ׳ט ער אז עס האט שוין פאסירט אסאך ווארפן.

The analogy anyway is not good. The analogy that you walk into a casino and you see someone roll the double sixes, and then you try to conclude they must have been rolling all night. Because the point is that we conditionalize on the fact that we saw double sixes

We exist - that's already known. There was no option that we could have seen anything else. We're not gonna find ourselves in a universe that does not allow for us to exist. So the question that we're addressing is, being good Bayesians, that we have two propositions in front of us. That is that there's either a single universe with certain values of the constants, or there's a multiverse, and in different parts of that multiverse, you're gonna get different values of the constants, and some will be hospitable to life, and some will not. And the question is, what are the chances that in those two theories somewhere, it's hospitable to life? That's why the analogy is not good

It's not that here we observed it in this one place and it's hospitable to life. But the question is, given these two grand theories of cosmology, what are the chances that life would be able to exist anywhere? And I think it's clearly more likely in the multiverse case

So if you buy that argument, I think that you would say that the fact that we exist I think there is something that is legitimate in asking when you're comparing cosmological theories, what is the probability, I don't want to quite say a priori, but at least before some things that we know, what is the probability that would predict the existence of people like us somewhere? That's the question being asked. I think that's a legitimate question to ask

How does the shift from an overly simplistic “falsification” paradigm to one based on abduction and Bayesian inference affect our attitude toward the multiverse? Rather than simply pointing out that the multiverse cannot be directly observed (at least for some parameter values) and therefore can’t be falsified and therefore isn’t science, we should ask whether a multiverse scenario might provide the best explanation for the data we do observe, and attempt to quantify this by assigning priors to different possibilities then updating them in the face of new data – just as we do for any other scientific theory

Put this way, it becomes clear that there isn’t that much qualitatively special about the multiverse hypothesis. It’s an idea about nature that could be true or false, and to which we can assign some prior probability, which then gets updated as new information comes in

The multiverse isn’t, by itself, a theory; it’s a prediction of a certain class of theories. If the idea were simply “Hey, we don’t know what happens outside our observable universe, so maybe all sorts of crazy things happen,” it would be laughably uninteresting. By scientific standards, it would fall woefully short. But the point is that various theoretical attempts to explain phenomena that we directly observe right in front of us — like gravity, and quantum field theory — lead us to predict that our universe should be one of many, and subsequently suggest that we take that situation seriously when we talk about the “naturalness” of various features of our local environment. The point, at the moment, is not whether there really is or is not a multiverse; it’s that the way we think about it and reach conclusions about its plausibility is through exactly the same kind of scientific reasoning we’ve been using for a long time now. Science doesn’t pass judgment on phenomena; it passes judgment on theories

In defense of the multiverse Carroll writes “Science is about what is true.” But, no, it’s not. Science is about describing what we observe. Science is about what is useful. Mathematics is about what is true

Fact is, the multiverse extrapolates known physics by at least 13 orders of magnitude (in energy) beyond what we have tested and then adds unproved assumptions, like strings and inflatons. That’s not science, that’s math fiction

If Ockham could see what physicists are doing here, he'd pray for God to bring reason back to Earth. You should remove unnecessary assumptions, alright. But certainly you shouldn't remove assumptions that you need to describe observations. If you do, you'll just get a useless theory, equations from which you can't calculate anything. These useless theories which lack assumptions necessary to describe observations are what we now call a multiverse. And they're about as useful as Ockham's prayers

You can believe that the seeming arbitrariness of the constants of nature is due to an infinite number of other universes. You can believe that, but you don't have to. Science cannot confirm that the other universes exist, but it also cannot rule them out. Just like science cannot rule out the gods and angels

Sean Carroll writes: “The best reason for classifying the multiverse as a straightforwardly scientific theory is that we don’t have any choice. This is the case for any hypothesis that satisfies two criteria: (i) It might be true; (ii) Whether or not it is true affects how we understand what we observe.” But those are exceedingly weak criteria indeed. As an extreme example, take the very fuzzy notion of God: it might be true, and whether it’s true or not this would affect how we understand the world. So what? Neither of those two observations — in itself — provides an iota of reason to believe in God. Or the multiverse

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑מיטוואך מאי 26, 2021 7:45 amובכלל, די געדאנק פון ״תכלית הידיעה אשר לא נדע״ און אז ווי מער מ׳ווייסט אין חכמה זעהט מען אלס איין וואס מ׳קען אלס נישט, איז אויך דומה צום [סימפּליפייד] לימיט:
c/x = 0
x←∞
והיינו, עני נומער איך וועל נעמען פאר c אז צו דעם בין איך צוגעקומען אין חכמה פון x שהיא החכמה כולה. און ווי מער איך ווייס אלס מער אנערקען איך אז x קומט נענטער און נענטער צו אינפיניטי, וממילא וואס איך ווייס איז דאך גארנישט.

