Quantum Cosmology – Part 3
[Excepted from our series “The New Scientific Evidence that Points to the Existence of God – Part 1.” Edited for publication. See our store at jashow.org to order this entire series.]
(Continued from Part 2)
Dr. Stephen Meyer: There have been two versions of quantum cosmology: One which, at least for popular consumption, claimed to eliminate the singularity, and that was Hawking’s version; and another version that assumed the singularity, affirmed the singularity, but claimed that the origin of the universe could be explained from literally nothing physical by reference to this mathematical apparatus of quantum physics or quantum cosmology.
Let me just kind of jump to the critique of this, because it’s very interesting. First of all, in both Hawking’s version and in an alternative version of quantum cosmology that was developed by the Russian physicist Alexander Vilenkin, in the technical work, the singularity is still there. In the popular book, Brief History of Time, Hawking talks about a “no boundary” universe where he gets rid of the singularity. But he admits that the singularity only vanishes in an intermediate step of his mathematical depiction of space-time, and only in the domain of imaginary numbers which have no application to the real world.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Hypothetical.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: So he actually admits this is a mathematical trick and that when you convert back from the imaginary domain to the real domain, the singularity re-emerges. So he doesn’t actually get rid of the singularity, and you see that in his technical work. I’ve read the papers, okay? So the first critique of quantum cosmology is that you still have a beginning to deal with. It doesn’t eliminate what people hoped to eliminate by exploiting that tiny loophole right after the beginning.
The second critique is that the explanations for the origin of the universe offered by the quantum cosmologists are explanations by reference to a mathematical domain, by reference to a set of mathematical equations. They’re not yet describing anything physical. It’s a domain of pure mathematics. And yet mathematics, we know is conceptual; mathematical equations are ideas.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Another way of saying that is, what do these numbers mean when there’s nothing else except just the numbers?
Dr. Stephen Meyer: When there’s no universe to describe.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Right.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: And we know from experience that ideas, including mathematical ideas, only exist in minds. So even if quantum cosmology is true, it implies that the ultimate explanation for the origin of the universe is a domain of mathematical ideas that must exist in a mind.
Dr. John Ankerberg: You’ve got to have intelligence.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: And so they come right back to the God hypothesis via a different route.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Right.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: Now to underscore that, let me share a quote from Alexander Vilenkin, who is a profoundly deep philosophical thinker and great physicist, who developed one of the two types of quantum cosmological theories. And this is what he says about this very problem. He says, “Does this mean that the laws are not mere descriptions of a reality and can have an independent existence of their own? In the absence of space, time, and matter, what tablets could [these laws of physics] have been written upon? The laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations. [But] If the medium of mathematics is the mind, does that mean that mind should predate the universe?”
And of course, I’ve argued as much in my book. Vilenkin throws this out as a hypothetical question; never comes back to answer it. But it’s clear he’s thinking very profoundly about this problem. And Hawking himself tumbled to the same insight. In The Brief History of Time, he said, “What puts fire in the equations that gives them a universe to describe?” It’s one thing to have a set of mathematical equations that describe all the possible universes that could exist. It’s another thing altogether to explain how the universe came into existence so those equations can become applicable. The equations don’t bring the universe into existence, all they can do in the best of cases is describe the possible universes that might exist.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Yes. And I hope that folks understand what you’re saying, because even the fact of, their ideas refer back to some intelligent mind that came up with the idea. So you’re back to a mind that developed the idea.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: They inadvertently prove what they attempted to refute. And the God hypothesis comes back in through the back door if you study quantum cosmology carefully. And there’s one more aspect to this that’s kind of a kicker.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Yes, go for it.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: And that is, the mathematical apparatus that they developed to describe how Einstein’s view of gravity and a quantum view of gravity could work together—and which also was developed to describe the possible universes that could come into existence—only renders,… that mathematical apparatus in a very important equation can only be solved in such a way to imply that our universe is a likely outcome of all of that. If the physicists themselves fiddle with the equation in a very particular way to get the outcome they want, they have to fine tune the mathematical apparatus to get a solution to the key equations that implies that our universe is a likely outcome.
But that seems to me to be modeling not just the existence of a mind, but the input from a mind of information or intelligence into the system. Because that’s what their own minds are doing. It’s the physicist who fiddles with the math to get the outcome that they want that makes it look like our universe is likely. And so that, I think, is just modeling the need for an intelligent designer to bring the universe, or in particular a universe like ours, into existence. So again, they’ve inadvertently proved the very thing they meant to refute.