Once upon a time, when human dominance was still relatively new, humanity rushed to embrace it. In the book of Genesis, God says: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth

This early narrative of our superiority is a declaration: humans have the capabilities to control other species, and this is natural and good. In representing humans as distinct creations, with their place in nature partially defined by their hunting or control of other animals, the Hebrew creation myth is not entirely different from many other creation myths across the world. One can imagine why these stories took hold. For our Bronze Age relatives more than 3,500 years ago, the dangers posed by nonhuman species were real and acutely felt. In those times, achieving some degree of dominance over nonhuman nature was seen as a gift. Today, hunting, gathering and farming have become industrial operations. Once so crucial to our way of life on Earth, they no longer collectively define us. But it is not only our ways of life that have radically shifted

Today, it is impossible to believe we are privileged creatures literally created by divine powers or spiritual forces. We know too much. As the theory of evolution tells us: go back far enough, and our ancestors were not ‘human’ but merely human-like. In fact, many of the traits we once thought made us unique have shown up in other species. Other animals can problem-solve creatively, communicate using symbolic language, become indignant when treated unfairly, and mourn the dead. These evolutionary discoveries have profound implications for the stories our species tells itself. Instead of being divine creations, we are part of a sprawling family of life, replete with family resemblances. This narrative implies that, rather than dominating other species, we should care for them like family members

And so, the story of moral superiority in Genesis gives way to a different moral tale from science. This is an egalitarian narrative teaching us that humans are just another species, with a duty to fight our tendency to dominate Earth and its inhabitants. The narrative goes something like this: Human beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of ‘us’ from ‘them’ creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering. It is part of the in-group/out-group mentality that leads to human oppression of the weak by the strong as in ethnic, religious, political, and social conflicts. Let us open our hearts to two-way relationships with other animals, each giving and receiving. This brings pure and uncomplicated joy

ממה שצריך גם כן שיתבונן בו האדם עד שידע מעלת נפשו ולא יטעה, הוא מה שהתבאר משיעורי הגלגלים והכוכבים ושיעורי הרחקים אשר בינינו ובינם.

והסתכל אלה הנמצאות הגשמיות מה עצום שיעורם ומה רב מספרם, ואם הארץ כולה אין שיעור לה כנגד הגלגל הכוכבים, מהו ערך מין האדם לכל אלה הנבראות? ואיך ידמה אחד ממנו שיהיו אלה בעבורו ובגללו ושהם כֵּלים לו? זהו ענין הקש הגשמים, כל שכן כשיתעין מציאות השכלים.

אחר שביטל הרב שלא יבוקש תכלית זה המציאות ואין האדם תכלית המציאות [בפי"ג הקודם], כבר יחשוב האדם שהאדם גדול המעשה והשיעור אף שלא יהיו הדברים בעבורו, ולכן הביא הרב בזה הפרק לבאר שאין ראוי לחשוב שהאדם הוא יותר נכבד מכל הנמצאים אף שלא יהיה בעבורו

Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public

Since ecocentrism subordinates the rights of the individual to those of an holistic abstraction, it has been criticised as a misanthropic and totalitarian ideology. This is not without some justification, as much of the progress in ethics over the past few centuries has involved the extension of individual rights — many of which ecocentrism would require us to abandon. However, much of this criticism only fully applies to the more extreme versions of ecocentrism. Half the human population, big though it is, cannot be allowed to starve, however much this might suit the abstract purposes of the biosphere. This really would be immoral. The original “Land Ethic” of Aldo Leopold has thus been interpreted by some to mean something more akin to: the survival needs of humans outweigh the survival needs of non-humans, but the survival needs of non-humans outweigh the non-survival needs of humans. An ethic such as this stands not too far removed from some “enlightened self-interest” versions of anthropocentrism

שאם ידעת הנפש וכוחותיה והתאמת לך בה כל דבר לפי אמיתת מציאותו, הנה תדע כי הדמיון נמצא לרוב בעלי החיים (אמנם בעלי החיים השלמים כולם, רצוני לומר אשר להם לב, מציאות הדמיון להם מבואר), ושהאדם לא הובדל בדמיון.

This is a problematic analogy. For one, it is known that watches have intelligent designers and manufacturers, a multitude of them, in fact, while the environs can be comfortably explained, naturally. Curiously, Paley thought that this designer/s had a designer, so that critics may wonder if the otherworldly Designer was also designed. Note that to assert that what applies to the watch must apply to the universe also is to commit the fallacy of composition. The watch was also created ex materia by a bodied person or persons, who was not all-knowing, all-powerful or all-good; the postulated creator/designer of the universe need not be either. Moreover, there appears to be something self-defeating about a disanalogous example that relies on the surprise of finding an obviously-designed watch or similar item amid stones, sand and water, when the theist assumes that those other things were also designed

The theist ought also to decisively define ‘life’ and explain under what conditions it can exist. Our sort of life may seem as simplistic as a lump of coal to more complex forms of life, and in light of the possibilities for better and more efficient design. If they could, the dinosaurs may have likewise thought the universe designed just for them, the day before they became extinct (perhaps, unlike humans, their sins were unforgivable). Similar challenges apply to the assumption of the significance of ‘order’ in the universe, which is a phenomenon that we are familiar with, that we happen to observe, and, conveniently, is a word that we define. A related problem is that complexity can arise naturally out of simplicity, as Darwin’s theory demonstrates. Furthering the point on arbitrariness, why not single out an undesirable aspect of the universe, such as rape? It is a fact that our universe was fine-tuned for a great many things, terrible things, including rape. It is undeniable that there are more incidents of rape every hour of every day, than there are known planets with our sort of human life. We can suppose then that the designer clearly had rape at the forefront of her mind, a concept seemingly incompatible with the omnibenevolent god of theism and more consistent with some evil god/s. Another interesting possibility is that the creation of humans might have been a mistake, by a less than perfect deity

A related question may be, “What is life?” It may be something that, like human life, is not objectively significant. Scientists still have not been able to decisively draw a distinction between life and non-life, allowing for the possibility that such a distinction may not actually exist (as with the mind-body distinction). See Jack W. Szostak, “Attempts to Define Life Do Not Help to Understand the Origin of Life,” Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics 29, no. 4 (2012): 599–600. The possibly illusory nature of life may also support monistic (i.e., pantheistic) models, rather than theistic or polytheistic models. This is a complex question, and the following could be considered: the confusion over whether viruses are living beings, the notion of robots developing intelligence and emotions equal to that of humans (or at least other animals), and also the possibility – perhaps best illustrated by plants transforming light and soil nutrients into ‘living material’ – that there is no such thing as life; all we observe is a transformation of one form of energy/matter to another

The origin of life, even simple life, only had to happen once, whether on this planet or elsewhere in the universe. From there, Darwin’s theory of evolution by way of natural selection largely explains ‘complex’ or ‘intelligent’ life. It is also possible that this universe, if oscillating, has had numerous ‘attempts’ at becoming life permitting. Note that most outcomes can be said to be improbable (such as that a man’s mother gave birth to him), but it does not follow that the hypotheses they are conditioned upon must also be improbable (such as this man’s mother giving birth). Also, much of the universe is inhospitable to human life, so that it may be supposed that it is fine-tuned for human death

Note also that if Earth were annihilated, the rest of the universe would be relatively unaffected. From this perspective, it may be easier to accept that intelligent or human life is a fortuitous side effect; after all, a life-permissible universe might still not yield life

Also, it seems unusual to proclaim that the universe, which is known to exist, is not necessary, while simultaneously affirming that something or somethings not known to exist are necessary

The sting of fine-tuning has certainly been lessened if God needed to create a vast multiverse just to get to our little life-conducive universe. This is although the theist might interject, correctly, that a multiverse that includes only one life-permitting universe is itself a fine-tuned life-permitting multiverse. This claim would be vacuous, however, as such a multiverse would be ‘fine-tuned’ for all (or many) possibilities, so that the concept loses power, thus presenting no obvious challenges to chance or multiverse hypotheses

That human life is an unpleasant side effect of a universe fine-tuned for cockroaches is plausibly demonstrable. Cockroaches predate and outnumber humans, thrive in varying conditions, and do not – yet – threaten the destruction of their planet with nuclear weaponry. Indeed, humans may destroy themselves through nuclear warfare, possibly catalysed by arguments over which non-existent god granted what disputed piece of land to which group of people. The cockroaches endure, eventually helping to rebuild the injured planet, restoring it to former (pre-human) glories. In actuality, while some cockroaches did seemingly survive the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, today’s sophisticated weaponry would likely destroy them as well. A more promising candidate for survival is the appropriate named Deinococcus radiodurans

Over the past 15 to 20 years, more and more papers and books have been published on the Meaning of Life. The work has begun to coalesce into something approaching a recognisable sub-field of Philosophy. One of the foundations of the analytic work is a distinction between the meaning of life and meaning in life. Questions about the meaning of life refer to the question of whether human life as such has a meaning, or whether the universe does. It’s a holistic kind of question. Meaning in life, on the other hand, refers to the ‘individualistic’ question of how and where and whether individuals can find meaning in their own lives

The consensus view is that the two questions are fundamentally distinct and theoretically separate – you can have a meaningful life in a meaningless universe, and vice versa. How robust this separation is I’m not entirely sure

In the past it was widely hoped that by studying nature we will find the sign of a grand plan, in which human beings play a particularly distinguished starring role. And that has not happened. I think that more and more the picture of nature, the outside world, has been one of an impersonal world governed by mathematical laws that are not particularly concerned with human beings, in which human beings appear as a chance phenomenon, not the goal toward which the universe is directed

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑פרייטאג יולי 12, 2024 3:31 pmדאס'ן צוקומען צו די הכרה איז גאר שווער פאר'ן באשעפעניש. הציץ ונפגע

Intellectual perfection, not any kind of worldly doing well, is true happiness, and worldly ills are powerless to take it away. When a person comes to know God as perfectly as possible, they will reject egocentrism and anthropocentrism and stop believing that either themselves or the human species is the most important thing in the universe (III.12; III.13). But precisely by ceasing to worry about their own flourishing, and adopting a perspective closer (in certain limited respects) to God’s, they will flourish

In chapters 31 and 32 Maimonides makes the point, often reiterated elsewhere, that there are limits to what the human intellect can apprehend, assertions about things concerning which demonstrative proofs cannot be given. Maimonides is thinking mostly of metaphysical propositions and, relying on a cryptic talmudic passage, praises Rabbi Aqiba for recognizing the limits of such speculation

מי אני האט געשריבן: ↑דאנערשטאג מערץ 21, 2024 2:00 pmאז מ׳דערמאנט די געדאנק אז עס איז נמנע אף מהא-ל צו באגיין זעלבסטמארד און זיך אליינס פארטיליגן, האב איך אויבן צוגעברענגט דעם רמב״ם במו״נ ח״ג פט״ו אז לדידן איז דאס אז ג-ט זאל זיך מגשם זיין אויך מכּתּ הנמנעות משא״כ להנוצרים איז עס נישט נמנע, און איז דאך א חלק פון זייער גלויבונג בישו. איז מיר געווען אינטרעסאנט צו זעהן אז דער קריסטליכער טעאלאג דר. טאמאס אלטיזער האט געהאלטן, און גאר פון א קריסטליכער טעאלאגישע פּערספּעקטיוו, אז גאט האט זיך ממש און ליטעראל זעלבסט-פארטיליגט ביי הריגת ישו, וואס דאן איז גאט געווארן פשוט איינס מיט נאטור כשפינאזע און נישט מער. און דאס איז נישט אין א מעטאפרישן זין אזוי ווי מאמרו של ניטשע, נאר ממש. און ווי ער שרייבט:
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To confess the death of God is to speak of an actual and real event, not perhaps an event occurring in a single moment of time or history, but notwithstanding this reservation an event that has actually happened both in a cosmic and in a historical sense

‏(דאס דערמאנט א משהו פון הרב דר. מיכאל אברהם׳ס שיטה אז בהעבר איז טאקע געווען א התערבות מהאלקים בהעולם, אבער כהיום האט זיך ג-ט אפגעזאגט דערפון זייענדיג אז דאס מענטשהייט דארף שוין צו זיין גענוג מעטשור זיך אליינס אַן עצה צו געבן לפי חקי הטבע המנהלים את העולם.)

לויט דער רמב״ם וקהל מאמיני ישראל איז אזא זאך מכּתּ הנמנעות אף להא-ל. ביי די נוצרים, וואס דארפן צוקומען צו הגשמה בתוך דתיהן ואמונתן, קען אויסקומען אז זיי זאלן אָננעמען אז דאס איז יא מכּתּ האפשרי פאר א כל יכול המחוייב המציאות.